Cabūrus, a chief of the Helvii. Cæsar.
Caca, a goddess among the Romans, sister to Cacus, who is said to have discovered to Hercules where her brother had concealed his oxen. She presided over the excrements of the body. The vestals offered sacrifices in her temple. Lactantius [Placidus], bk. 1, ch. 20.
Cachăles, a river of Phocis. Pausanias, bk. 10, ch. 32.
Cacus, a famous robber, son of Vulcan and Medusa, represented as a three-headed monster, and as vomiting flames. He resided in Italy, and the avenues of his cave were covered with human bones. He plundered the neighbouring country; and when Hercules returned from the conquest of Geryon, Cacus stole some of his cows, and dragged them backwards into his cave to prevent discovery. Hercules departed without perceiving the theft; but his oxen having lowed, were answered by the cows in the cave of Cacus, and the hero became acquainted with the loss he had sustained. He ran to the place, attacked Cacus, squeezed and strangled him in his arms, though vomiting fire and smoke. Hercules erected an altar to Jupiter Servator, in commemoration of his victory; and an annual festival was instituted by the inhabitants in honour of the hero, who had delivered them from such a public calamity. Ovid, Fasti, bk. 1, li. 551.—Virgil, Æneid, bk. 8, li. 194.—Propertius, bk. 4, poem 10.—Juvenal, satire 5, li. 125.—Livy, bk. 1, ch. 7.—Dionysius of Halicarnassus, bk. 1, ch. 9.
Cacūthis, a river of India, flowing into the Ganges. Arrian, Indica.
Cacyparis, a river of Sicily.
Cadi, a town of Phrygia. Strabo, bk. 12.——Of Lydia. Propertius, bk. 4, poem 6, li. 7.
Cadmēa, a citadel of Thebes, built by Cadmus. It is generally taken for Thebes itself, and the Thebans are often called Cadmeans. Statius, Thebiad, bk. 8, li. 601.—Pausanias, bk. 2, ch. 5.
Cadmēis, an ancient name of Bœotia.
Cadmus, son of Agenor king of Phœnicia by Telephassa or Agriope, was ordered by his father to go in quest of his sister Europa, whom Jupiter had carried away, and he was never to return to Phœnicia if he did not bring her back. As his search proved fruitless, he consulted the oracle of Apollo, and was ordered to build a city where he should see a young heifer stop in the grass, and to call the country Bœotia. He found the heifer according to the directions of the oracle; and as he wished to thank the god by a sacrifice, he sent his companions to fetch water from a neighbouring grove. The waters were sacred to Mars, and guarded by a dragon, which devoured all the Phœnician’s attendants. Cadmus, tired of their seeming delay, went to the place, and saw the monster still feeding on their flesh. He attacked the dragon, and overcame it by the assistance of Minerva, and sowed the teeth in a plain, upon which armed men suddenly rose up from the ground. He threw a stone in the midst of them, and they instantly turned their arms one against another, till all perished except five, who assisted him in building his city. Soon after he married Hermione the daughter of Venus, with whom he lived in the greatest cordiality, and by whom he had a son Polydorus, and four daughters, Ino, Agave, Autonoe, and Semele. Juno persecuted these children; and their well-known misfortunes so distracted Cadmus and Hermione, that they retired to Illyricum, loaded with grief and infirm with age. They intreated the gods to remove them from the misfortunes of life, and they were immediately changed into serpents. Some explain the dragon’s fable, by supposing that it was a king of the country whom Cadmus conquered by war; and the armed men rising from the field, is no more than men armed with brass, according to the ambiguous signification of a Phœnician word. Cadmus was the first who introduced the use of letters into Greece; but some maintain, that the alphabet which he brought from Phœnicia, was only different from that which was used by the ancient inhabitants of Greece. This alphabet consisted only of 16 letters, to which Palamedes afterwards added four, and Simonides of Melos the same number. The worship of many of the Egyptian and Phœnician deities was also introduced by Cadmus, who is supposed to have come into Greece 1493 years before the christian era, and to have died 61 years after. According to those who believe that Thebes was built at the sound of Amphion’s lyre, Cadmus built only a small citadel which he called Cadmea, and laid the foundations of a city which was finished by one of his successors. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 3, fables 1, 2, &c.—Herodotus, bk. 2, ch. 49; bk. 4, ch. 147.—Hyginus, fables 6, 76, 155, &c.—Diodorus, bk. 1, &c.—Pausanias, bk. 9, ch. 5, &c.—Hesiod, Theogony, li. 937, &c.——A son of Pandion of Miletus, celebrated as an historian in the age of Crœsus, and as the writer of an account of some cities of Ionia, in four books. He is called the ancient, in contradistinction from another of the same name and place, son of Archelaus, who wrote a history of Attica in 16 books, and a treatise on love in 14 books. Diodorus, bk. 1.—Dionysius of Halicarnassus, bk. 2.—Clement of Alexandria, bk. 3.—Strabo, bk. 1.—Pliny, bk. 5, ch. 29.——A Roman executioner, mentioned Horace, bk. 1, satire 5, li. 39.