The common and most glorious legend includes, in a single night the fifty victories of Hercules over the virgin daughters of Thestius, (Diodor. Sicul. tom. i. l. iv. p. 274. Pausanias, l. ix. p. 763. Statius Sylv. l. i. eleg. iii. v. 42.) But Athenaeus allows seven nights, (Deipnosophist, l. xiii. p. 556,) and Apollodorus fifty, for this arduous achievement of Hercules, who was then no more than eighteen years of age, (Bibliot. l. ii. c. 4, p. 111, cum notis Heyne, part i. p. 332.)