“But surely you’re mistaken” smiled Hermes. 

With promethean hubris, the mischievous god announced that he, being smarter than their father, could do much better.

“I wager, I could squeeze out even more efficiency” he winked. “I’m the god of finance you know. Trust me. I know exactly what I’m doing.”

With that, and loving a good poo joke, he transformed the herd so that from then on the horses would eat the grass to produce the dung but the dung beetle would pay the horse with their delicious frass. The horse no longer getting their energy from the grass but by exchanging their dung for frass!

Hermes had cursed the horse to value frass as highly as the beetle valued dung.

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