Dio Chrysostom, On Virtue 3

"This is the contest which I steadfastly maintain,⁠ and in which I risk my life against pleasure and hardship, yet not a single wretched mortal gives heed to me, but only to the jumpers and runners and dancers. 

"Neither, indeed, did men have eyes for the struggles and labors of Heracles or have any interest in them, but perhaps even then they were admiring certain athletes such as Zetes,⁠ Calaïs,⁠ Peleus,⁠ and other like runners and wrestlers; and some they would admire for their beauty and others for their wealth, as, for example, Jason⁠ and Cinyras.⁠ 

"About Pelops, too, the story ran that he had an ivory shoulder, as if there were any use in a man having a golden or ivory hand or eyes of diamond or malachite; but the kind of soul he had men did not notice. 

"As for Heracles, they pitied him while he toiled and struggled and called him the most 'trouble-ridden,' or wretched, of men; indeed, this is why they gave the name 'troubles,' or tasks, to his labors and works, as though a laborious life were a trouble-ridden, or wretched⁠ life; but now that he is dead they honor him beyond all others, deify him, and say he has Hebe⁠ to wife, and all pray to him that they may not themselves be wretched—to him who in his labors suffered wretchedness exceedingly great.  

"They have an idea, too, that Eurystheus⁠ had him in his power and ordered him about, Eurystheus, whom they considered a worthless fellow and to whom no one ever prayed or sacrificed. 

"Heracles, however, roved over all Europe and Asia, though he did not look at all like any of these athletes; for where could he have penetrated, had he carried so much flesh or required so much meat or drink into such depths of sleep? No, he was as alert and lean like a lion, keen of eye and ear, recking naught of cold or heat, having no use for bed,  shawl, or rug, clad in a dirty skin, with an air of hunger about him, as he succored the good and punished the bad. 

"And because Diomede,⁠ the Thracian, wore such fine raiment and sat upon a throne drinking the livelong day in high revel, and treated strangers unrighteously as well as his own subjects, and kept a large stable, Heracles smote him with his club and smashed him as if he had been an old jar. 

"Then Geryones,⁠ who had ever so many cattle and was the richest of all western lords and the most arrogant, he also killed along with his brothers and drove his cattle away. And when he found Busiris⁠ very diligently training, eating the whole day long, and exceeding proud of his wrestling, Heracles burst him open like an over-filled bag by dashing him to the ground. 

"He loosed the girdle of the Amazon,⁠ who tried to coquet with him and thought to win by means of her beauty. For he both consorted with her and made her understand that he could never be overcome by beauty and would never tarry far away from his own possessions for a woman's sake. 

"And Prometheus,⁠ whom I take to have been a sort of sophist, he found being destroyed by popular opinion; for his liver swelled and grew whenever he was praised and shriveled again when he was censured. So he took pity on him, frightened . . . and thus relieved him of his vanity and inordinate ambition; and straightway he disappeared after making him whole. 

"Now in all those exploits he was not doing a favor to Eurystheus at all. And as to the golden apples that he got and brought back—I mean those of the Hesperides—he did give them to him, since he had no use for them himself, but told him to keep them and go hang; for he explained that apples of gold are of no use to a man, nor had the Hesperides,⁠ either, found them to be. 

"Then, finally, when he was growing ever slower and weaker, from fear that he would not be able to live as before, and besides, I suppose, because he was attacked by some disease, he made the best provision that was humanly possible for himself, for he reared a pyre of the very driest wood in the courtyard and showed that he minded the fiery heat precious little. 

"But before that, to avoid creating the opinion that he did only impressive and mighty deeds, he went and removed and cleaned away the dung in the Augean stables,⁠ that immense accumulation of many years. For he considered that he ought to fight stubbornly and war against opinion⁠ as much as against wild beasts and wicked men." 

While Diogenes thus spoke, many stood about and listened to his words with great pleasure. Then, possibly with this thought of Heracles⁠ in his mind, he ceased speaking and, squatting on the ground, performed an indecent act, whereat the crowd straightway scorned him and called him crazy, and again the sophists raised their din, like frogs in a pond when they do not see the water-snake.