Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Geryon.
The gallery
Heracles fighting Geryon (with the dying Eurytion on the ground)
Group E (attributed), c. 540 BC
On this Attic black-figure amphora (42 cm high), attributed to the workshop known as Group E and dated about 540 BC, Heracles drives his attack against the triple-bodied Geryon, the three-warrior giant of the western island of Erythia. Geryon is rendered in the canonical three-bodied form, three armoured men fused at the waist and bristling with shields and spears, while the herdsman Eurytion sprawls dying on the ground beneath the duel. The vase compresses the climax of Heracles' tenth labour, the slaying of the herdsman, his dog, and the giant himself, into a single heraldic confrontation. From the Canino Collection, it entered the Louvre in 1848 (Department of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities).
Herakles fighting the three-bodied Geryoneus
Euphronios, c. 510 BC
This Attic red-figure cup by the celebrated late-archaic painter Euphronios, made about 510 BC, sets the combat of Heracles and Geryon across its exterior. Geryon appears as three fully armed bodies joined at the trunk, one already collapsing as Heracles presses his assault, with Athena and Iolaos attending the hero in the surrounding cast; the reverse shows hoplites driving off the giant's coveted herd of cattle. Euphronios exploits the new red-figure technique to model the overlapping warriors' anatomy in subtle detail, turning the monstrous triple form into a study of overlapping muscular bodies. Staatliche Antikensammlungen, Munich (inv. 2620).
Heracles sailing the sea in the golden bowl of Helios
Douris, c. 480 BC
The tondo of this Attic red-figure kylix, painted by Douris around 480 BC, shows Heracles crossing the Ocean seated in the great golden cup of the sun-god Helios, the vessel the hero borrowed to reach Erythia, the far-western island where Geryon pastured his red cattle. Curled inside the circular bowl-within-a-bowl, Heracles rides the waves on the outward leg of his tenth labour, the episode whose goal is the killing of three-bodied Geryon and the driving home of his herd. The image is a witty pictorial pun, the painted drinking cup depicting a mythical voyage made in a cup. Museo Gregoriano Etrusco, Vatican Museums (no. 205336).