The Fifth Labour of Hercules

The Fifth Labour of Hercules is perhaps the most famous of them all: Hercules is sent to clean the stables of King Augeas in one day. The task seemed both humiliating and impossible; the horses were many and were producing manure non-stop. Yet the mighty hero diverts two rivers to wipe the stables clean and gets the job done.

When considering the story, people often focus on the more superficial aspects: the overpowering smell of stables, volumes of manure, the sheer might with which two rivers were redirected, and the shrieks of terrified animals. However, for a more complete understanding, we should dig a bit deeper into the meaning of the story.

Let us recognise for a start what stables and horses were back then, and why cleaning the stables was so important.

In the olden days, horses were one of the modes of transport. There were others too: donkeys, mules and oxen, for example. But no cars, no trucks, and no bicycles.

Oxen were used when something needed to be moved cheaply and in volume. They were analogous to modern trucks, only much slower and with much lower carrying capacity. They were useful, but they were not necessarily a matter of pride.

Donkeys and mules were pretty versatile and carried people and goods. One could say that they occupied a niche similar to that of a small car. Useful for sure, relatively inexpensive, but definitely not something to boast about.

Horses, on the other hand, were special. Do you want an animal to take your chariot into battle? You need a horse. Do you need to deliver a message very quickly? A horse can do that. Do you want to move from A to B like A rather than Z? Ride a horse. A horse was more than transport. It was a symbol of status. To have a horse was prestigious. To have a whole stable of the best horses was exceptionally special, even for a king.

So the horses of King Augeas were an asset and a reason for much pride. But as it often happens, assets need appropriate infrastructure. And the infrastructure they were provided with was the Augean stables. The stables provided the horses with shelter from the elements, access to food and water, and whatever maintenance was required. You can bet the stables were a clean and glorious place on the first day and made the King Augeas proud too, perhaps almost as much as he was proud of his amazing horses.

But then, the horses - being real animals - were producing manure in addition to fame and pride. Naturally, the manure was moved swiftly away by the personnel, and for a while everything was going well. Of course, a year later the stables were not as pristine as before and did not smell like roses, but they were still a pretty good place. But then, little by little, the standards dropped. The king was not visiting the stables as often as he used to do, the hand of the Chief of Stables grew softer, and every once in a while the grooms felt too dizzy for a few days after partaking in Dionysian mysteries. Yet horses were piling up manure day after day irrespective of the spiritual life of the people, and with admirable reliability. The situation did not look good for the health of horses and their expected lifespan, which eventually became clear to the stakeholder^W King Augeas.

Eventually, people looked at the situation and realised that working day and night won’t be enough to sort out this problem. Lucky for them, there was no option to even try to “rewrite stables in Rust/C++/etc.”. They were dealing with an actual problem IRL after all. Twice lucky for them, King Eurystheus kindly sent them Hercules to act as quasi-unpaid yet highly motivated labour and put an end to the disgrace, or at least shame himself trying. This, of course, was an excellent gambit: either he cleans it all up and then life is good again, or he fails to do so, but then every groom could say “even Hercules failed here, what do you expect from me?”.

Hercules, assessing the situation, realised that extraordinary circumstances require extraordinary measures, did divert the rivers and flushed the stables clean. Note that he did not destroy and rebuild the stables as in the vogue these days: he actually kept the property but made it better.

The story does not tell us what happened to the horses. Perhaps they stood nearby in awe, watching the torrent. Maybe they were washed out of the stables together with the manure. Surely it must have depended on the specifications Hercules was provided with. My gut feeling is that they did not speak of horses at all, so Hercules took a bit of a shortcut and flushed the stables without taking care to remove the horses first. That would explain why King Augeas did not pay Hercules the promised bonus, as well as why King Eurystheus did not count this labour as properly done.

So what can this story tell us that would be relatable in the modern world? Quite a few things, I reckon, but here is a short list:

1. Assets are visible and bring value, but they tend to require infrastructure and maintenance.
2. Infrastructure tends to be overlooked, and in time it becomes inadequate or crumbling.
3. Failing infrastructure is a threat to the assets and so creates risks. Eventually, that is noticed.
4. By that point, however, the situation is usually critical and requires drastic measures.
5. A highly skilled team or individual is needed to make a positive difference.
6. That team or individual might not realise a few subtleties (such as that the lives of horses are of utmost importance) and might cut corners where they should not be. Have a very good specification/contract in place before the work is commenced.

Another thing worth noting is that had Hercules decided to unleash a volano on the stables and then re-build them, the outcome would have been worse. First, he’d destroyed both the horses and the stables, and then he’d be banished from the land before having a chance to re-build the stables (and rightfully so!). The net result of that would have been “no assets and no infrastructure” in modernspeak. Be more like Hercules here, avoid destroying things which can still serve their purpose well with a bit of tidying up. Razing everything to the ground with a hope of rebuilding it better often leads to a disaster, as eloquently explained by Joel Spolsky here.

I hope you enjoyed this humble alternative look at the ancient story. See you next time!