Greek PantheonGarden
Garden of the Hesperides
The garden at the western edge of the world where the Hesperides and the serpent Ladon guarded Hera's golden apples, which Heracles obtained, with or without Atlas's help, in his eleventh labour.
About Garden of the Hesperides
Apples at the world's west
Apollodorus 2.5.11: the eleventh labor is the golden apples of the Hesperides, guarded by a dragon (Ladon) in a western garden of Atlas's daughters. Versions split: Heracles holds the sky while Atlas fetches the fruit, or he kills the dragon himself. The garden is not Eden and not a Greek orchard you can visit. It is a sunset horticulture of immortality-adjacent fruit for a goddess (Hera) who did not want it stolen.
On the map
Garden of the Hesperides among other places of the Greek Pantheon.
Sources and further reading
Source notes
These references are recorded in the catalog. Their passage wording and translation have not been checked, so quotations are not displayed here.
- Apollodorus, Library 2.5.11
About this entry
By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.
Coordinates mark where the myths place a site, or where the tradition locates it today. Mythic realms are left off the map or marked as symbolic placements.
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