Twelfth Labour (Cerberus)

For the twelfth labour, Heracles needed to go to Hades and fetch the Cerberus. Cerberus was a three-headed hound with a snake's head at the end of its tail. The dreaded hound guarded the gates of Hades, to keep the dead in the Underworld. Cerberus was an offspring of Typhon and Echidna.

To enter the world of the dead, Heracles had to undergo the Mystery rites performed by Eumoplus at Eleusis. The rite was to purify Heracles for the murder of the centaurs. According to the Diodorus Sicilus, it was the goddess Demeter herself who performed the purification. Heracles then had to travel to Tainaron in Laconia, where there was an entrance to the Underworld.

Heracles met Hermes, who offered to guide him into the Underworld. Most of the shades (souls) fled from Heracles, all except the hero Meleager and the Gorgon Medusa. Heracles would have attacked Medusa with his sword, but Hermes reassured the hero that the Gorgon was harmless there.

Heracles also rescued his friend and cousin Theseus, by pulling him off the Chair of Forgetfulness. Hades had set a trap for Theseus and his friend Peirithoüs, when they planned to abduct Persephone, Hades' consort. Heracles could not save Peirithoüs; Heracles had to leave Peirithoüs behind.

He wrestled with Menoetes, the cowherd of the Hades' cattle, when Heracles killed one of the cows. Heracles had wanted to use the cow's blood to talk to the dead. Menoetes' ribs could be heard cracking between Heracles' arms. Heracles would have killed Menoetes, had Persephone not asked the hero to spare her husband's cowherd.

With Hades' permission, Heracles was allowed to take Cerberus, provided that he did so without the use of a weapon. Heracles had to wrestle and drag the hound to the world of the living, and to Tiryns before Eurystheus. Eurystheus, terrified by the hell-hound and seeing that his cousin had complete all of his tasks, gave one last command to the hero: to send the hound back to the Underworld.

A few said that Heracles wrestled with Hades himself, but this may be confused with the story of Admetus and Alcestis, where Heracles wrestled with Thanatos, the god of death.