Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

THE STOLEN CATTLE. 33
tliis insatiable parent Zens must be inevitably engaged in an CHAP
internecine war, the issue of which could not be doubtful. . ^__
The thunderbolts by which Indra overwhelms his foe reappear
in the Greek myth as the Kyklopes and the Heka-
toncheires or hundred-handed beings whom on the advice of
Gaia the king of the blue heaven summons from the depths
of Tartaros into which Kronos and his associates are hurled.
This struggle is, indeed, reproduced in myth after myth.
The enemies who had assailed Ouranos are seen once more
in the Gigantes or earth-born beings who league them-
selves against all the gods. These giants are mentioned in
Hesiod merely as children sprung from Gaia along with the
Erinyes after the mutilation of Ouranos. Elsewhere they
are a horrible race destroyed for their impiety, fearful in
aspect, and like Echidna and Ahi, with snaky bodies. 1
Against these foes even Zeus himself is powerless unless he
can gain the help of the mortal Herakles, and the latter in
his turn can prevail over Alkyoneus only by taking him
away from his own soil, from which, like Antaios, he rises
with renewed strength after every downfall. When at
length the struggle is ended, the giants are imprisoned, like
the Titans, beneath the islands of the sea.
Section II.—THE LATIN MYTH.
The main features of the myths of Yritra, Geryon and Hermios
Echidna reappear in the singular Latin legend known to us an
as that of Hercules and Cacus. This story had undergone
strange transformations before it assumed its Euemerised
forms in the hands of Livy and of the Halikamassian Dio-
nysios, with whom even the account which he rejects as
mythical has been carefully stripped of all supernatural incidents.
According to Dionysios, Herakles driving before him
the oxen of Geryon had reached the Palatine hill when, as in
the myth of Echidna, he was overcome by sleep. On wakinghe
found that some of his cattle had been stolen by some
thief who had dragged them away by their tails. Doubtless
VOL. II.
1 Paus. viii. 29, 3.
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