Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

Eurystheus ordered Heracles to clean the stables of Augeas in a single day. Augeas, king of Elis and son of Helios (or, in variants Apollodorus notes, of Poseidon or Phorbas), owned vast herds, and the dung of many years choked both byres and farmland. Heracles, without telling Eurystheus, offered Augeas the work for a tenth of the cattle; Augeas, doubting it could be done, agreed. Heracles took Augeas’s son Phyleus as witness to the bargain. Then he breached the foundations of the cattle-yard, diverted the rivers Alpheus and Peneus through the gap, and swept the filth out to sea in one day. When Augeas learned the labor had also been commanded by Eurystheus, he refused the wage, denied the promise, and was ready to submit to arbitration. At the hearing Phyleus testified against his father; Augeas, before the verdict, banished both Phyleus and Heracles in anger. Heracles later returned to Elis with an army, killed Augeas, and gave the kingdom to Phyleus—but that war and the associated Olympic foundation belong to the aftermath, not to the cleaning itself. Eurystheus refused to reckon this among the twelve, claiming Heracles had done it for hire. As with the Hydra and Iolaus, the king’s bookkeeping tries to strip glory from a completed feat; the narrative nonetheless records the rivers’ work as the fifth labor’s substance.