The Cerastae are punished for their cruelty to strangers, by being changed into oxen by Venus—The angry goddess punishes the wantonness of the Propoetides by their transformation into stones.
Inquire of Amathus, whose wealthy ground With veins of every metal does abound, If she to her Propoetides would show The honour Sparta does to him allow. “No more,” she’d say, “such wretches would we grace, Than those whose crooked horns deform’d their face, From thence Cerastae call’d, an impious race, Before whose gates a reverend altar stood, To Jove inscribed, the hospitable god: This had some stranger seen, with gore besmear’d, The blood of lambs and bulls it had appear’d: Their slaughter’d guests’ it was; not flock nor herd.”