After the death of their king, the Bistonians were forced to retreat in order to escape. A wild fight took place during which Heracles killed Diomedes and many of his guards with his club. Diomedes, after finding out that the guards were killed and the horses were stolen, ordered the Bistonians to run after the invaders. When they arrived at the palace of Diomedes and the stables where the horses were kept, Heracles killed all the guards, took the horses to the shore near the ship and assigned Abderus to watch them over. After several days of travelling, Heracles and his company arrived at Thasos and from there to the opposite coast. A lot of brave men were willing to help him, among them Abderus, an intimate friend of Heracles, son of Heremus and Thronia from Opus in Locris.

According to Apollodorus' version of the myth, Heracles equipped a ship before this enterprise and asked many famous heroes to assist him. The eighth labour of Heracles was to deliver alive these man-eating horses to Eurystheus. Because those horses were so wild and dangerous, Diomedes kept them tied with strong iron chains and had placed heavy-armed guards around their stable to watch them over. Diomedes was famous for his four, extremely wild, man-eating mares that he fed with foreigners and unsuspicious travellers that passed through his kingdom or with any of his subjects that he wished to punish. He was ruling the Thracian tribe of the Bistonians, famous for their savage and warlike character, who lived around the lake Bistonis. The Thracians, who were famous for their barbarian and warlike character, worshipped the fierce god of the battles with special honours as well as his equally strong and barbarian descendants, Tereus, Lycurgus and Diomedes.ĭiomedes was a son of Ares and Cyrene, and the brother of Cycnus. Herodotus mentions that the Thracians worshipped three divinities, Ares, Dionysus and Artemis, and that for the Scythians, who lived further east, Ares was the most important god who was worshipped as the form of a sword. Homer mentions that Ares was born and lived in Thrace because Zeus wanted to keep him away from the other Olympian gods.

According to the ancient tradition from Homer and on, Ares originated from Thrace.

Warlike olympian