Spence, Joseph; Tindal, Nicholas [Editor]; Dodsley, James [Oth.]: A Guide To Classical Learning: Or, Polymetis Abridged: Containing, I. By Way of Introduction, the Characters of the Latin Poets and their Work ... II. An Inquiry concerning the Agreement between the Works of the Roman Poets and the Remains of the Antient Artists ... Being a Work absolutely necessary, not only for the Right Understanding of the Classics, but also for forming in Young Minds a True Taste for the Beauties of Poetry, Sculpture, and Painting (London: Printed for J. Dodsley, 1786)

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but usually so blend his ordinary and extraordi-
nary labours together, that it is impossible sor them
to know one from the otherf. It is from some
antient relievos that we learn what the twelve
were, though as to the particular order of them
the relievos themselves disagree. The following
order is taken from a relievo on an altar, which
slood by the gate of Albano, but has been lately
removed to the Capitoline gallery g.
1. The first labour is Hercules’s engagement
with the Cleonaean lion. He is represented kill-
ing the monster, by tearing his jaws asunder,
just as Silius says this a&ion was wrought on the
solding doors of Hercules’s temple at Gades in
Spain.
2. The second is the conquest of the Hydra,
the most difficult talk of all. The old artists
differ in the representations of the Hydra. Some-
times it is a serpent branched out into several
others | and sometimes a human head, descend-
s Mart. ix. ep. 102. Ovid. ix. v. 180. Sil. Hi. v. 44. ^En.
viii. v. 257. Her. Fur. Ast. 2. sc. 1.
g This altar having served for a common seat, has sullered so
much, that the three first labours are here supplied from other
antiques. This relievo differs in the order srom another at the
Villa Casali at Rome. Ausonius, in an inscription, probably for
some relievo, has named and ranged the whole twelve. One
Hiiasius, an old grammarian, has done the same, though in a
different manner. He begins with a mistake, by calling it the
Numxan lion.
ing,