In Greek mythology, the Hesperides are the nymphs of the evening and the golden light of sunsets, often called the "Daughters of the Evening" or "Nymphs of the West." They guard a fabled garden in the far west, where a tree (or grove) bears golden apples. Their number and parentage vary widely between ancient sources, ranging from three to seven, and they are most famous for the garden Heracles must reach in his eleventh labour.
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I.Names and Number
Ancient sources disagree sharply on both the identity and the count of the Hesperides. Apollonius of Rhodes names three: Aigle, Erytheis, and Hespere. Hesiod and later authors such as Apollodorus and Hyginus give roughly four-member lists, typically Aigle (dazzling light), Erytheia, Hesperia (sunset glow), and Arethusa.
Diodorus Siculus reports that they numbered seven but supplies no names. Vase paintings attest a still wider range of combinations, including figures such as Asterope, Chrysothemis, Hygieia, and Lipara.
II.Parentage and Family
No single genealogy prevailed in antiquity. The Hesperides are variously called the daughters of Nyx (Night), alone or together with Erebus (Darkness); the daughters of Atlas and Hesperis; the daughters of Phorcys and Ceto; the daughters of Zeus and Themis; and, in a Roman tradition, the daughters of Hesperus.
These competing lineages place them at different points in the cosmic order, alternately among the primordial offspring of Night and among the descendants of the Titan Atlas of the far west.
III.The Golden Apples and the Garden
According to one account, when the marriage of Zeus and Hera took place, the goddess Gaia presented branches bearing golden apples as a wedding gift. The Hesperides tended Hera's orchard in the west, where either a single apple tree or a grove grew, producing the golden fruit.
To protect the apples, Hera placed in the garden an immortal, never-sleeping, hundred-headed dragon named Ladon. The garden was located in a far western corner of the world, near the Atlas Mountains in North Africa, at the edge of the encircling Oceanus. Pliny the Elder placed it at Lixus, in modern Morocco.
IV.Heracles and the Eleventh Labour
The garden of the Hesperides is the goal of one of the labours of Heracles. In one version, Heracles tricked Atlas into fetching some of the golden apples by offering to hold up the heavens in his place; when Atlas refused to take the burden back, Heracles deceived him a second time and walked away with the apples.
In an alternative version, Heracles bypassed the nymphs entirely, slew the dragon Ladon, and stole the apples himself.