There was a roar as if wild beasts of the forests for miles around had been captured, and the earth trembled as it did when the giants were thrown out of the home of the gods, for Mars had fallen and was crying about it. He had thought himself invulnerable, but whether an arrow from some unseen hero had hit him or whether his steeds had stumbled over one of Terminus' boundary posts, the invincible Mars lay prostrate on the field he had himself invaded, and before he could pick himself up, something else happened. It was really rather amusing, for Mars was not hurt. He was only taught a much needed lesson. Just beyond the lines of Terminus which Mars had violated there lived two giant planters, Otus and Ephialtes, whose father had been a planter also and his father before him. They had been much too busy to attend the Terminalia picnic. In fact they almost never took a holiday, but toiled from sunrise to sunset on their farm which supplied the nearby market with fruits and bread stuffs. Otus and Ephialtes were very much surprised to hear the thundering crash that Mars made when he tumbled down; and they dropped their tools and ran to see what was the matter. It is said that the fallen Mars covered seven acres of ground, but the two giants started at once picking him up and he began to shrink then like a rubber balloon when the air leaks out of it. "What shall we do with this troublemaker?" Otus asked his brother. "We must put him where he will not interfere with our work or the other work of the earth for a while at least," Ephialtes said as they tugged Mars, still roaring, home. "That's a good idea," Otus agreed. "We will shut him up." And so they crammed the troublesome Mars into a great bronze vase and took turns sitting on the cover so that he was not able, by any chance, to get out for thirteen months. That gave everyone an opportunity to plant and gather another harvest, and to place Terminus' boundary stones again. These giant planters would have liked to keep this god of war bottled up in the vase for all the rest of time, but he was one of the family of the Olympians and so this was not possible. In time he was allowed to drive home and both the Greek and the Roman people tried to make the best of him, not as a protecting deity, but as the god of strength and brawn.