The riddle was this, "What animal is that which goes upon four feet in the morning, upon two at noon, and upon three at night?" Many had endeavored to explain this riddle, but failing in the attempt, were destroyed by the monster; till Œdipus undertook the solution, and thus explained it: "The animal is man, who in his infancy creeps, and so may be said to go on four feet; when he gets into the noon of life, he walks on two feet; but when he grows old, or declines into the evening of his days, he uses the support of a staff, and thus may be said to walk on three feet." The Sphinx being enraged at this explanation, cast herself headlong from a rock and died. CHAPTER XI. _Dii indigĕtes, or Heroes who received divine Honors after Death._ HERCULES was the son of Jupiter by Alcmena, wife of Amphitryon, king of Thebes, and is said to have been born in that city about 1280 years before the Christian era. During his infancy Juno sent two serpents to kill him in his cradle, but the undaunted child grasping one in either hand, immediately strangled them both. As he grew up, he discovered an uncommon degree of vigor both of body and of mind. Nor were his extraordinary endowments neglected; for his education was intrusted to the greatest masters. The tasks imposed on him by Eurystheus, on account of the danger and difficulty which attended their execution, received the name of the _Labors of Hercules_, and are commonly reckoned, (at least the most material of them) to have been twelve. The first was his engagement with Cleonæan lion, which furious animal, it is said, fell from the orb of the moon by Juno's direction, and was invunerable. It infested the woods between Phlius and Cleōne, and committed uncommon ravages. The hero attacked it both with his arrows and club, but in vain, till, perceiving his error, he tore asunder its jaws with his hands. The second labor was his conquest of the Lernæan hydra, a formidable serpent or monster which harbored in the fens of Lerna, and infected the region of Argos with his poisonous exhalations. This seems to have been one of the most difficult tasks in which Hercules was ever engaged. The number of heads assigned the hydra is various; some give him seven, some nine, others fifty, and Ovid an hundred; but all authors agree that when one was cut off, another sprung forth in its place, unless the wound was immediately cauterized. Hercules, not discouraged, attacked him, and having ordered Iŏlas, his friend and companion, to cut down wood sufficient for fire-brands, he no sooner had cut off a head than he applied these brands to the wounds; by which means searing them up, he obtained a complete victory.