Lo! the club-bearer hither drives the Erythean kine; a long road he had travelled across the world; and while he is kindly entertained in the Tegean house, the kine unguarded stray about the spacious fields. When morning broke, roused from his sleep the Tirynthian drover perceived that of the tale two bulls were missing. He sought but found no tracks of the noiselessly stolen beasts. Fierce Cacus had dragged the bulls backwards into his cave, Cacus the terror and the shame of the Aventine wood, to neighbours and to strangers no small curse. Grim was his aspect, huge his frame, his strength to match; the monster’s sire was Mulciber. For house he had a cavern vast with long recesses, hidden so that hardly could the wild beasts themselves discover it. Above the doorway skulls and arms of men were fastened pendent, while the ground bristled and bleached with human bones. The son of Jove was going off with the loss of part of the herd, when the stolen cattle lowed hoarsely. “I accept the recall,” quoth he, and following the sound he came, intent on vengeance, through the woods to the unholy cave. But the robber had blocked the entrance with a barricade of crag; scarcely could twice five yoke of oxen have stirred that mass. Hercules shoved it with his shoulders—the shoulders on which the sky itself had once rested—and by the shock he loosened the vast bulk.
Its overthrow was followed by a crash that startled even the upper air, and the battered ground sank under the ponderous weight. At first Cacus fought hand to hand, and waged battle fierce with rocks and logs. But when these naught availed him, worsted he had recourse to his sire’s tricks, and belched flames from his roaring mouth; at every blast you might deem that Typhoeus blew, and that a sudden blaze shot out from Etna’s fires. But Alcides was too quick for him; up he heaved the triple-knotted club, and brought it thrice, yea four times down full on the foeman’s face. He fell, vomiting smoke mixed with blood, and dying beat the ground with his broad breast. Of the bulls the victor sacrificed one to thee, Jupiter, and invited Evander and the swains to the feast; and for himself he set up the altar which is called the Greatest at the spot where a part of the city takes its name from an ox. Nor did Evander’s mother hide the truth that the time was at hand when earth would have done with its hero Hercules. But the happy prophetess, even as she lived in highest favour with the gods, so now herself a goddess hath she this day in Janus month all to herself.
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