Page:Greek and Roman Mythology.djvu/124

 110 GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY 141. Perhaps there is some connection between this last legend and that (10) (usually put in the tenth place in the series) of the robbery of the cattle of the giant Geryones (' roarer '), who likewise ruled in the far west on the island Erythea ( ( red land '). In order to ride over Oceanus, Hercules compelled Helios to lend him his sun skiff ; then he killed the three-bodied giant with his arrows. When returning, he overpowered the fire- breathing giant Cacus on the site of the future city of Rome, who had stolen from him and hidden in a cave a part of the cattle of Geryones which he had carried off. In Sicily, moreover, he defeated Eryx, a mighty boxer and wrestler, the representative of the mountain of the same name. (7) The seventh adventure, the binding of the Cretan bull, and (9) the ninth, the fight with the Amazons, the girdle of whose queen, Hippolyte, he is said to have demanded on a commission of Eurystheus, are perhaps borrowed from the legends of Theseus, who accom- plished similar acts; but since Hercules's battle with the Amazons appeared in works of art somewhat earlier than that of Theseus, the reverse process, namely that of a transfer from Hercules to Theseus, is not impos- sible. (8) As his eighth task, Hercules received the command to fetch the horses of the Thracian king Diomedes. Diomedes dwelt in the far north, and his horses were fed on human flesh. This task was accom- plished after throwing the cruel king before his own horses. 142. His last two adventures are closely connected with each other, both representing how Hercules, at the end of his life, laboriously obtained immortality by his