Heracles and the Foundation of the Olympics

Of all the labors imposed upon Heracles by King Eurystheus, the fifth was designed to be not deadly but degrading. Augeas, King of Elis, possessed the largest herds of cattle in all of Greece — a gift from his father Helios, the sun god. Three thousand oxen lived in vast stables that had not been cleaned in thirty years. The dung had accumulated into mountains, and the stench was said to poison the air across the entire region. Eurystheus commanded Heracles to clean the Augean Stables in a single day, believing the task would humiliate the greatest hero in Greece by turning him into a common laborer shoveling filth.