This is why when Nereus woke up and began changing shape into vicious creatures in order to get Herakles to let him go, Herakles held fast. Nereus, much like Proteus would only give answers to those who could defeat him. Nereus was a shapeshifting god who was also known for his gift of prophecy and for never lying. Unsure where to go, Herakles first captured first captured Nereus (The Old Man of the Sea). The first of these two additional Labours was to steal the apples from the Garden of the Hesperides. Heracles successfully managed to get the apples from the garden and bring them back to Eurystheus.File:38d3141384d8a83638473edcce297fe1.jpgĪfter Herakles completed his first ten Labours, Eurystheus gave him two more claiming that neither the Hydra counted (because Iolaus helped Heracles) nor the Augean stables (either because he received payment for the job or because the rivers did the work). One of them was to steal the apples from the Garden of Hesperides.
Eurystheus, not counting the slaying of the Lernaean Hydra nor the cleaning of the Augean stables, gave two extra tasks to Heracles. The Hesperides and their Garden were also one of the tasks that were given during the Labours of Heracles.
Not trusting the Hesperides to guard the apple trees on their own, Hera also placed a hundred headed dragon named Ladon that never slept. The golden apples were believed to give immortality to anyone who consumed them. The so called Garden of the Hesperides belonged to the goddess Hera, in which there was a grove of apple trees that bore golden apples. They were responsible of taking care of a garden in the western end of the world, near the Atlas mountains in Africa. It was usually thought that there were three Hesperides, although some sources name four or seven. Or they are listed as the daughters of Atlas, or of Zeus, and either Hesperis or Themis, or Phorcys and Ceto. Originally they were portrayed as the evening daughters of Nyx either alone, or with Erebus, in accord with the way Eos in the furthermost east, in Colchis, is the daughter of the titan Hyperion. Their abstract, interchangeable names are a symptom of their impersonality. In Greek mythology, according to scholars, since the Hesperides themselves are mere symbols of the gifts the apples embody, they cannot be actors in a human drama. Given that the Garden is Asherah's abode, they tend to serve as her handmaidens in a sense. God gave them the task of tending to the Gardens of Creation as well as harvesting the divine fruits of the Tree of Life. As such, they are regarded as the first ever Theos Angelos in existence and the first ones to ever be conceived by an archangel.Īfter Lucifer's fall from Heaven, the Hesperides were at first opted to be destroyed by the angels, however God instead found use for them as He did not wish for them to fall down a dark path like their father. It was revealed that the Hesperides are in fact, the daughters of Lucifer, before his fall from Heaven and was masquerading as a deity known as Hesperus. They tend a blissful garden in a far western corner of the world, located near the Atlas mountains in North Africa at the edge of the encircling Oceanus, the world-ocean. The Hesperides are the nymphs of evening and golden light of sunset, who were the "Daughters of the Evening" or "Nymphs of the West" and the "Spawn of the Morning Star".