Dreadful to view! and dropped with crimson gore.”

“See yon huge cavern, yawning wide around, Where still the shattered mountain spreads the ground: That spacious hold grim Cacus once possessed, Tremendous fiend! half human, half a beast: Deep, deep as hell, the dismal dungeon lay, Dark and impervious to the beams of day. With copious slaughter smoked the purple floor, Pale heads hung horrid on the lofty door, Dreadful to view! and dropped with crimson gore.”

↩

Dante makes a Centaur of Cacus, and separates him from the others because he was fraudulent as well as violent. Virgil calls him only a monster, a half-man, Semihominis Caci facies . ↩