Old forester of Pieria who saw Hermes drive Apollo's cattle away — bribed with a cow to keep silence, he betrayed the secret when tested in another shape, and Mercury turned his perjured heart to the touchstone that betrays gold.1
On the day of his birth Hermes slipped from his swaddling-bands, walked to Pieria, and stole fifty head from Apollo's herd. Only one witness saw the theft: an ancient forester called Battus, keeper of the wood and green pasture where the blooded mares of rich Neleus grazed.2
Mercury distrusted him and led him aside, promising a cow if he would keep silence. The god returned in another guise, offering a bull and a cow for word of the herd, and the old man promptly betrayed the secret he had been paid to keep. Hermes turned his perjured heart to stone — the touchstone, which betrays gold as Battus betrayed his oath.3
He must not be merged with Battus the founder of Cyrene — the Pierian witness to the cattle-theft and the colonist of Thera belong to different genealogies and different ages of myth.4
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story