Roma.The novel of ancient Rome

A DEMIGOD PASSES THROUGH

850 B.C.

It seemed to Cacus that, once upon a time, he had been human.

Cacus had been born in a village high in the mountains. Like the others in the village, he possessed two arm and two hands, and he walked upright on two feet. Clearly, he had not been born an animal, like the timid sheep or the wild wolves, but a human being.

But Cacus had always been different from the others. They walked with an even gait; Cacus shambled, because one of his legs was too short and oddly bent. The others could stand tall and straight with their arms at their sides; Cacus’s back was hunched and his arms mismatched. His eyes were sharp, but there seemed to be something wrong with his mouth; he never learned to speak, and could make only a garbled noise which sounded like “cacus”; it was from this noise that he acquired his name. His face was grossly misshapen; another child once told him that a potter made his face out of clay, then threw it down and stepped on it.

Few people ever looked at him directly. Those who knew him looked away out of pity; strangers drew back in fear. His deformities should have marked him for death in the hour of his birth, but his mother had contrived to spare him, pleading that the infant’s prodigious size-he was so big that she very nearly died in bearing him-was a promise of future strength. She had been correct. While still a child, Cacus grew to be bigger and stronger than even the biggest, strongest man in the village.

When that happened, the villagers who had pitied him began to fear him.

Then came the Hunger.

The winter was dry and cold. The spring was dry and hot. The summer was drier and hotter still. Streams dwindled to a trickle, then to nothing. Crops withered and died. The sheep could not be fed. When it seemed that things could not become worse, one night the mountain shook so severely that some of the huts collapsed. Not long after that, black clouds came from the west; they promised rain, but sent down only lightning bolts. A lightning strike started a fire that swept across the mountainside and destroyed the hut in which the grain was stored.

The villagers turned to the elders for advice. Had things ever gone so badly before? What could be done?

One of the elders recalled a similar time from his childhood, when the number of villagers had grown too large and a series of bad years led to hunger and desperation. There was a ritual handed down from a time before his birth, called the rite of sacred spring. A pact was made with the great numina of the sky and the earth: If the village could survive the winter, then, when spring came, a group of children would be driven away from the village, sent forth to survive in the world beyond as best they could.

It seemed a harsh remedy, but times were harsh. The elders advised that there must be a rite of sacred spring. The villagers agreed.

The number of children to be sent away was decided by portent. On a still day, the elders climbed up to a stone promontory on the mountainside above the village. There they set fire to a bundle of dry branches, then stood back and waited until the rising smoke formed a column in the air, so that the sky was separated into two regions, one to either side of the smoke. The elders watched the sky and counted the number of birds that flew from one region to the other, crossing the line defined by the smoke. By the time the branches burned to ashes and the column of smoke dispersed, seven birds were seen to cross. Seven children had to be chosen.

The choosing was done by lottery. It was important that everyone in the village could see that the numina of chance, not the scheming of any parent, dictated the outcome. While everyone in the village watched, the children stood in a line. A pot full of small pebbles, all white except for seven black ones, was passed before them. One by one, the children reached inside and took a pebble. When all of them were done, together they opened their palms to show the stone they had chosen. When it was seen which children had chosen the black pebbles, there was much weeping; but when Cacus’s claw of a hand opened to show a black pebble, even his mother seemed relieved.

That winter was milder than the year before. Despite hunger and hardship, no one in the village died. It seemed that the rite of sacred spring had placated the numina and preserved the village. When spring came, and the first buds opened on the trees, it was decided that the children must set out.

According to the ritual, an animal would guide the children to their new home. All the elders agreed on this, but none of them could quite remember how this animal was to be chosen. The eldest among them said that the animal would make itself known, and sure enough, the night before the children were to set out, several of the elders had a dream in which they saw a vulture.

The next morning, the seven children were taken from their homes. The other children and all the women of the village were shut away; from the huts, their weeping could be heard all over the mountainside. The elder with the keenest eyes climbed up to the promontory and watched. At last he gave a shout and pointed to the southwest, where he saw a vulture circling just above the horizon.

The men took up cudgels. Beating drums and shaking rattles, the elders led them in a chant meant to summon their courage and harden their hearts. The chant grew faster and faster, louder and louder. At last, screaming and brandishing their cudgels, they ran toward the seven children and drove them from the village.

The days after that had been very hard. Each morning the children searched the sky for a vulture. If they saw one, they headed toward it. Sometimes the vulture led them to carrion that was still fit to eat; sometimes it led them to a carcass so foul that even the vulture would not touch it. Desperation taught them to hunt and fish and to sample every plant that might be edible; even so, on many days, the children went hungry. Cacus was too clumsy to be of much use as a hunter, and the others resented him because he needed more to eat. But he was the strongest by far, and when predators howled at night, it was to Cacus that the others looked for protection.

The first to die was a girl. Faint from hunger, she fell from a high place and struck her head. The children debated what they should do with her body. It was not Cacus who suggested the unthinkable, but another boy. The rest agreed, and Cacus did as the others did. Was that when he began to become something that was not human, when he first ate human flesh?

Little by little, their wanderings took them to the lower lands to the south and west of the mountains. Here the land offered more game and the rivers more fish, and the plants were more fit to eat. Still, they were hungry.

The next child to die was a boy with an injured foot. When the children came upon a bear and scattered in panic, the boy lagged behind. The bear caught him and mauled him badly, then lumbered off when Cacus came running back, screaming and brandishing a branch. The boy was already dead.

When the children ate that night, it seemed only proper that Cacus should have the largest portion.

Summer passed, and still they found no home. One of the children died after eating a mushroom. Another died after several days of sickness and fever. Despite their hunger, the survivors feared to eat the bodies of those who had died of poison or fever, and so they buried them in shallow graves.

Only Cacus and two others remained. That winter was unusually bitter and cold. Trees shivered naked in the wind. The earth turned as hard as stone. The animals vanished. Even the most skillful hunter would have found it impossible to survive without the desperate solution to which Cacus resorted.

Was that when the change occurred in Cacus-when he decided not to wait for a fall or a bear, or some other chance event? Instead, he did it himself. He did what he had to do, and for the most basic reason: He needed to eat. But he did not act rashly. He did not kill them both at once. First he killed the stronger one, and let the weaker one live a little longer. More than once, that child, his final companion, tried to escape from him. Cacus waited as long as he could, until his hunger was so great that no man could have endured it. He waited because he knew, as soon as the other child was gone, that the only thing worse than hunger would follow: loneliness.

