Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

After Heracles’ first return with the Nemean lion’s skin terrified Eurystheus, the king refused to see the hero again. Commands for the remaining labors passed through Copreus, son of Pelops (in Apollodorus), a man who had fled Elis for murder and been purified by Eurystheus. Copreus carried the king’s orders to Heracles and reported the hero’s successes, standing between the coward-taskmaster and the son of Zeus. Homer remembers him only as father of the Trojan-war warrior Periphetes, “who had gone as messenger from Eurystheus to Heracles”—a brief epic notice that confirms the herald’s classical role. The labors thus have an administrative mouthpiece: pollution purified into service, speech without royal face-to-face.