While in the common imagination, Hercules might be most well known for his heroic deeds and feats of strength, across the ancient Mediterranean he was also a deity closely associated with fresh water. In one of his canonical labors in Greece, he dug canals to redirect the Alpheus and Peneus rivers to clean out the notoriously filthy stables of Augeus. In yet another Greek labor, he cleared the deadly birds from the banks of the Stymphalian Lake to make this body of water and the surrounding countryside safe to its inhabitants once more. During his exploits in Italy, he was responsible for the creation of several freshwater springs across the peninsula. And even the story of his defeat of the monster Cacus in the area which would become Rome’s Forum Boarium, or cattle market, reveals his long term connection with the economically important Tiber River. At the colony of Cosa, founded by the Romans in southern Tuscany in 273 BCE, Hercules was also a crucial figure. This settlement had no natural source of water and therefore utilized rainwater harvesting to provide this vital resource to the colony. The colony’s chief temple, which had its own water cistern, appears to have been dedicated to Hercules, in part because of his freshwater associations, if not also for his association with salubrity via water.