Spring came. Cacus was alone. At night he could not sleep, but lay awake listening to the sounds of the wilderness, entering more and more into a world bereft of human reason.

He continued to wander. Eventually he encountered travelers, and came upon villages, but no humans would have anything to do with him. They feared him, and rightly so; more than once, he stole a child and ate it. When that happened, the humans pursued Cacus. A few times they came close to capturing him, but always Cacus escaped and left the hunters behind, their bones picked clean. Surviving in the wild had taught him cunning and stealth. Physically, no man was his match; Cacus had grown bigger and stronger than any man he had ever seen.

The wheel of the seasons passed again and again. Cacus survived the dry summers and the harsh winters, always alone, always wandering.

One day, he saw a vulture cross the sky. The season was early spring. The green of the earth and the soft warmth of the air stirred in his mind a dim recollection of the beginning of his journey. He set about following the vulture.

Eventually, he found himself on a path beside a river. Around a great bend in the river, he saw ahead of him a region of hills, and beyond one of the hills, a plume of smoke. He lost sight of the vulture, but decided that the path he was following was as good as any other. Paths led to villages; in villages, there was food to be stolen. This time, he told himself, he would stay hidden and go raiding only at night. The longer he could go without being seen, the longer it would be before the villagers ran him off.

Suddenly, Cacus felt a great sadness. Once he had lived in a village himself. The others had sometimes teased and taunted him, but they had accepted him as one of their own, despite the fact that he was so different. Then they had driven him off. Why? Because the earth and the sky themselves demanded it; that was what his mother had told him. Before he left the village, he had never harmed anyone, yet the world and everything in it had become his enemy. The sadness he felt swelled inside him and turned into rage.

He rounded a corner and saw ahead of him a young girl on the path. She was carrying a basket of clothes, heading to the river. Her hair was golden, and around her neck, suspended from a simple strip of leather, was a small amulet made of gold that flashed in the sunlight. The girl saw him and screamed. She dropped her basket and ran away.

Furious, suddenly weeping, he ran after her, shouting his name: “Cacus! Cacus!”

He followed her only a short distance, for up ahead, he saw the first signs of a settlement. Wishing he could disappear, he stepped off the path, into the brush. From the settlement, he could hear the girl still screaming, then the shouts of others as they ran to her side, asking what she had seen.

What had the girl seen, when she looked at him? Not a human like herself, that was certain. And not an animal, either; no animal, except perhaps a snake, inspired such revulsion and fear. It was a monster she saw. Only a monster could wrench such a scream from the girl’s throat.

He had become a monster. When had this happened? It seemed to Cacus that, once upon a time, he had been human….

The settlement by the river started as a trading post. Traffic along the river path, and up and down the route used by the metal traders, had increased to such an extent that there always seemed to be people coming and going through the region of the Seven Hills. It was an enterprising descendent of Po and Lara who hit upon the idea of settling permanently at the crossroads and setting up a marketplace for the exchange of goods. Why should the salt traders transport their salt all the way to the mountains, when they need bring it only as far as the trading post, exchange it there for the goods they wanted, then head back to the mouth of the river for more salt?

A place that had been a crossroads became a destination and, for the handful of settlers at the trading post, a home. By acting as middlemen and providing accommodations for travelers, the settlers thrived.

The settlement of twenty or so huts was located at the foot of a steep cliff, where a broad, flat meadow beside the river offered easy access to the path and provided plenty of space for setting up the market. A seasonal stream, called the Spinon, cut through the meadow and emptied into the river, which men now called the Tiber.

The huts were round with a single large room, made of intertwined twigs and branches daubed with mud, with peaked roofs made of rushes and reeds. For a doorway, sturdy upright poles, in some cases elaborately carved, supported a wooden lintel; a flap of stitched animal skins provided a covering for the doorway. The huts, furnished with simple pallets for sitting or sleeping, were intended strictly for shelter from the elements or for privacy. All cooking and most social activities took place outside.

The marketplace, on the other side of the Spinon and nearer the river, consisted of a few thatched sheds for storing salt, pens for livestock, and an open area where traders could park their wagons and carts and offer their goods for sale. The livestock included oxen, cattle, swine, sheep, and goats. On any given day, the various commodities might include dyed wool, fur rugs, hats made of straw or felt, bags made of leather, clay vessels, woven baskets, combs and clasps made from tortoiseshell or amber, bronze ornaments and buckles, and axes and ploughshares made of iron. There were pine nuts from the mountains, crayfish from the river, succulent frogs from the marshy lake, pots of honey, bowls of cheese, pitchers of fresh milk, and, in season, chestnuts, berries, grapes, apples, and figs. Some of the traders arrived at regular intervals and became old friends to the settlers and to each other, but new faces were always appearing, men from far away who had heard of the trading post and were eager to see for themselves the variety of goods to be found there.

The trading post was also a place to exchange news and gossip, to hear stories from faraway places, and to listen to traveling singers. Men who knew magic passed through, offering their services. Some could cure the sick or make a barren woman fertile. Some could see the future. Some could commune with the numina that animated the nonhuman realm.

By far the most exotic visitors to the settlement were the traders who arrived by boat, paddling upriver from the sea, where they arrived on larger ships, which they left moored at the mouth of the Tiber. Those huge, splendid ships-some of the settlers had once made a journey downriver to look at one-carried the traders up and down the coast and even, so they claimed, across the great sea. These seafarers called themselves Phoenicians. They spoke many languages, wore brightly colored clothes and finely wrought jewelry, and brought with them extraordinary things to barter, made in unimaginably distant lands, including small images of men, made of metal or clay. At first, misunderstanding, the settlers thought that numina lived in the images, just as numina lived inside trees and rocks, though the idea that a numen would reside in even the most splendid man-made object seemed to many of them far-fetched. The Phoenicians tried to explain that an idol did not house a numen, but stood as a representation of something called a god; but this concept was too abstract for the settlers to follow.

The latest descendent in the line of Po and Lara was a girl called Potitia, daughter of Potitius. Growing up at the trading post, Potitia had been allowed from earliest childhood to roam the surrounding countryside. For a long distance upriver and down, she knew every steep embankment and muddy beach along the riverbank. She had waded across the Tiber when it was low, and had swum across when it was high.

She had also explored the Spinon, which ran in front of the settlement, following it up through a little valley flanked by steep hillsides to its source, a marshy lake surrounded by hills. The marsh teemed with living creatures-frogs, lizards, dragonflies, spiders, snakes, and all sort of birds. It was exhilarating to see a flock of startled geese take flight from the reeds, or to watch the swans make circles in the sky before landing on the water with effortless grace.

