Venus, incensed at the Cerastæ for polluting the island of Cyprus, which is sacred to her, with the human sacrifices which they offer to their Gods, transforms them into bulls; and the Propœtides, as a punishment for their dissolute conduct, are transformed into rocks.

“But if, perchance, you were to ask of Amathus,35 abounding in metals, whether she would wish to have produced the Propœtides; she would deny it, as well as those whose foreheads were of old rugged with two horns, from which they also derived the name of Cerastæ. Before the doors of these was standing an altar of Jupiter Hospes,36 a scene of tragic horrors; if any stranger had seen it stained with blood, he would have supposed that sucking calves had been killed there, and Amathusian sheep;37 strangers were slain there. Genial Venus, offended at the wicked sacrifices there offered, was preparing to abandon her own cities and the Ophiusian lands.38 ‘But how,’ said she, ‘have these delightful spots, how have my cities offended? What criminality is there in them? Let the inhuman race rather suffer punishment by exile or by death, or if there is any middle course between death and exile; and what can that be, but the punishment of changing their shape?’

“While she is hesitating into what she shall change them, she turns her eyes towards their horns, and is put in mind that those may be left to them; and then she transforms their huge limbs into those of fierce bulls.

“And yet the obscene Propœtides presumed to deny that Venus is a Goddess; for which they are reported the first of all women to have prostituted their bodies,39 with their beauty, through the anger of the Goddess. And when their shame was gone, and the blood of their face was hardened, they were, by a slight transition, changed into hard rocks.”

Footnotes:

35. Amathus.]—Ver. 220. Amathus was a city of Cyprus, sacred to Venus, and famous for the mines in its neighbourhood.

36. Jupiter Hospes.]—Ver. 224. Jupiter, in his character of Ζεῦς ξένιος, was the guardian and protector of travellers and wayfarers.

37. Amathusian sheep.]—Ver. 227. Amathusia was one of the names of the island of Cyprus.

38. Ophiusian lands.]—Ver. 229. Cyprus was anciently called Ophiusia, on account of the number of serpents that infested it; ὄφις being the Greek for a serpent.

39. Their bodies.]—Ver. 240. The women of Cyprus were notorious for the levity of their character. We learn from Herodotus that they had recourse to prostitution to raise their marriage portions.