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The other, as one who casts mounts against some high city or blockades a hill-fort in arms, tries this and that entrance, and ranges cunningly over all the ground, and presses many an attack in vain. Entellus hurled his strength into the air, and all his heavy mass, overreaching, fell heavily to the earth; as sometime on Erymanthus or mighty Ida a hollow pine falls torn out by the roots.

He was to clear the marshes of Stymphalus of the maneating birds that gathered there; he was to capture and bring to the king the golden-horned deer of Coryneia; he was also to capture and bring alive to Myceaæ the boar of Erymanthus. Heracles came to the marshes of Stymphalus.

Thus, the feats of the early heroes appear to have been mainly directed against the freebooter or the wild beast; and among the triumphs of Hercules are recorded the extermination of the Lydian robbers, the death of Cacus, and the conquest of the lion of Nemea and the boar of Erymanthus. Hercules himself shines conspicuously forth the great model of these useful adventurers.

Hercules hunted it up hill and down dale for a whole year, and when at last he caught it, he got into trouble with Apollo and Diana about it, and had hard work to appease them; but he did so at last; and for his fourth labor was sent to catch alive a horrid wild boar on Mount Erymanthus. He followed the beast through a deep swamp, caught it in a net, and brought it to Mycenæ.

Finding the machine obedient, I next made a bolder venture, went up the Acropolis, and launched myself from the cliff right over the theatre. Getting safely to the bottom that time, my aspirations shot up aloft. I took to starting from Parnes or Hymettus, flying to Geranea, thence to the top of the Acrocorinthus, and over Pholoe and Erymanthus to Taygetus.

In the northwestern part of the famed Arcadia where the golden- horned hind roamed was a range of mountains called Erymanthus. Over the high tops of this range wandered also a wild beast, but unlike the lovely hind he was fierce and terrible of aspect and deadly in encounter. He was known as the boar of Erymanthus.

In the neighborhood of Mount Erymanthus, in Arcadia, there lived, in those far-off days, a savage boar that was in the habit of sallying forth from his lair and laying waste the country round about, nor had any man been able to capture or restrain him. To free the country from the ravages of this monster was the fourth labor of Hercules.

Then Hercules set out on his fourth undertaking. It consisted in bringing alive to Mycene a boar which, likewise sacred to Diana, was laying waste the country around the mountain of Erymanthus. On his wanderings in search of this adventure he came to the dwelling of Pholus, the son of Silenus. Like all Centaurs, Pholus was half man and half horse.

Heavy snows were lying on the crests of Erymanthus when Hercules came upon the tracks of the wild creature, and following patiently finally reached his lair. There the boar stood, his tusks pointed outward ready for attack, his eyes snapping vindictively. He was indeed a terrible thing to see.

Besides the rivers of Alpheus and Erymanthus, it is watered by the gloomy stream of Styx; and its western part, intersected by innumerable brooks, is the land of Pan. Its inhabitants were long devoted to the pursuits of the herdsman and the shepherd, and its ancient government was apparently monarchical.