As she grew older, Potitia’s explorations had taken her farther and farther from the settlement. One day, venturing upriver, she had discovered the hot springs. Greatly excited, she had run all the way home to tell the others, and was chagrined to learn that her father already knew about the springs. Where did the bubbling water come from? Potitius said it flowed up from a fiery place deep underground. Curious, Potitia had searched all around the hot springs for an entrance to the underworld, but had never found one. On one occasion, the hot springs dried up, but then returned. Alarmed that such a thing might happen again, the settlers decided to build an altar at the springs, and to make offerings to appease the fiery numina in the earth. Potitius had built the altar himself, using oxen to drag a large stone to the spot, then chiseling the stone into a shape that seemed suitable to him. Once a year, an offering of salt was spread upon the altar, then scattered over the hot springs. So far, they had not run dry again.

As her explorations took her outward from the village, so they also took her upward. The first of the Seven Hills which Potitia conquered was the one directly behind her family’s hut. On the side that faced the settlement, the hill presented a sheer cliff that was impossible for even the most determined child to climb, but on the far side of the hill, by trial and error, Potitia discovered a route that led all the way to the top. The view was astounding. Circling the crest of the summit she could look down on the marshy lake, on the settlement below, and on the region of the hot springs, which she now could see were situated at the edge of a large plain that lay in an elbow of the Tiber. Gazing beyond these familiar places, she realized that the world was much vaster than she had previously imagined. The river stretched on in either direction for as far as she could see. Wherever she looked, the impossibly distant horizon faded to a smudge of purple.

One by one, Potitia conquered all the Seven Hills. Most of them were bigger than the one closest to home, but were easier to climb, once you knew the best place to begin the ascent and which route to take. Each hill had something to distinguish it. One was covered with a beech forest, another was crowned with a ring of ancient oaks, another was populated by osier trees, and so on. The hills had not yet been given individual names. Collectively, for longer than anyone could remember, men called them the Seven Hills. More recently, a visitor passing through had jokingly referred to the region as the ruma, which was the same word men used to refer to a woman’s breasts, or the teats of a cow, and now, as often as not, ruma was the word people used for the hilly region. To the settlers, it seemed perfectly natural to liken the features of the earth to the parts of a body.

In a cliff directly across from the settlement, beyond the meadow on the far side of the Spinon, Potitia had discovered the cave. Situated in a cleft of the steep hill and concealed by scrubby bushes that clung tenaciously to the rocks, the mouth of the cave was hard to discern from the ground directly below; it might have been nothing more than a shadow cast by a lip of rock. Through trial and error, Potitia determined that it was impossible to climb down to the cave from above. Climbing up from the below would require considerable skill and daring. Her first few attempts over the course of a summer resulted in one nasty fall after another, and repeated scoldings from her mother, who disapproved of Potitia’s scraped hands, bloody knees, and torn tunics.

Eventually, Potitia discovered a way to reach the cave. When she stepped inside for the first time, she knew that all her efforts had been worthwhile. To a child’s eyes, the space seemed enormous, almost as big as her family’s hut. She sat upon an outcropping of rock that formed a natural bench, and rested her arm on a ledge that provided a shelf. The cave was like a house made of stone, just waiting for her to claim it. Unlike the hot springs, the cave was unknown to the others at the settlement. Potitia was the first human being ever to set foot in it.

The cave became her secret haven. On hot summer days she escaped there to take a nap. On wet winter days she sat inside, comfortable and dry, and listened to the rain.

As Potitia grew older, roaming the woods and exploring the ruma grew less important to her. She became more interested in learning the skills her mother could teach her, such as cooking and weaving baskets from the reeds that grew around the marsh. Her mother told her that she should begin to consider which of the boys in the settlement she might wish to marry; by various signs, Potitia’s body had begun to manifest the advent of her womanhood.

To celebrate her maturity, Potitia’s father gave her a precious gift. It was an amulet made of the yellow metal called gold.

For ten generations, the lump of gold which Tarketios had given to Lara had been left in its natural state; nothing had been fashioned from it, for the metal seemed too soft to be properly worked. It was a visiting Phoenician who had shown Potitia’s grandfather that gold could be alloyed with another precious metal called silver, and for a great price the Phoenician smith had crafted the resulting ingot into a shape specified by Potitia’s grandfather. By the highest Phoenician standards, the workmanship of the amulet was crude, but to Potitia’s eyes, it was a thing of wonder. Made to be hung upon a leather necklace, the little amulet was in the shape of a winged phallus. Her father called it Fascinus-bringer of fertility, protector of women and infants in childbirth, guardian against the evil eye.

Although she had questioned her father on the subject and listened carefully to his answers, Potitia could not quite understand whether the amulet actually was Fascinus, or contained Fascinus, or only represented Fascinus, in the way that the idols of the Phoenicians were said to represent their gods. Despite her lack of clear understanding, Potitia nonetheless felt very grown-up when she wore the amulet. She was no longer the girl with skinned knees and muddy feet, the child who wandered carefree across the little world of the ruma. Even so, she carried within her a child’s sense of wonder and the sweet nostalgia of having grown up in a world where there was little to fear and much to discover.

Until very recently, that world had remained unchanged-a place where strangers met in good company and where Potitia might expect to raise her own children with little concern for their safety, allowing them to wander at will, as she had done. But now, all that had changed. The world had become dark and dangerous. Families kept their children always in sight. Even grown men did not dare to wander alone across the ruma.

The coming of the monster Cacus had changed everything.

It was Potitia who had seen him first, that day she headed down to the river to wash a basket of clothes. At the sight of him, she screamed, dropped the basket, and fled. The creature ran after her, making a hideous noise that made the hair rise on the back of Potitia’s neck: “Cacus! Cacus!”

Just when her energy flagged and he might have caught her, the monster gave up the chase. Potitia reached the settlement unharmed. She was convinced that Fascinus, and Fascinus alone, had saved her. All the way back to the village, she ran with one hand at her throat, grasping the amulet tightly, begging for Fascinus’s protection, whispering aloud, “Save me! Save me, Fascinus!” Afterward, trembling with relief, she whispered again to the amulet, giving it her thanks and pledging her devotion. It was a prayer that Potitia uttered, in just such a manner as the Phoenicians would have understood, made not to a nameless numen that inhabited a thing or place, but to a powerful, superhuman entity that possessed the intelligence to understand her words. She had not offered ritual propitiation to a numen, but had prayed directly to a god. In that moment, although Potitia acted with no idea of the significance of what she had done, Fascinus became the first native god to be worshiped in the land of the ruma.

