.

The Eighth Labor: The Man-Eating Horses of Diomedes

  For the next labor, Eurystheus sent him to get the man-eating horses of Diomedes and bring them back to him in Mycenae. These mares, or female horses, belonged to Diomedes, the king of a Thracian tribe called the Bistones, Hercules had a long journey to get to these mares as they lived even further away than Mount Olympus.

           Hercules was able to shorten his trip, however, by sailing across the Aegean Sea with a group of men who had volunteered to help him.

 Once they reached Bistonia, the entire group was able to defeat the grooms who were watching the horses, and drove them the herd towards the sea. Unfortunately, by the time they got the horses, the Bistones had realized what was happening, and sent an army to retrieve the horses.

          Hercules had to go fight, so he left the mares in the hands of a young man named Abderos. But the mares proved to be too much for young Abderos and killed him. Meanwhile, Hercules and his companions overcame the Bistonians and killed Diomedes. When he returned to the nares, he found that Abderos had been killed. So in his honor, he renamed the land of Bistonia into Abdera and it remains so to this day.