Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Battus.
The gallery
Mercury and Battus
Jacob Jordaens, c. 1635–1645
Jordaens' Boijmans canvas: Hermes tests the old herdsman who saw him drive Apollo's cattle — Battus bribed to silence, then turned to stone for speaking. Not Battus of Cyrene.
Mercury and Battus
Adam Elsheimer, c. 1600–1610
Elsheimer's small panel of the Homeric Hymn / Ovid episode: Mercury confronts the Pierian witness of the stolen herd — Battus as the garrulous stone-to-be.
In play
Battus (mythology)
Old forester who saw Hermes steal Apollo's cattle, took a bribe, and was petrified when he betrayed the secret — not the historical Battus I of Cyrene.
Homeric Hymns
The Hymn to Hermes stages the cattle theft Battus witnesses — the archaic frame for the bribe-and-stone tale.
Metamorphoses (Mercury and Battus)
Ovid
Ovid's telling (Met. 2): Hermes returns in disguise, re-bribes Battus, and turns the oath-breaker into a touchstone.