For a long time, no one but Potitia had seen the monster, and there were those in the settlement, listening to her description of Cacus, who thought that she must have imagined the encounter on the path. Her family, after all, were known for their fanciful beliefs, showing off the amulet they called Fascinus and hinting that their line had sprung from the union of a numen and a woman-as if such a thing were possible!

Then, little by little, it became evident that some malicious creature was indeed among them. Bits of food went missing, along with small objects that no one had cause to steal. Now and again, objects of value were found broken-a spinning wheel, a clay pot, a toy wagon made of wood-as if some overgrown, immensely strong child smashed them out of spite. The troublemaker struck at night and left no trail; Cacus had grown skillful at covering his tracks.

The settlers were angry and frightened. Their fear of the monster was compounded by another: that the traders who came to the market would learn about Cacus and be frightened away. If traders stopped coming, the settlers would lose their livelihood, and the settlement might vanish altogether.

One morning, during the busiest cattle market of the year, everyone in the settlement was awakened by a lowing among the cattle. Outside the pen, a cow was found dead, its body torn open and much of the flesh missing. The cow could not have climbed over the fence, and the gate remained shut. What sort of man could possess the strength to lift a cow up and over the rough-hewn fence, and then to kill the beast and tear it open with his bare hands? A thrill of panic ran through the settlement. Some of the cattle-traders rounded up their herds and drove them homeward at once.

Armed with knives and spears, hunting in pairs, the settlers combed the Seven Hills. Two of the hunters must have found the monster. Their bodies were eventually discovered on the hill of the osier trees, broken and eviscerated, much as the cow’s body had been.

It did not take long for word to spread up and down the trails that led to the ruma: The monster that was stalking the trading post had an appetite for human flesh. Traders did not merely stop doing business at the settlement; they made great detours to avoid passing anywhere near it.

With most of the traders gone and traffic so greatly reduced on the trails, the monster grew even bolder. An infant went missing. Her remains were found only a short distance from the settlement, at the foot of the steep hill on the far side of the Spinon. One of the searchers, looking up to avert his eyes from the horrible sight, glimpsed a movement on the hillside above. From behind a bramble-covered lip of stone, a hideous face peered down for a moment, then disappeared. A moment later, a shower of rocks rained down on the searchers, who fled. Peering up at the hillside from a safe distance, they discerned what appeared to be a cave, its opening obscured by brambles. None of them could see a way to scale the hillside. Even if it could be scaled, none of them could imagine what would await them once they reached the mouth of the cave.

Back at the settlement, the searchers told what they had discovered. To her horror, Potitia realized that the monster had taken up residence in her secret cave, which was a secret no longer.

From his hole high up in the side of the hill, Cacus ventured out at night to terrorize the settlement. During the day, he stayed hidden in the cave.

More than once, the settlers attempted to scale the hillside and attack him in his lair. Bellowing his name, Cacus dropped stones on them. One settler fell and broke his neck. Another was struck in the eye and blinded. Another managed to draw closer to the mouth of the cave than anyone else, but was killed instantly by a stone that struck his forehead. Instead of falling, his limp body became caught on sharp rocks and brambles. No one dared to climb up and retrieve it. There it hung for several days and nights, a horrifying rebuke to those who had sought to destroy the monster. One morning, the body was no longer there. Cacus had claimed it. The man’s bones, picked clean, appeared one by one at the foot of the hill as Cacus tossed them out.

It was Potitius who suggested that the hillside be set afire. If the flames and smoke did not kill the monster outright, they might at least drive him from his lair. The brambles at the foot of the hill were set on fire. The flames spread upward, heading directly for the cave. Then a wind blew up from the Tiber and drove the flame this way and that. Embers spiraled high in the air, blew across the Spinon, and ignited the thatched roof of a hut. The flames spread from hut to hut. The settlers worked desperately to douse the flames with buckets of water from the river. When the fire at last burned itself out, the face of the hillside was scorched and black, but the cave was untouched and the monster unharmed.

It was decided that a watch should be set upon the cave, so that, if the monster descended, an alarm could be raised. Men and boys took turns throughout the day and night, training their eyes upon what little could be seen of the mouth of the cave from below.

One of Potitia’s cousins, a burly, hotheaded youth named Pinarius, boasted to her that he would put an end to Cacus once and for all. Caught up in his enthusiasm, Potitia confessed to her cousin that she had climbed to the cave many times. Scarcely believing her, Pinarius nonetheless accepted her explanation of how it could be done.

On the afternoon that it was his turn to keep watch on the cave, Pinarius decided to act. The day was hot and the air was heavy with sleep. The rest of the settlers dozed, except for Potitia, who knew of her cousin’s plan and gave him a kiss for luck before he began the climb.

From above, there came a faint noise that they took to be the sound of the monster snoring. Perhaps it was the buzzing of flies, drawn to the cave by blood and gore. Potitia remembered summer afternoons when she had dozed in the shadowy coolness of the cave. She could picture the monster asleep in that familiar, beloved place. The image made her shiver, yet it also pierced her with a sadness that she could not explain. For the first time she wondered where the monster came from. Were there others of his kind? Surely a mother had given birth to him. What fate had led him to the ruma, to become the most wretched of all living things?

Pinarius made the ascent quietly and quickly, but as he drew close to the cave he reached for a handhold that would have taken him in the wrong direction. Watching from below, Potitia corrected his course with a loud whisper.

The sound that might have been the monster’s snoring abruptly stopped. Potitia felt a shiver of dread.

Pinarius reached the mouth of the cave. He pulled himself onto the lip of stone, gained his balance, and grinned down at her. He pulled out his knife and showed her the blade, then disappeared into the cave.

The scream that followed was like nothing she had ever heard, so loud that it woke every sleeper in the village. A rending noise followed, then silence. A few moments later, Pinarius’s head came flying from the hole in the hillside. It landed with a thud in the grass just beyond Potitia, who fell to the ground in a faint. Dazed, with the sun in her eyes and swooning from the heat, she looked up and saw Cacus standing on the lip of stone high above, staring down at her. His hulking, misshapen body was covered with blood and gore. The sound that came from his throat-“Cacus? Cacus?”-had a low, urgent, questioning quality, as if he gazed at a thing which fascinated him, from which he desired a reply.

“Cacus?” he uttered again, cocking his head and staring down at her.

