Volume 19, 2007 - Brown University

Oh, There Once Was a Young Man from Ilium 93
exaggerated send-up of the brutal and dramatic moments of death so often found
in the epic.
Once he has made off with the cattle, the situation gets a bit sticky for
Cacus. The terrifying son of Vulcan is, in fact, out-smarted (or at least out
maneuvered) by a cow. By giving forth a loud bellow, this bovine stool pigeon
“baffles the hope of Cacus” (Aen. VIII.218). Of course, the comic implications
of a very powerful and threatening giant being thwarted by a cow are hard to
miss. The notion of the raging tormentor of an entire town being undone by
livestock is a perfect comedic reversal, and Virgil certainly makes the most of it,
quickly reducing his villain from hulking menace to panicking mess.
Once Cacus realizes that Hercules will soon be coming after him, he displays
what can only be described as hysterical and sublime cowardice:
Then first our folk saw Cacus afraid and with trouble in his eyes: in a
twinkleing he flees swifter than the East wind and seeks his cavern; fear lends
wings to his feet. (Aen. VIII.222-224)
Rather than use his demonic strength, Cacus flees Hercules with such zeal, that
he becomes a laughable spectacle to the same people who once feared him.
Enraged by the theft of his cattle, Hercules goes in search of Cacus and,
given the nature of this particular episode, does not fare much better in terms of
maintaining his mythic dignity. He too is fervidus ira (“boiling with rage”) (Aen.
VIII.229), never a good sign for Virgil’s heroes (or villains for that matter), and
he too comes off as a bit inept. While seeking out Cacus, Hercules goes through
an almost vaudevillian process of “three times he tries the rock thresholds in
vain, three times he, wearied, sits back down in the valley” (Aen. VIII.231-232).
The image of an enraged Hercules repeatedly trying the same means of entrance
only to be knocked back on his rear is more than slightly amusing. The fact that
the supposed hero of this episode becomes enraged not because of the terror
Cacus has waged upon the town, but because of the theft of his cows—cows that
he himself took from Geryon (after slaying him, of course) only serves to
deepen the irony at play.
Of course, once the violent clash between these two titans begins, it
becomes slightly more difficult to find obvious instances of broad comedy, and
yet Virgil still offers up a scene of somewhat chaotic ineptitude. Most of the battle
consists of Hercules and Cacus blindly hurling anything available at one
another—including themselves—in a smoke-filled cave. Farce is not simply outlandish
pratfalls and laughs, it also extends to moments of the extreme grotesque.
In this light, Cacus’s death is the farcical coup-de-grace of the entire episode.
The final image of his corpse being dragged out by the feet, complete with
bulging-out eyes and a bizarre covering of shaggy fur, is nothing short of carnivalesque.
Virgil’s final tableau of Cacus’s corpse certainly appeals to the Roman
affinity for this brand of theatrical, perverse burlesque spectacle.
Virgil’s Cacus episode can certainly hold its own as an example of farcical
comedy based solely on its visual content and wry verbal irony. However, Virgil