f Deity, [Greek: Theou philiou, kai xeniou],
_the God of charity and hospitality_, for his protection. This was fatal to
those who were driven upon the western coast of Cyprus. The natives of
Curium made it a rule to destroy all such, under an appearance of a
religious rite. Whoever laid their hands upon the altar of Apollo, were
cast down the precipice, upon which it stood. [678][Greek: Euthus estin
akra, aph' hes rhiptousi tous hapsamenous tou bomou tou Apollonos]. Strabo
speaks of the practice, as if it subsisted in his time. A like custom
prevailed at the Tauric Chersonesus, as we are informed by Herodotus.
[679][Greek: Thuousi men tei Parthenoi tous te nauegous, kai tous an labosi
Hellenon epanachthentas, tropoi toioide. Katarxamenoi rhopaloi paiousi ten
kephalen. Hoi men de legousi, hos to soma apo tou kremnou diotheousi kato;
epi gar kremnou hidrutai to Hiron. ktl.] _The people of this place worship
the virgin Goddess Artemis: at whose shrine they sacrifice all persons, who
have the misfortune to be shipwrecked upon their coast: and all the
Grecians, that they can lay hold of, when they are at any time thither
driven. All these they without any ceremony brain with a club. Though
others say, that they shove them off headlong from a high precipice: for
their temple is founded upon a cliff._

The den of Cacus was properly Ca-Chus, the cavern or temple of Chus, out of
which the poets, and later historians have formed a strange personage, whom
they represent as a shepherd, and the son of Vulcan. Many antient
Divinities, whose rites and history had any relation to Ur in Chaldea, are
said to have been the children of Vulcan; and oftentimes to have been born
in fire. There certainly stood a temple of old upon the Aventine mountain
in Latium, which was the terror of the neighbourhood. The cruelties of the
priests, and their continual depredations, may be inferred from the history
of Cacus. Virgil makes Evander describe the place to AEneas; though it is
supposed in his time to have been in ruins.

[680]Jam primum saxis suspensam hanc aspice rupem,
Disjectae procul ut moles, desertaque montis
Stat domus, et scopuli ingentem traxere ruinam.
Hic spelunca fuit, vasto submota recessu,
Semihominis Caci, facies quam dira tegebat,
Solis inaccessum radiis: semperque recenti
Caede tepebat humus; foribusque affixa superbis
Ora virum tristi pendebant pallida tabo.
Huic monstro Vulcanus erat pater.

Livy mentions