HERACLES 531helped by Athena and with lolaiis as charioteer, killed Cycnus (who was helped
by Ares) in single combat.^16 Another robber was Syleus, who lived by the Straits
of Euboea. Heracles destroyed his vineyard, in which Syleus compelled passers-
by to work, and then killed Syleus himself.
Closer to folktale is Heracles' encounter with the Cercopes, whose home is
placed in various parts of Greece or Asia Minor. They were a pair of dwarfs who
Heracles and the Cercopes. Limestone metope from Selinus, ca. 540 B.C.; height 58 in. Her-
acles looks straight at the viewer, like the bull in the metope from the same group
(p. 376), and the faces of the Cercopes are also shown frontally. Despite the archaic for-
mality of the composition, the hero's power is forcefully expressed. (Museo Nazionale,
Palermo, Italy. Courtesy of Alinari/Art Resource, New York.)