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REVOLT OF THE GIANTS
The Giants were tall and frightening
creatures with long hair and beards, and with the scales of
dragons for feet. They were born to Uranus (Sky) and (Gaea
(Mother Earth at a place called Thracian Phlegra ('place of
burning') and they numbered twenty-four.
Mother Earth was angry because Zeus had confined her children,
the Titans, to the deepest pits of Tartarus in the Underworld.
Zeus had sentenced them there after defeating them following a
vicious ten-year war. Furious, Gaea directed the Giants to gain
revenge by attacking Mount Olympus, with orders to overthrow
Zeus and his fellow Olympians.
"But Earth, vexed on account of the Titans, brought forth
the giants, whom she had by Sky. These were matchless in the
bulk of their bodies and invincible in their might; terrible of
aspect did they appear, with long locks drooping from their head
and chin, and with the scales of dragons for feet."
Apollodorus, Library and Epitome (ed. Sir James George
Frazer)
So what did these terrible creatures look like? Harry Thurston
Peck, in Harpers Dictionary of Classical
Antiquities (1898), had this to say about their
appearance:
"In the oldest works of art the Giants are represented in human
form and equipped with armor and spears; but in course of time
their attributes became terrific -- awful faces, long hanging
hair and beard, the skins of wild animals for garments, trunks
of trees and clubs for weapons.
"In the latest representations, but not before, their bodies end
in two scaly snakes instead of feet...In the Gigantomachia of
Pergamus (see
image below),
the grandest representation of the subject in antiquity, we find
a great variety of forms; some quite human, others with snakes'
feet and powerful wings, others with still bolder combinations
of shape; some are naked, some clothed with skins, some fully
armed, and others slinging stones."
The Giants gathered together and, without warning, began to hurl
huge rocks, oak tree trunks and fire-brands upwards from their
mountaintops, laying siege to mighty Mount Olympus and startling
the unsuspecting Olympians. The 24 Giants threatened to
overwhelm the gods with their ferocious attack, piling huge
rocks one atop another in an effort to construct a stairway to
Heaven.
To make matters worse, Hera, wife to Zeus,
prophesized that the Giants could never be killed by any
Olympian god -- only a single, lion-skinned mortal could perform
this Herculean task, she said. But even that would be futile if
the Giants got their hands on a sacred herb that grew on earth.
This wonderful plant, created by Mother Earth for her children
to use, rendered invulnerable anyone who consumed it, and it was
up to the Olympian gods to find it before the Giants did.
Zeus held a war council with Athena, war-like goddess of wisdom,
and the two crafted a plan of action. Athena went off to find
Heracles (Hercules), the lion-skinned mortal whom Hera had
referred to. Meanwhile, Zeus ordered Helios (the sun god),
Selene (the moon goddess) and Eros (god of love) not to shine
until his task was complete, using the cover of darkness to
evade the army of Giants and safely descend to earth.
Zeus then groped around the earth, guided by the feeble light of
the stars, until he found the magical herb. It was exactly where
Athena had said it would be, and Zeus hurried with it back to
Olympus, thrilled to have located it before his enemy did. It
was none too soon, for the embattled Olympians were under
terrific attack from the Giants, who grew bolder and stronger by
the moment, having risen perilously close to Olympus.
Athena had returned with Heracles, the only mortal who could
save the gods, according to Hera's prophecy. As usual, he was
clad in the skin of the Nemean Lion and carried his famous huge
club and dreaded bows and arrows. His arrows had been dipped in
the putrid blood of the dying Lernean Hydra, which made them
deadly poisonous.
The great hero at once let fly an arrow at the charging leader
of the Giants, a brute named Alcyoneus (his name literally
translates as 'Mighty Ass'). The aim was true -- Heracles was
the mightiest mortal warrior of all time -- and the arrow found
its mark, dropping Alcyoneus to the ground.
But instantly the Giant sprang back up to his feet, uninjured in
spite of the poisoned arrow, much to the dismay of the
Olympians. The land of Phlegra was the creature's native home
and falling to its soil at once revived him. As long as
Alcyoneus remained on Phlegra, he was unbeatable. Things looked
real bad for the gods!
Quick-thinking Athena shouted to Heracles to drag the brute to
another country. Swiftly Heracles immobilized Alcyoneus, tossed
him over his broad shoulders, and rushed him over the Thracian
border. The Giant's breath was so revolting that an ordinary
mortal would have been overcome at once, but Heracles used the
magical herb that Zeus had brought to plug his nostrils,
rendering the ogre's halitosis moot. Once away from Phlegran
soil, Heracles had no trouble crushing the creature's skull with
a mighty blow from his huge club, and the leader of the Giants
lay dead. One down, 23 to go...
