them off as booty; but because, if he had driven the herd in front of
him to the cave, their tracks must have conducted their owner thither
in his search, he dragged the most beautiful of them by their tails
backward into a cave. Hercules, aroused from sleep at dawn, having
looked over his herd and observed that some of their number were
missing, went straight to the nearest cave, to see whether perchance
their tracks led thither. When he saw that they were all turned away
from it and led in no other direction, troubled and not knowing what
to make up his mind to do, he commenced to drive off his herd from so
dangerous a spot. Thereupon some of the cows that were driven away,
lowed, as they usually do, when they missed those that were left; and
the lowings of those that were shut in being heard in answer from
the cave, caused Hercules to turn round. And when Cacus attempted
to prevent him by force as he was advancing toward the cave, he was
struck with a club and slain, while vainly calling upon the shepherds
to assist him. At that time Evander, who was an exile from the
Peloponnesus, governed the country more by his personal ascendancy
than by absolute sway. He was a man held in reverence on account
of the wonderful art of writing, an entirely new discovery to men
ignorant of accomplishments,[7] and still more revered on account of
the supposed divinity of his mother Carmenta, whom those peoples had
marvelled at as a prophetess before the arrival of the Sybil in Italy.
This Evander, roused by the assembling of the shepherds as they
hastily crowded round the stranger, who was charged with open murder,
after he heard an account of the deed and the cause of it, gazing
upon the personal appearance and mien of the hero, considerably more
dignified and majestic than that of a man, asked who he was. As soon
as he heard the name of the hero, and that of his father and native
country, "Hail!" said he, "Hercules, son of Jupiter! my mother,
truthful interpreter of the will of the gods, has declared to me that