Cacu

The Etruscan Cacu is a young man with a lyre. On a group of bronze mirrors he sits prophesying, one hand raised in explanation, while a boy named Artile reads from an open writing-tablet at his side and the brothers Aule and Caile Vipinas close in from left and right. Whether they mean to overhear the prophecy or to seize the prophet is read both ways, and the record keeps the ambiguity rather than picking a story. What is clear is that this Cacu has nothing to do with the Roman Cacus, the fire-breathing cattle thief Hercules kills at the future site of Rome: the name is shared, the figure is not.

Domains

• prophecy
• music

Powers

• to prophesy to the lyre, expounding what the boy reads from the tablet

Relations

• enemy: Avile Vipinas
• enemy: Caile Vipinas

Sources

• Etruscan bronze mirrors depicting Cacu, Artile and the Vibenna brothers.
• Reference discussion of the Cacu scene and of the contrast with the Roman Cacus.