From the mighty pyramid of rocks constructed by the Giants
leaped Porphyrion, second in command and even more hideous than
his dead brother. This monster was so frightful, the terrified
Olympians scattered in fear, looking for places to hide. Only
brave Athena stood her ground, ready to defend her palatial
home.
Porphyrion wanted nothing to do with Athena (he was smarter than
he looked), rushing by her and lunging at Hera, Queen of the
Olympians. The beast tried to strangle her, but a timely arrow
from Eros turned his blood-lust to pure lust: Wounded in the
liver by the love god's arrow, Porphyrion was gripped by
uncontrollable desire.
He ripped off Hera's exquisite robe, and that was enough to
arouse Zeus' jealous wrath. Seeing his wife about to be
molested, the king of the Olympians roared at the Giant,
knocking him to the ground with a thunderbolt. The creature
sprang up immediately, but Heracles, returning to Phlegra just
in time, was there to finish him off with an arrow.
While this was happening, the Giant called Ephialtes (translates
to 'Nightmare', or 'He who leaps upon') had gotten the best of
Ares, god of war. Ephialtes was the third leader of the Giants
and definitely a ferocious force to be reckoned with. It looked
as if Ares was doomed but Apollo shot an arrow that pierced the
Giant in the left eye. Heracles quickly followed with another
arrow, this one striking the creature in the right eye.
That was the end of Ephialtes. Talk about a bad nightmare!
The Olympian
gods then took turns felling Giants, as Heracles stood nearby
and promptly dispatched them one by one with his poisonous
arrows.
Heracles slays the Giants, ancient Greek vase
Here's a brief play-by-play of the
action:
-
Hecate burned Clytius
with her torches, prepping him for Heracles.
-
Dionysus wounded Eurytus
with his thyrsus, providing an easy target for Heracles.
-
Hephaestus scalded Mimas
('Mimicry') with a ladle of molten metal. An arrow from
Heracles and he was toast.
-
Athena crushed the skull
of Pallas with a stone and stripped his skin when he tried
to rape her. Heracles finished the job by dealing the death
blow with his club.
-
The Fates also took part
in the rout, swinging brazen pestles very effectively. The
dazed Giants hardly had time to figure out what had hit
them, before Heracles finished them off.
Only the peace-loving goddesses Hestia and
Demeter refused to take part in this mighty battle, standing
aside in dismay, horrified by the carnage all around. At stake
was the fate of the universe, but they couldn't bring themselves
to participate.
The demoralized Giants, all their leaders now dead, fled back to
earth, beating a hasty retreat, with the Olympians in hot
pursuit. Enceladus, a fleet-footed Giant, tried to outrace
Athena, but she simply picked up a titanic chunk of earth and
threw it at the monster. Enceladus lay flattened underneath the
soil, which became the island of Sicily.
Not to be outdone, Poseidon, god of the sea, broke off a sizable
chunk of the island of Cos with his trident and hurled it at
Polybutes. The Giant lay buried underneath this islet of Cos,
ever since then called Nisyros.
The end of the Giants was near. The remaining retreating
offspring of Mother Earth made a last stand at Bathos, near
Arcadian Trapezus. The Giant Hippolytus was next to expire,
stricken down by Hermes, who had borrowed Hades' helmet of
invisibility and had snuck up unseen on the creature. Artemis,
goddess of the hunt, cut down Gration in mid stride, piercing
him with her silver arrow.
Thoas and Agrius were dispatched by the Fates, who were having a
merry old time swinging their pestles and watching Giant heads
split open. Zeus with his thunderbolts and Ares with his spear
took care of all the rest. In all instances, Heracles stood
nearby, ready to deposit an arrow in each fallen Giant.
The Satyr Silenus, who was always found in the retinue of
Dionysus, god of wine, claimed to have killed the Giant
Enceladus while fighting at his master's side. He further
embellished the story by bragging that it was the braying of his
donkey that had initially spread panic among the Giants,
scattering them. But nobody believed him, because Silenus was
drunk most of the time and probably hallucinated the whole
bloody affair...
The Giants lay dead, their revolt crushed, many of them buried
under the earth and transformed into volcanoes; but that only
made Mother Earth more upset. Not only were her children, the
Titans, imprisoned in Tartarus, but now her beloved Giants had
been slaughtered. What's a mother to do?
Mother Earth lay with Tartarus and created Typhon, the largest
monster ever born. This hideous creature was next to challenge
Zeus and the Olympians, and challenge them he did. Good thing
Athena was around. But that's another story...
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