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From Opous of Locris , son of Hermes, killed by the mares of Diomedes, the city of Abdera founded by Herakles beside his grave. (Apollod.+2.5.8)
Abderus, a son of Hermes, or according to others of Thromius the Locrian. (Apollod. ii. 5. Β§ 8; Strab. vii. p. 331.) He was a favourite of Heracles, and was torn to pieces by the mares of Diomedes, which Heracles had given him to pursue the Bistones. Heracles is said to have built the town of Abdera to honour him. According to Hyginus, (Fab. 30,) Abderus was a servant of Diomedes. the king of the Thracian Bistones, and was killed by Heracles together with his master and his four men-devouring horses. (Compare Philostrat. Heroic. 3. Β§ 1; 19. Β§ 2.)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited April 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
And he (Heracles) founded a city Abdera beside the grave of Abderus who had been done to death and bringing the mares he gave them to Eurystheus.
After Hercules had captured the Cretan Bull, Eurystheus sent him to
get the man-eating mares of Diomedes, the king of a Thracian tribe called the
Bistones, and bring them back to him in Mycenae.
According to Apollodorus, Hercules sailed with a band of volunteers
across the Aegean to Bistonia. There he and his companions overpowered the grooms
who were tending the horses, and drove them to the sea. But by the time he got
there, the Bistones had realized what had happened, and they sent a band of soldiers
to recapture the animals.
To free himself to fight, Hercules entrusted the mares to a youth
named Abderos.Unfortunately, the mares got the better of young Abderos and dragged
him around until he was killed. Meanwhile Hercules fought the Bistones, killed
Diomedes, and made the rest flee. In honor of the slain Abderos, Hercules founded
the city of Abdera.
The hero took the mares back to Eurystheus, but Eurystheus set them
free. The mares wandered around until eventually they came to Mount Olympos, the
home of the gods, where they were eaten by wild beasts.
Euripides gives two different versions of the story, but both of them
differ from Apollodorus's in that Hercules seems to be performing the labor alone,
rather than with a band of followers. In one, Diomedes has the four horses harnessed
to a chariot, and Hercules has to bring back the chariot as well as the horses.
In the other, Hercules tames the horses from his own chariot:
"He mounted on a chariot and tamed with the bit the horses of Diomedes, that
greedily champed their bloody food at gory mangers with unbridled jaws, devouring
with hideous joy the flesh of men." (Euripides, Hercules, 380)
This text is cited July 2004 from Perseus Project URL bellow, which contains interesting hyperlinks
The eighth labour he enjoined on him was to bring the mares of Diomedes
the Thracian to Mycenae. Now this Diomedes was a son of Ares and Cyrene, and he
was king of the Bistones, a very warlike Thracian people, and he owned man-eating
mares. So Hercules sailed with a band of volunteers, and having overpowered the
grooms who were in charge of the mangers, he drove the mares to the sea. When
the Bistones in arms came to the rescue, he committed the mares to the guardianship
of Abderus, who was a son of Hermes, a native of Opus in Locris, and a minion
of Hercules; but the mares killed him by dragging him after them. But Hercules
fought against the Bistones, slew Diomedes and compelled the rest to flee. And
he founded a city Abdera beside the grave of Abderus who had been done to death,
and bringing the mares he gave them to Eurystheus. But Eurystheus let them go,
and they came to Mount Olympus, as it is called, and there they were destroyed
by the wild beasts.
Commentary:
1. According to Diod. 4.13.4, Herakles killed the Thracian king Diomedes himself
by exposing him to his own mares, which devoured him. Further, the historian tells
us that when Herakles brought the mares to Eurystheus, the king dedicated them
to Hera, and that their descendants existed down to the time of Alexander the
Great.
2. From Philostratus we learn that athletic games were celebrated in honour of
Abderus. They comprised boxing, wrestling, the pancratium, and all the other usual
contests, with the exception of racing -no doubt because Abderus was said to have
been killed by horses. We may compare the rule which excluded horses from the
Arician grove, because horses were said to have killed Hippolytus, with whom Virbius,
the traditionary founder of the sanctuary, was identified. See Verg. A. 7.761-780;
Ovid, Fasti iii.265ff. When we remember that the Thracian king Lycurgus is said
to have been killed by horses in order to restore the fertility of the land (see
Apollod. 3.5.1), we may conjecture that the tradition of the man-eating mares
of Diomedes, another Thracian king who is said to have been killed by horses,
points to a custom of human sacrifice performed by means of horses, whether the
victim was trampled to death by their hoofs or tied to their tails and rent asunder.
If the sacrifice was offered, as the legend of Lycurgus suggests, for the sake
of fertilizing the ground, the reason for thus tearing the victim to pieces may
have been to scatter the precious life-giving fragments as widely and as quickly
as possible over the barren earth.
This extract is from: Apollodorus, Library and Epitome (ed. Sir James George Frazer, 1921). Cited July 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains comments & interesting hyperlinks.
Heracles. 8. The mares of the Thracian Diomedes. This Diomedes, king of the Bistones in Thrace, fed his horses with human flesh, and Eurystheus now ordered Heracles to fetch those animals to Mycenae. For this purpose, the hero took with him some companions. He made an unexpected attack on those who guarded the horses in their stables, took the animals, and conducted them to the sea coast. But here he was overtaken by the Bistones, and during the ensuing fight he entrusted the mares to his friend Abderus, a son of Hermes of Opus, who was eaten up by them; but Heracles defeated the Bistones, killed Diomedes, whose body he threw before the mares, built the town of Abdera, in honour of his unfortunate friend, and then returned to Mycenae, with the horses which had become tame after eating the flesh of their master. The horses were afterwards set free, and destroyed on Mount Olympus by wild beasts. (Apollod. ii. 5.8; Diod. iv. 15; Hygin. Fab. 30; Eurip. Alcest. 483, 493, Herc. Fur. 380, &c.; Gell. iii. 9; Ptolem. Heph. 5.)
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Nov 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
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