spirited conduct, made him a present of a golden goblet. After
this, embarking and arriving in Spain, he defeated Geryon, a prince
who was famed for having three heads, which probably either meant
that he reigned over the three Balearic islands of Maiorca, Minorca,
and Iviza, or else that Hercules defeated three princes who were
strictly allied. Having thence passed the straits of Gibraltar to go
over to Africa, he fought with the Giant Antaeus, who sought to
oppose his landing. That prince was said to be a son of the Earth,
and was reported to recover fresh strength every time he was thrown
on the ground; consequently, Hercules was obliged to hold him in his
arms, till he had squeezed him to death. The solution of this fable
is most probably that Antaeus, always finding succour in a country
where he was known as a powerful monarch, Hercules took measures to
deprive him of aid, by engaging him in a sea fight, and thereby
defeated him, without much trouble, as well as the Pygmies, who were
probably some African tribes of stunted stature, who came to his
assistance.

Hercules, returning from these two expeditions, passed through Gaul
with the herds of Geryon, and went into Italy, where Cacus,
a celebrated robber, who had made the caverns of Mount Aventine his
haunts, having stolen some of his oxen, he, with the assistance,
according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, of Evander and Faunus,
destroyed him, and shared his spoils with his allies. In his journey
from Africa, Hercules delivered Atlas from the enmity of Busiris,
the tyrant of Egypt, whom he killed; and gave such good advice to
the Mauritanian king, that it was said that he supported the heavens
for some time on his own shoulders, to relieve those of Atlas. The
latter, by way of acknowledgment of his services, made him a present
of several fine sheep, or rather, according to Diodorus Siculus, of
some orange and lemon trees, which he carried with him into Greece.
These were represented as the golden apples watched by a dragon in
the garden of the Hesperides. As the ocean there terminated the
scene of his conquests, he was said to have raised two pillars on
those shores, to signify the fact of his having been there, and the
impossibility of proceeding any further.

The deliverance of Prometheus, as already mentioned; the death of
the two brothers, the Cercopes, famous robbers; the defeat of the