Potitia scrambled to her feet. Running blindly, she tripped over the head of Pinarius. She gave a shriek and staggered back to the settlement, weeping.

The death of Pinarius drove many of the settlers to the limit of their endurance. His father, also named Pinarius, argued that the time had come to abandon the settlement. The monster had inflicted great suffering, and against him they were powerless; but more than this, the arrival of the creature had unleashed a great evil in the land of the ruma. The numina all around them had turned against the settlers. The worst of the misfortunes had been the burning of the huts by treacherous winds and flames, but there had been many other, smaller misfortunes in recent days. The settlers must move on, argued the elder Pinarius. The only questions to be debated were when and to where, and whether they should stay together or go their separate ways.

“If we leave, cousin, what will keep the monster here?” asked Potitius. “I think he’ll follow us. He’ll stalk us on the trail. Our children will be his prey.”

“Maybe,” acknowledged Pinarius. “But in the open, away from his cave, we might at least have a chance to kill the thing.”

Potitius shook his head. “This creature is a far more skillful hunter than any of us. We’d have no chance against him in the wild. One by one, he would take us.”

“That’s what he’s doing now!” Pinarius wept, grieving for his son.

The argument was not settled, but it seemed to Potitia that it was only a matter of time until Pinarius would prevail. The ruma had become a place of sadness and despair. Still, it broke her heart to think of leaving the hills of her childhood.

Then the stranger arrived.

It was the lowing of oxen that woke Potitia that morning. There had been no oxen in the market for a long time. At first, she thought she must be dreaming of the old days before the coming of Cacus. But as she stirred and rose, the sound of the oxen continued. She hurried from the hut to see what was happening.

Sure enough, a small herd of oxen was standing in the slanting sunlight in the meadow on the far side of the Spinon, peacefully eating the grass that grew near the foot of the hill where Cacus dwelled. Near the herd, sitting on the ground and leaning against a tree trunk, was the ox-driver. His eyes were closed and his head was tilted to one side; he appeared to be asleep. Even at a glance, and at such a distance, Potitia was quite certain she had never seen him before. For one thing, he was much larger than any other man she had ever seen, except Cacus, if Cacus could be called a man. Unlike Cacus, he was not at all ugly or frightening to look at. Indeed, he was quite the opposite. She found herself crossing the steppingstones that traversed the Spinon and walking toward him.

“Potitia! What are you doing?” Her father, along with most of the other settlers, had gathered near the empty cattle pen. They were watching the stranger from a safe distance, trying to decide whether he should be approached, and who should do it. Potitia realized that they were afraid of the stranger, but she did not share their fear.

As she stepped closer, she saw that his mouth was slightly open, and she heard him softly snoring. His hair was long and black. His beard was thick. Everything about him was oversized. His strong, rugged face was a match for his brawny shoulders and arms. Potitia decided that he was by far the most handsome man she had ever seen, even though he looked slightly ridiculous, sitting there snoring.

Over his shoulders he wore a pelt of some sort, tied across his chest by the animal’s forelegs. The fur was a tawny gold, and the paws were tipped with formidable claws. Potitia realized that it was the pelt of a lion, and she regarded the stranger with even greater curiosity.

He must have sucked in a flying insect, for suddenly he bolted forward, instantly awake. He made a face and spat convulsively. The group gathered across the stream let out a collective gasp of alarm, but Potitia laughed. To her, the ox-driver looked more ridiculous-and more appealing-than ever.

He picked a fly from his mouth, gave a shrug, then looked up at her and smiled.

Potitia sighed. “You can’t stay here.”

He frowned.

“Your oxen aren’t safe here,” she explained.

His gaze was uncomprehending. Could it be that he had not heard of Cacus? He must have come from very far away, she thought. When he spoke, her suspicion was confirmed. She could not understand a word he said.

A dog that had been lying near the oxen rose to its feet and ambled toward them, wagging its tail. The ox-driver shook his head. He wagged his finger at the dog and said something in a gently chiding tone. Clearly, it was the dog’s job to wake him if anyone approached the oxen while he was sleeping, and the dog had not done its duty.

The ox-driver stood and stretched his massive arms above his head. He was even taller than Potitia had thought. Craning her neck to look up at him, she felt very small, like a child. Unconsciously, she reached to her throat and touched the gold amulet. The ox-driver gazed at Fascinus for a moment, then looked into her eyes. His gaze stirred certain feelings in her, and Potitia knew that she was not a child any longer but a woman.

Try as they might, the settlers seemed unable to communicate to the stranger the peril he faced by staying in the meadow so near the cave of Cacus. They pointed, they mimed, they spoke in all the various dialects they had learned from traders. The man did not understand.

“I’m not sure he has all his wits,” said Potitia’s father.

“We shall wake tomorrow to find his dead body lying at the foot of the hill,” grumbled Pinarius.

“What terrible things to say! I think you’re both wrong,” said Potitia. She smiled at the ox-driver, who smiled back.

Pinarius exchanged a sidelong glance with his cousin and lowered his voice. “On many important things we disagree, Potitius, but I think one thing is evident to us both. Your daughter is smitten by this stranger.”

“He is impressive,” said Potitius, looking the man up and down. “How do you think he came by that lion’s skin he wears? If Potitia finds him suitable-”

Pinarius shook his head and spat. “It shall come to grief. Mark my words!”

The afternoon became sweltering as the midsummer sun beat down upon the ruma. A warm breeze, smelling of mud and decay, rose from the marshes and followed the Spinon down to the Tiber. The droning of cicadas filled the meadow, where the oxen lay dozing in the shade.

As the settlers believed there were numina in places and objects, so they also believed that numina informed certain phenomena, such as sleep. Like other numina, those of sleep could be friendly or unfriendly. Sleep could heal the weary and the sick and give comfort to the grieving. Sleep could also render even the strongest man utterly helpless.

That afternoon, the numina of sleep descended upon the settlement like a hand upon the brow of an infant, shutting the eyes of the settlers whether they wished to close them or not. Men fought to stay awake, and lost the battle without even knowing it.

The oxen slept. The dog slept. The ox-driver also slept, leaning back against the tree where Potitia had first seen him.

Potitia did not sleep. She sat in the shade of an oak tree and studied the stranger, wondering what the future might hold for her.

There was another who did not sleep. With his long arms and immense strength, Cacus had found a way to climb down from the cave that even Potitia did not know about. Brambles kept him hidden at almost every point as he descended. If he exercised great stealth and did not cause a single leaf to tremble or a shard of stone to give way underfoot, his movement down the face of the cliff was very nearly invisible. Even if the boy who had been set to watch the cave that day had not been dozing, Cacus probably would have descended unseen.

