Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen The Nemean Lion.
The gallery
Heracles and the Nemean Lion (Attic black-figure oinochoe)
Painter of London B 620, c. 520–500 BC
On this Attic black-figure wine-jug (oinochoe) found at Vulci, the hero locks his arms around the great cat of Nemea in the wrestler's grip that ancient artists favoured for the encounter: because no weapon could pierce the beast's invulnerable hide, Heracles is shown subduing it with his bare hands rather than sword or club. The two figures interlock in a tense, near-symmetrical knot of limbs, the lion rearing on its hind legs, a compact rendering of the deed that opens the cycle of the Twelve Labours. British Museum, London (accession GR 1836.2-24.92).
Heracles and the Nemean Lion, metope from the Temple of Zeus at Olympia
Unknown (workshop of the Temple of Zeus, Olympia), c. 470–456 BC
One of the twelve marble metopes carved for the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, the supreme monument of the Early Classical (Severe) style, devoting its sculptural programme to the Labours of Heracles. Here the first labour is staged with monumental restraint: the weary hero plants one foot upon the slain lion and rests his head on his hand, while the goddess Athena looks on. The composition treats the kill not as violent spectacle but as the contemplative beginning of a heroic life. Archaeological Museum of Olympia, Greece.
Hercules slaying the Nemean Lion (detail from the mosaic of the Labours of Hercules)
Unknown (Roman, Hispania), early 3rd century AD (c. 201–250)
A panel from a Roman floor mosaic of the Twelve Labours, executed in opus tessellatum with limestone tesserae and recovered from a villa at Llíria (ancient Edeta) near Valencia. The detail isolates the first labour: Hercules, nude and muscular, grapples the Nemean Lion at close quarters, the medium's bold tessellated outlines giving the struggle a vivid, almost heraldic clarity. The mosaic attests how thoroughly the labour cycle had become a standard decorative repertoire across the Roman West. Museo Arqueológico Nacional, Madrid (Room 22, inv. 38315 BIS).
Hercules and the Nemean Lion
Peter Paul Rubens, c. 1615–1625
Rubens translates the ancient labour into full Baroque drama: a powerfully built Hercules, anatomy strained and torsion theatrical, throttles the snarling lion in a swirl of muscle and shadow. The Flemish master, steeped in classical sculpture, returns the hand-to-hand combat tradition to monumental painting, charging it with the dynamic diagonals and raw physical struggle that define his heroic mythologies. National Museum of Art of Romania, Bucharest, formerly in the collection of King Carol I.