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 Æneas; though it is supposed in his time to have been in ruins.
[[680]]Jam primum saxis suspensam hanc aspice rupem,
Disjectæ 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
Cæde tepebat humus; foribusque affixa superbis
Ora virûm tristi pendebant pallida tabo.
Huic monstro Vulcanus erat pater.