Cacus was not aware of the coming of the stranger, but he had heard the lowing of the oxen. He had not eaten beast-flesh in many days.

Across the meadow, he caught sight of the oxen. He took no notice of the ox-driver or Potitia. Both were nearby, but both were very still, and obscured by the dappled shade of the trees. He chose the smallest of the oxen and made his way toward it. Not a single twig broke beneath his feet; it was a remarkable thing that a creature so large and ungainly could move so quietly upon the earth. Nonetheless, the ox sensed danger. It swished its tail, rose to its feet, and uttered a low bleat. The beast saw Cacus, took a step back, then froze.

When he reached the ox, Cacus did not hesitate. He clamped his fists together, raised them in the air, and landed a hammer-like blow upon the ox’s forehead.

The ox snorted once, shuddered, and fell dead. It struck the earth with a heavy thud. The other oxen stirred and began to mill about. The dog’s ears twitched, but he remained asleep.

Potitia, who had just nodded off, gave a start. She opened her eyes and saw that the monster was no more than ten paces away. She sucked in a breath and would have screamed, but her throat was suddenly so tight that no sound would come out.

She jumped to her feet. Her first thought was to wake to the ox-driver, but to do that, she would have to run past the monster. She turned and ran in the other direction, away from the settlement, toward the cave.

Cacus’s eye was drawn by the movement. He caught a glimpse of her amid the high grass, and recognized her at once. He ran after her.

His legs were mismatched, but very long and powerful. When it suited him, he could run with incredible speed. The flies that had been buzzing about the oxen followed after him in a swarm, drawn by the odors of blood and rotting flesh that clung to him.

Potitia’s foot struck an exposed root and she went flying. Perhaps it was as the elder Pinarius said: All the numina of the ruma had turned against them, and even the roots of the trees were conspiring with the monster. What a fool she had been to think that the arrival of the ox-driver was a sign of a better times to come! As she tumbled against the hard, sun-baked earth, she reached up to touch Fascinus at her neck, and whispered a prayer that the monster might kill her swiftly.

But Cacus had no intention of killing her.

The ox-driver slept, dreaming of the faraway land of his childhood. It was a dream of sunshine and warm meadows, lowing oxen and singing cicadas.

Then, in an instant, he was awake.

One of the oxen stood over him, urgently pressing its cold, wet snout against his cheek. The stranger grunted with disgust, wiped his face with the back of his hand, and looked about.

At once he saw the cause of the ox’s distress. One of its companions was lying in the grass nearby, utterly still and in a most unnatural position. Where was the dog? He saw it curled up on the grass not far away. The dog yawned, briefly opened its eyes, then shut them again and resettled itself more comfortably.

The ox-driver cursed and jumped to his feet.

He heard a muffled sound that might have been a woman’s scream and ran toward it.

What he saw first was a swarm of flies above a depression in the high grass. Then he caught a glimpse of bare, hairy flesh-the hunched back of Cacus, moving up and down and this way and that. The ox-driver moved forward more cautiously, not sure what sort of man or beast he was approaching. Punctuating the gasps and groans and slavering noises was a curious, guttural sound: Cacus…cacus…cacus!

Then he heard a sound that chilled his blood-the scream he had heard before, from a woman in great distress.

The ox-driver gave a shout. The hunched back suddenly ceased moving. A face, shockingly hideous, rose above the high grass and peered at him. The creature snarled, gave a cry of indignation-“Cacus!”-then rose to its full height. That the creature was male became evident by the virile member displayed between its legs. Beneath the creature, still hidden by the grass, the woman let out a plaintive sob.

The ox-driver was not used to encountering anything that walked on two legs that was as big as himself; this creature was bigger. Nor had he ever encountered a creature as loathsome to look at as Cacus. Revulsion rose in his throat, and an unaccustomed emotion washed over him-the cold prickle of fear. The lion whose skin he wore he had killed with his bare hands, but a lion seemed a minor menace compared to Cacus.

The ox-driver braced himself and gave another shout, challenging the creature to fight. A moment later, with a deafening roar, Cacus hurtled toward him.

The sheer mass of the creature struck the ox-driver with bruising force, knocking him to the ground. The stench of the creature’s breath filled his nostrils. The taste of the creature’s foul sweat mingled on his tongue with the bitter flavor of dirt as they tumbled on the ground. The flies that swarmed around the creature buzzed in the ox-driver’s ears and flew into his nostrils and eyes, tormenting and distracting him.

With the creature atop him, crushing him, the ox-driver frantically reached for anything that might serve as a weapon. His hand closed on a fallen branch. He swung it with all his might. A shuddering impact ran through his arm as the branch broke against the creature’s skull. The piece that remained in his fist was jagged and sharp; he stabbed it against the creature’s flank. A scream pierced his ears. Hot blood ran over his hand, causing him to lose his grip on the weapon. The creature bolted up and away from him.

The ox-driver staggered to his feet. He watched the creature pull the shard of wood from his bleeding flesh and cast it aside. For a moment he thought the creature might flee. Instead, Cacus hurtled toward him and knocked him to the ground. The ox-driver managed to wriggle free and scamper back to his feet. A short distance away, amid the high grass, he saw a stone the size of newborn ox, and ran toward it. He surprised even himself when he lifted the stone over his head. He hurled it toward the pursuing Cacus.

Cacus managed to dodge the stone, but only barely; it grazed his shoulder and sent him reeling. Enraged, he picked up an even larger stone and hurled it. The ox-driver dove to one side. The stone struck a towering oak tree and shattered the trunk. The whole tree came crashing to the ground.

Amid a din of creaking and cracking, a host of shrieking birds took flight, and then all was still. The ox-driver struggled to catch his breath. The creature was nowhere to be seen. Had he fled? Was he pinned beneath the branches of the tree? For an instant the ox-driver let down his guard-then he caught a whiff of the creature’s stench, and heard the buzzing of flies. He whirled about, and in the next instant felt two hands grip his throat.

Spots swam before his eyes. The meadow grew dim, as if night had suddenly fallen. His head seemed to swell like a bloated wineskin, until he felt sure it would burst.

His struggled to pry Cacus’s hands from his throat. The creature’s grip was unshakable. The ox-driver sought desperately to gain a purchase with his fingertips, and at last managed to grasp one of Cacus’s fingers and slowly bend it backward. He heard the finger snap, and was sickened by the noise, but Cacus held fast. He broke another finger, on the creature’s other hand, and another. As a fourth finger snapped, Cacus gave an unearthly scream and relented. His grip was broken.

