But the
purely accidental resemblance of his name to that of the Greek
deity Herakles,[110] and the manifest identity of the
Cacus-myth with the story of the victory of Herakles over
Geryon, led to the substitution of Hercules for the original
hero of the legend, who was none other than Jupiter, called by
his Sabine name Sancus. Now Johannes Lydus informs us that, in
Sabine, Sancus signified "the sky," a meaning which we have
already seen to belong to the name Jupiter. The same
substitution of the Greek hero for the Roman divinity led to
the alteration of the name of the demon overcome by his
thunderbolts. The corrupted title Cacus was supposed to be
identical with the Greek word kakos, meaning "evil" and the
corruption was suggested by the epithet of Herakles,
Alexikakos, or "the averter of ill." Originally, however, the
name was Caecius, "he who blinds or darkens," and it
corresponds literally to the name of the Greek demon Kaikias,
whom an old proverb, preserved by Aulus Gellius, describes as
a stealer of the clouds.[111]
[110] There is nothing in common between the names Hercules
and Herakles. The latter is a compound, formed like
Themistokles; the former is a simple derivative from the root
of hercere, "to enclose." If Herakles had any equivalent in
Latin, it would necessarily begin with S, and not with H, as
septa corresponds to epta, sequor to epomai, etc.
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