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The Greek Origins of the Cacus Myth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Dana Sutton
Dana Sutton
Affiliation:
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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Extract

The myth of Hercules and Cacus is related by several Augustan writers: Vergil, Aeneid 8.185–275, Livy 1.7.3, Ovid, Fasti 1.543–86 and 5.643–52, Propertius 4.9.1–20, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 1.39. These accounts fall naturally into two classes, in which Cacus is represented respectively as a clever rascal and as a superhuman ogre. The former version is found in Livy and Dionysius, and the latter occurs first in Vergil, and then in Ovid and Propertius. Numerous shared details go to show that Livy and Dionysius drew on a common source, and verbal similarities that have been demonstrated between Vergil and Livy evidently establish Vergil's dependence on this same source. It would therefore appear that the ogre-Cacus is Vergil's invention. Certainly there is no evidence for a pre-Vergilian Cacus characterized as an ogre.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , December 1977 , pp. 391 - 393
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1977

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References

page 391 note 1 Cf. Stacey, S. G., ‘Die Entwicklung des livianischen Stiles’, Archiv für lateinische Lexikographie und Grammatik (Leipzig, 1898, repr. Hildesheim, 1967) 10.39Google Scholar; Paratore, R., Virgiliana (ed. Bardon and Verdiere, 1971), pp.280 ff.Google Scholar

page 391 note 2 For recent studies of the Cacus myth cf. the references cited by Franz Bömer in his commentary on the Fasti (Heidelberg, 1958), 2.61 f.Google Scholar and Ogilvie, R. M., A. Commentary on Livy, Books 1–5 (Oxford, 1965), pp.55–7Google Scholar. Some older studies retain their interest: Roscher's Lexicon I. 2270–89; Preller, Ludwig, Römische Mythologie (Berlin, 1881-1883), 2.280 f.Google Scholar; Wissowa, Georg, Religion und Kultus der Römer2 (Munich, 1912), pp.282 f.Google Scholar, and RE s.v. ‘Cacus’; SirFrazer, James, The Fasti of Ovid (London, 1929), 1.206–11.Google Scholar

page 391 note 3 So Stacey, quoted with uncritical approval by many subsequent authorities.

page 391 note 4 To be sure, Ps.-Aurelius Victor, Origo Gentis Romae 7 (IV c) tells the story in a form not unlike that of Livy and Dionysius, citing the Libri Pontificales as his authority. There is an important discussion of the sources of the Origo by Momigliano, A., ‘Some Observations on the Origo Gentis Romae’, JRS 48 (1958), 56–73Google Scholar, in which the theories that this work is a forgery, and that Dionysius is the prime source for most of the antiquarian lore provided, are refuted. On p.72 Momigliano rejects the suggestion that the Libri Pontificales of L. Caesar (cos. 64 B.C.) is a source, on the grounds that a pre-Augustan source is ‘intrinsically improbable’. He does not refer to the suggestion of Schanz-Hosius, , GRL 4.1.69 f.Google Scholar, that the source in question was some antiquarian commentary on the Libri, by no means necessarily pre-Augustan, such as Veranius' Pontificales Quaestiones, mentioned by Macrobius 3.5.6.

page 392 note 1 Not the horses of Lycurgus, as erroneously stated by Gilbert Murray (see below).

page 392 note 2 The best discussion of Sisyphus, the satyr play produced with the Trojan trilogy of 415 B.C., is Murray, Gilbert, ‘The Trojan Trilogy of Euripides’, Mélanges Glotz (Paris, 1932) 2.646Google Scholar; cf. also Guggisberg, Peter, Das Satyrspiel (Zurich, 1947), with references.Google Scholar I am afraid I cannot accept the theory of Chormouziades, Nikos, Satyrika (Athens, 1974)Google Scholar that the subject of Sisyphus was a descent to Hades by Heracles and Sisyphus: (1) what is the evidence for the existence of any such myth? (2) assuming P. Oxy. 2455 fr. 7 is a fragment of a Hypothesis to Sisyphus-which is scarcely self-evident-I do not see how it attests this subject. It shows Hermes played a part in the play summarized therein, but surely he could appear in a variety of roles besides psychagogos. Nor can I accept the theory of Maxwell-Stuart, P. G., Historia 22 (1973), 339Google Scholar, that the myth of Sisyphus and Heracles was the subject, not of Sisyphus, but of Autolycus, another Euripidean satyr play. The author ignores John Tzetzes' explicit testimony about the subject of Autolycus (or, more precisely, Second Autolycus) at Chil. 8.459.

page 392 note 3 Atalanta might have been based on the probably Sophoclean Oeneus play (if such it was) of P.Oxy. 1083 fr. 1, and Ariadne may have been based on Euripides' Theseus which, as I will argue in an article forthcoming in Hermes, was a satyr play, not a tragedy.

page 393 note 1 Cf. Guggisberg, , op. cit., pp.60–74 with referencesGoogle Scholar; Duchemin, Jacqueline, Le Cyclope d'Euripide (Paris, 1945), pp.xvxviiGoogle Scholar; Conacher, D. J., Euripidean Drama (Toronto, 1967), pp.332–6Google Scholar; Burnett, A. P., Catastrophe Survived (Oxford, 1971), index s.v. ‘satyric motifs'Google Scholar; Sutton, D. F., ‘Satyric Qualities in Euripides’ Iphigeneia at Tauris and Helen', RSC 20 (1972), 313–22Google Scholar; ‘Satyr Plays and the Odyssey’, Arethusa 7 (1974), 161–85Google Scholar; ‘The Greek Satyr Play’, The Cambridge History of Ancient Literature i (forthcoming).Google Scholar

page 393 note 2 I have argued that the rejection of Athenaeus' evidence that Euripides wrote two Autolycus plays, probably both satyric, may well be wrong, , ‘The Evidence for a Ninth Euripidean Satyr Play’, Eos 62 (1974), 49–53.Google Scholar

page 393 note 3 For Syleus's contents cf. Steffen, Wiktor, Satyrographorum Graecorum Fragmenta (Poznan, 1952), pp.224–7Google Scholar and van Groningen, B. A., ‘De Syleo Euripideo’, Mnem. N.S. 58 (1930), 293–9.Google Scholar