Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen The Lernaean Hydra.
The gallery
Herakles and the Lernaean Hydra (Caeretan black-figure hydria)
Unknown (Caeretan vase-painter), c. 525 BC
On this archaic Caeretan black-figure water-jar (hydria), the hero Herakles strides against the Lernaean Hydra, whose many serpentine necks fan out from a single coiled body in a writhing tangle. The painter gives the monster the multiplying heads of the myth, and beside Herakles his nephew Iolaos assists with the torch used to cauterize the severed stumps so they cannot regrow. Produced in Etruria around the late sixth century BC, the vase is among the earliest and most vivid surviving images of the Second Labour. It is held by the J. Paul Getty Museum (Getty Villa, inv. 83.AE.346).
Hercules and the Hydra
Antonio del Pollaiuolo, c. 1475
This small but intensely energetic Florentine panel by Antonio del Pollaiuolo shows a nude, muscular Hercules swinging his club against the Lernaean Hydra, whose multiple snake-necks rear up and lunge at him from the marshy ground. Painted for the Medici around 1475, the work is celebrated for its anatomical dynamism and its rendering of violent motion, a hallmark of Pollaiuolo's fascination with the body in action. It hangs in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, and is paired in conception with his companion image of Hercules and Antaeus.
Hercules and the Lernaean Hydra
Gustave Moreau, 1875–1876
Gustave Moreau's grand Symbolist canvas transforms the Second Labour into a hushed, ominous tableau: a calm, statuesque Hercules confronts the towering Hydra, whose serpent heads rise on long pale necks above a foreground strewn with the corpses of the monster's victims. Moreau drew on early Greek vase imagery for the multi-headed serpent while charging the scene with brooding atmosphere and decorative detail, making the encounter a meditation on heroism against monstrous evil. The painting is held by the Art Institute of Chicago.
The Labours of Hercules: slaying the Lernaean Hydra (Roman mosaic)
Unknown (Roman mosaicist), 3rd century AD
A panel from a Roman floor mosaic depicting the Twelve Labours of Hercules, this section shows the hero combating the Lernaean Hydra, the water-serpent rendered with multiple coiling heads emerging from the Lernaean swamp. Such labour cycles were a popular decorative program in Roman villas, presenting Hercules as a model of virtue triumphing over chaos. The mosaic, from Roman Hispania (Liria, Valencia), is preserved in the Museo Arqueológico Nacional in Madrid.
On screen
In play
Hydra (genus)
Biology borrowed the monster's name for a freshwater polyp that regenerates — the Lernaean curse as a lab metaphor for regrowth.
Hydra (constellation)
The longest constellation keeps the water-serpent in the sky — Hydra as a winding southern landmark.
Lernaean Hydra
The Hydra endures as the problem that multiplies when attacked — Heracles' second labour as the stock image of regenerative evil.