tle of Geryon, he is said to
have made them travel over the Pyrenean mountains, and afterwards over the
Alpes, into Italy; and from thence cross the sea into Sicily; and being now
about to leave that island, he swims with them again to Rhegium: and
ranging up the coast of the Adriatic, passes round to Illyria, from thence
to Epirus; and so descends to Greece. The whole of these travels is said to
have been completed in ten years.

He was also reported, according to [830]Megasthenes and others, to have
made an expedition into [831]India, and to have left many memorials of his
transactions in those parts. He travelled likewise into the region called
afterwards Scythia; the natives of which country were his [832]descendants.
He also visited the Hyperboreans. In all these peregrinations he is
generally described as proceeding alone: at least we have no intimation of
any army to assist in the performance of these great enterprises. He is
indeed supposed to have sailed with six ships to [833]Phrygia: but how he
came by them is not said; nor whence he raised the men, who went with him.
At other times he is represented with a club in his hand, and the skin of
an animal upon his shoulders. When he passed over the ocean, he is said to
have been wafted in a golden [834]bowl. In Phrygia he freed Hesione from a
Cetus, or sea monster, just as Perseus delivered Andromeda. He is mentioned
as founding many cities in parts very remote: the sea-coast of Boetica, and
Cantabria, was, according to some writers, peopled by [835]him. By
Syncellus he is said to have resided in Italy, and to have reigned in
[836]Latium. The Grecians supposed that he was burnt upon Mount Oeta: but
the people of Gades shewed his Taphos in their [837]city, just as the
Egyptians shewed the Taphos of Osiris at Memphis, and elsewhere. Hence it
was imagined by many, that Hercules was buried at Gades. The philosopher
Megaclides could not be brought to give the least assent to the histories
of this [838]hero: and Strabo seems to have thought a great part of them to
have been a [839]fable. In short, the whole account of this personage is
very inconsistent: and though writers have tried to compromise matters by
supposing more persons than one of this name, yet the whole is still
incredible, and can never be so adjusted as to merit the least belief. How
they multiplied the same Deity, in order to remedy their faulty mythology,
may be seen in the following extract from Cicero.