Before Cacus could escape, the ox-driver deftly slipped behind him and caught the creature’s neck in the vise of his elbow. With his other hand he gripped his wrist, tightening the vise. Cacus struggled to draw a breath, but could not. Nor could he wrench the arm away from his throat, for his fingers were broken, his hands useless.

Mustering all his remaining strength, the ox-driver wrenched the creature’s head to one side and gave it a hard twist. Cacus’s neck was broken. He thrashed and convulsed. The huge weight of his body slipped from the ox-driver’s grasp. He tumbled to the ground with his head cocked at an impossible angle and his limbs akimbo.

Utterly exhausted, the ox-driver dropped to his knees, fighting back nausea and gasping for breath. His vision was blurred. Flies buzzed in his ears.

The dog, wide awake now, suddenly arrived at a gallop, barking ferociously and baring his fangs at the sight of the corpse. He pounced atop the limp body of Cacus, stood stiffly upright, perked his ears, and alerted the people of the ruma with a long howl of triumph.

In feverish glimpses, Potitia had witnessed the entire struggle.

When the stranger’s challenge drew Cacus’s attention, she had managed to scramble to her feet and to flee. Stumbling and staggering, she repeatedly looked back. It seemed to her that she saw not two men but two entities greater than human engaged in a fight to the death. She felt the earth shake beneath their stamping feet. She saw them lift stones that no mortal could lift. She saw a great tree fall to the ground, destroyed by their combat. She saw Cacus fall dead, and the ox-driver drop to his knees.

In a daze, she made her way to river. No matter how vigorously she scrubbed her flesh, rubbing until it was red and raw, the stench of the monster clung to her.

When she staggered back to the settlement, no one remarked on the smell. Indeed, they took no notice of her. Learning of the monster’s demise, the ecstatic settlers had circled the ox-driver and were loudly praising him, shyly touching him, trying to lift him onto their shoulders and laughing when he proved to be too big and heavy.

No one realized what had happened to Potitia except the ox-driver, who shot her a look of mingled relief and remorse. She herself said nothing about it, not even to her father.

The body of Cacus was dragged a great distance from the settlement. Repeatedly, vultures tried to land upon it. The people drove them off, until the ox-driver made it clear that they should desist and allow the vultures to snatch whatever delicacies they could. When the vultures flew off with Cacus’s eyes and tongue, the ox-driver applauded them.

“It seems the fellow has a high regard for vultures,” noted Potitius. “And why not? Whenever he sees a vulture, it’s probably because another of his enemies is dead!”

Satisfied that the vultures had been propitiated, the people pelted the corpse of Cacus with stones, then set it aflame. A wind from the southwest carried the foul smoke high into the air and away from the ruma. The numina of fire and air were seen to be in accord with the people, who could only hope, with the monster’s baleful influence removed, that the other numina of the region would again show kindness and favor to them.

That night, there was rejoicing in the settlement. The ox that had been killed by Cacus was butchered. The flesh was roasted for a great feast in honor of the stranger who had delivered them. His hunger was voracious; he ate everything they set before him.

Potitius felt moved to make a speech. “Nothing so terrible as the coming of the monster has ever occurred in living memory. Nothing so wonderful has ever occurred as the monster’s destruction. We were on the verge of abandoning this place in despair.” Here he looked sidelong at his cousin Pinarius. “Then we were saved by an occurrence which none of us possibly could have foreseen-the arrival of a stranger who was every bit a match for the monster. This is a sign that we were meant to reside always in the land of the ruma. Whatever happens, we must have faith that ours is a special destiny. Even in our darkest moments, we must remember that we are guarded by friendly numina of great power.”

Wine had always been a rare and precious commodity in the settlement; it had become even more so after the traders stopped coming. Still, the store that remained, mixed with water, was enough to provide a serving to everyone at the feast, with extra portions-unwatered and as much as he could drink, which proved to be a great quantity-for the ox-driver. Encouraged by raucous laughter and shouting, he repeatedly mimed his battle with Cacus, laughing and stumbling around the roasting pit until at last he lay down exhausted and fell into a deep sleep.

The settlers were drunk and stuffed with food. Many had not enjoyed a proper sleep since the coming of Cacus, and they happily followed the stranger into the land of dreams.

All slept-except Potitia, who feared that sleep would bring only nightmares.

She found a spot to herself, away from the others, and lay on a woolen mat beneath the stars. The night was warm and lit by a bright moon. On such a night, when she was girl, she might have climbed up to her cave and slept there, safe and secluded. That could never happen again. The monster had ruined the cave and her memories of it forever.

Potitia hugged herself and wept-then gave a start when she sensed the presence of another. She smelled his breath, heavy with wine. His massive silhouette blocked the moon. She shuddered, but when he knelt and touched her gently, she stopped sobbing. He stroked her brow. He kissed the tears that ran down her cheeks.

He loomed over her, as Cacus had loomed, yet was different in every way. The smell of his body was strong but pleasing to her. Cacus had been brutal and demanding, but the ox-driver’s touch was gentle and soothing. Cacus had caused her pain, but the stranger’s touch brought only pleasure. When he drew back, fearful that his sheer bulk might overwhelm her, she gripped him like a child might grip a parent and pulled him closer to her.

When the paroxysm of their first coupling passed, for a time she lay quiet and felt utterly relaxed, as if she floated on air. Then she suddenly began to tremble. She shuddered and began to weep again. He held her tightly. He knew she had suffered an ordeal beyond his understanding, and he strove, awkwardly but with exquisite gentleness, to comfort her.

But the cause of her weeping was beyond even Potitia’s understanding. She was remembering something she had been trying to forget. At the moment of her utmost loathing and despair-while Cacus was inside her, squeezing and crushing her from all sides-she had looked into his eyes. They were not the eyes of a beast, but of a human like herself. In that instant, she had seen that Cacus was full of more suffering and fear than she could imagine. Amid her loathing and disgust, she felt something else: pity. It stabbed her like a knife. Now, with all her defenses down, she found herself weeping, not because of what Cacus had done to her, but for Cacus himself and the awfulness of his existence.

The next day, when the hung-over settlers awoke, the stranger was gone. So were his oxen and his dog.

Pinarius said that someone should be sent after him, to ask him to return. Potitius argued against this; as the coming of the stranger had been unforeseen, so it had been with his leaving, and the people of the settlement should do nothing to interfere with the comings or goings of their deliverer.

Word of Cacus’s demise spread. One by one, the traders began to come back to the settlement. When they heard the tale of the ox-driver, they put forward many notions about who he might have been and where he might have come from.

It was the Phoenician seafarers, the most widely traveled of all the traders, who made the most compelling case. They declared that the ox-driver was the strongman of their own legends, the demigod named Melkart. A demigod, they explained, was the offspring of a god and a human. The settlers were inclined to agree that the stranger had exhibited a strength beyond the merely mortal.

“Oh, yes, the hero who saved you was most certainly Melkart,” the Phoenician captain declared. “Every Phoenician knows of him; a few have met him. The fact that he wore a lion’s skin proves his identity. The killing of a lion was one of Melkart’s most famous exploits; he wears the skin as a trophy. Yes, it was Melkart who killed this monster of yours, most assuredly. You should set up an altar to him, as you set up an altar to the numina who inhabit the hot springs. Surely Melkart did more for you than ever those hot springs did! You should make sacrifices to him. You should pray for his continued protection.”

“But how did this…demigod…come to be here, so far from the lands where he’s known?” asked Potitius.

“Melkart is a great traveler. He’s known in many lands, by many names. The Greeks call him Heracles. They say his father was the sky god they call Zeus.”

The settlers had only a vague notion of who the Greeks might be, but the name Heracles was more pleasing to their ears than Melkart, though the captain’s pronunciation of the Greek was a bit garbled. They decided to call the ox-driver Hercules.

As the Phoenician captain had suggested, an altar was erected to Hercules, very near the spot where Potitia had first seen him sleeping. Since the Phoenicians knew more about god-worship than the settlers, they were consulted about the best ways to show honor to Hercules. It was decided that dogs and flies must be kept away from his altar, since, during the battle, his ally the dog had failed him and the flies had fought against him. Vultures he had favored, so it was decided that the vulture would be sacred to his memory. It was also decided that when an offering was made, every part of the sacrificed animal should be eaten, in the way that Hercules himself had exhibited such a hearty and unbridled appetite.

Thus, although Fascinus was the first native god and the first god to receive the prayers of a settler, it was a deity already worshiped in other lands who received the first altar dedicated to a divinity in the land of the ruma.

Potitia grew big with child. Her father had suspected that something beyond flirtation might have transpired between his daughter and the stranger, and her pregnancy seemed to confirm his suspicion. Potitius was pleased. According to family legend, long ago an ancestress had experienced intercourse with a numen; Potitia was partly descended from Fascinus, whose amulet she wore. Had the demigod Hercules seen this spark of the otherworldly in Potitia? Was that why he had found her worthy to bear his child? And would that child not be something new and special upon the earth, containing the mingled essence of numen, demigod, and human in his veins? Potitius mused on such ideas, and was pleased.

Potitia fell prey to darker thoughts, for she knew there was an equal chance that the child might have a different father: Cacus. If the thing that came from her womb was a hideous monster, everyone would know her shame. Would they kill the child at once and her as well? Was the thing stirring inside her a god or a monster? She was torn by many emotions. Her father was puzzled and dismayed by her misery.

It was decided to celebrate the very first sacrifice to Hercules not on the anniversary of his arrival, as would later become the custom, but on the day that Cacus had first been seen, in the springtime; thus the first Feast of Hercules could expunge the bitter memory of Cacus’s arrival. Potitius and Pinarius squabbled over who should assume the duty of slaying an ox, roasting the meat, and placing the offerings upon the stone altar before consuming them. Finally they decided to share the duty and perform the rites together. The feast would be shared equally by their families.

But on the day chosen for the sacrifice, Pinarius was absent. He had gone to visit relatives at a farm upriver, and had not yet returned. Potitius decided to begin the ritual without him.

Dogs were driven off, and an oxtail whisk was used to banish flies. The ox was sacrificed, butchered, and roasted, and the offering placed upon the altar. A prayer of supplication was chanted, using phrases suggested by the Phoenician captain. Potitius summoned the members of his extended family to share in the feast. “We must eat it all,” he told them, “not just the meat, but also the organs and the entrails-the heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, and spleen-for that was the example Hercules set for us with his voracious appetite. To eat these parts of the sacrificed beast is our privilege, and we should begin with them. Here, daughter-to you I give a portion of the liver.”

As Potitia ate, she remembered the first time she had seen Cacus, and the prayer she had uttered to Fascinus; she also remembered the terror she had felt when Cacus attacked her, and the gentleness of the man they now called Hercules. She was very near to giving birth, and subject to powerful extremes of elation and despair. She often laughed and wept at the same time. Potitius, watching her, seeing how pale and drawn she was, wondered if his daughter had been too delicate a vessel to receive the seed of a demigod.

The feast was very nearly finished when Pinarius arrived, bringing his family with him.

“You’re late, cousin-very late! I’m afraid we proceeded without you,” said Potitius. A full belly and a portion of wine, only slightly mixed with water, had put him in good spirits. “I’m afraid we’ve already finished the entrails, but there are some choice cuts of meat remaining for you.”

Pinarius, angry at himself for missing the ceremony, grew furious at this further indignity. “This is an outrage! We agreed that I was to serve equally as a priest of the Altar of Hercules, and that the eating of the entrails was a sacred duty-yet you’ve left none for me and my family!”

“You were late,” said Potitius, his good mood spoiled. “You’ll eat what the god left for you!”

Their squabbling grew louder and their words more belligerent. Relatives began to gather behind each man. It seemed that the first sacrifice to Hercules might turn into a brawl.

The argument was suddenly interrupted by a loud cry. It came from Potitia. Her labor had begun.

The delivery took place before the Altar of Hercules, for Potitia was in too much distress to be moved. The labor was short but intense, and there was something not right about it. The baby was too big to come out; the midwives were thrown into a panic. Along with her physical pain, Potitia was in an agony of suspense.

At last the baby emerged from her womb. It was a man-child. Potitia reached for him. The midwives placed him in her arms. He was big, very big, yes-but not a monster. All his limbs were intact, and his proportions were no different from any other baby’s. Still, Potitia was uncertain. She gazed into the baby’s eyes, as she had gazed into the eyes of Cacus, and also into the eyes of the ox-driver. She could not be sure! The eyes that now gazed back at her might be the eyes of either man.

Potitia did not care. Whoever his father might be, the child was precious to her, and precious to Fascinus. Weak and exhausted, but filled with joy, Potitia lifted the necklace bearing Fascinus over her neck and placed it around the neck of her newborn baby.