Giants (Greek mythology)
In Greek and Roman mythology, the Giants, also called Gigantes, were a race of great strength and aggression, though not necessarily of great size, known for the Gigantomachy, their battle with the Olympian gods. According to Hesiod, the Giants were the offspring of Gaia, born from the blood that fell when Uranus was castrated by his Titan son Cronus.
Archaic and Classical representations show Gigantes as man-sized hoplites fully human in form. Later representations show Gigantes with snakes for legs. In later traditions, the Giants were often confused with other opponents of the Olympians, particularly the Titans, an earlier generation of large and powerful children of Gaia and Uranus.
The vanquished Giants were said to be buried under volcanoes and to be the cause of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.
Origins
The name "Gigantes" is usually taken to imply "earth-born", and Hesiod's Theogony makes this explicit by having the Giants be the offspring of Gaia. According to Hesiod, Gaia, mating with Uranus, bore many children: the first generation of Titans, the Cyclopes, and the Hundred-Handers. However, Uranus hated his children and, as soon as they were born, he imprisoned them inside Gaia, causing her much distress. Therefore, Gaia made a sickle of adamant which she gave to Cronus, the youngest of her Titan sons, and hid him to wait in ambush. When Uranus came to lie with Gaia, Cronus castrated his father, and "the bloody drops that gushed forth received, and as the seasons moved round she bore... the great Giants." From these same drops of blood also came the Erinyes and the Meliai, while the severed genitals of Uranus falling into the sea resulted in a white foam from which Aphrodite grew. The mythographer Apollodorus also has the Giants being the offspring of Gaia and Uranus, though he makes no connection with Uranus' castration, saying simply that Gaia "vexed on account of the Titans, brought forth the Giants".There are three brief references to the Gigantes in Homer's Odyssey, though it is not entirely clear that Homer and Hesiod understood the term to mean the same thing. Homer has Giants among the ancestors of the Phaiakians, a race of men encountered by Odysseus, their ruler Alcinous being the son of Nausithous, who was the son of Poseidon and Periboea, the daughter of the Giant king Eurymedon. Elsewhere in the Odyssey, Alcinous says that the Phaiakians, like the Cyclopes and the Giants, are "near kin" to the gods. Odysseus describes the Laestrygonians as more like Giants than men. Pausanias, the 2nd century AD geographer, read these lines of the Odyssey to mean that, for Homer, the Giants were a race of mortal men.
The 6th-5th century BC lyric poet Bacchylides calls the Giants "sons of the Earth". Later the term "gegeneis" became a common epithet of the Giants. The first century Latin writer Hyginus has the Giants being the offspring of Gaia and Tartarus, another primordial Greek deity.
Confusion with Titans and others
Though distinct in early traditions, Hellenistic and later writers often confused or conflated the Giants and their Gigantomachy with an earlier set of offspring of Gaia and Uranus, the Titans and their war with the Olympian gods, the Titanomachy. This confusion extended to other opponents of the Olympians, including the huge monster Typhon, the offspring of Gaia and Tartarus, whom Zeus finally defeated with his thunderbolt, and the Aloadae, the large, strong and aggressive brothers Otus and Ephialtes, who piled Pelion on top of Ossa in order to scale the heavens and attack the Olympians. For example, Hyginus includes the names of three Titans, Coeus, Iapetus, and Astraeus, along with Typhon and the Aloadae, in his list of Giants, and Ovid seems to conflate the Gigantomachy with the later siege of Olympus by the Aloadae.Ovid also seems to confuse the Hundred-Handers with the Giants, whom he gives a "hundred arms". So perhaps do Callimachus and Philostratus, since they both make Aegaeon the cause of earthquakes, as was often said about the Giants.
Descriptions
Homer describes the Giant king Eurymedon as "great-hearted", and his people as "insolent" and "froward". Hesiod calls the Giants "strong" and "great" which may or may not be a reference to their size. Though a possible later addition, the Theogony also has the Giants born "with gleaming armour, holding long spears in their hands".Other early sources characterize the Giants by their excesses. Pindar describes the excessive violence of the Giant Porphyrion as having provoked "beyond all measure". Bacchylides calls the Giants arrogant, saying that they were destroyed by "Hybris". The earlier seventh century BC poet Alcman perhaps had already used the Giants as an example of hubris, with the phrases "vengeance of the gods" and "they suffered unforgettable punishments for the evil they did" being possible references to the Gigantomachy.
Homer's comparison of the Giants to the Laestrygonians is suggestive of similarities between the two races. The Laestrygonians, who "hurled... rocks huge as a man could lift", certainly possessed great strength, and possibly great size, as their king's wife is described as being as big as a mountain.
Over time, descriptions of the Giants make them less human, more monstrous and more "gigantic". According to Apollodorus the Giants had great size and strength, a frightening appearance, with long hair and beards and scaly feet. Ovid makes them "serpent-footed" with a "hundred arms", and Nonnus has them "serpent-haired".
The Gigantomachy
The most important divine struggle in Greek mythology was the Gigantomachy, the battle fought between the Giants and the Olympian gods for supremacy of the cosmos. It is primarily for this battle that the Giants are known, and its importance to Greek culture is attested by the frequent depiction of the Gigantomachy in Greek art.Early sources
The references to the Gigantomachy in archaic sources are sparse. Neither Homer nor Hesiod mention anything explicit about the Giants battling the gods. Homer's remark that Eurymedon "brought destruction on his froward people" might possibly be a reference to the Gigantomachy and Hesiod's remark that Heracles performed a "great work among the immortals" is probably a reference to Heracles' crucial role in the gods' victory over the Giants. The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, following mentions of Heracles' sacks of Troy and of Kos, refers to his having slain "presumptuous Giants". Another probable reference to the Gigantomachy in the Catalogue has Zeus produce Heracles to be "a protector against ruin for gods and men".There are indications that there might have been a lost epic poem, a Gigantomachia, which gave an account of the war: Hesiod's Theogony says that the Muses sing of the Giants, and the sixth century BC poet Xenophanes mentions the Gigantomachy as a subject to be avoided at table. The Apollonius scholia refers to a "Gigantomachia" in which the Titan Cronus sires the centaur Chiron by mating with Philyra, but the scholiast may be confusing the Titans and Giants. Other possible archaic sources include the lyric poets Alcman and the sixth-century Ibycus.
The late sixth early fifth century BC lyric poet Pindar provides some of the earliest details of the battle between the Giants and the Olympians. He locates it "on the plain of Phlegra" and has Teiresias foretell Heracles killing Giants "beneath rushing arrows". He calls Heracles "you who subdued the Giants", and has Porphyrion, whom he calls "the king of the Giants", being overcome by the bow of Apollo. Euripides' Heracles has its hero shooting Giants with arrows, and his Ion has the chorus describe seeing a depiction of the Gigantomachy on the late sixth century Temple of Apollo at Delphi, with Athena fighting the Giant Enceladus with her "gorgon shield", Zeus burning the Giant Mimas with his "mighty thunderbolt, blazing at both ends", and Dionysus killing an unnamed Giant with his "ivy staff". The early 3rd century BC author Apollonius of Rhodes briefly describes an incident where the sun god Helios takes up Hephaestus, exhausted from the fight in Phlegra, on his chariot.
Apollodorus
The most detailed account of the Gigantomachy is that of the mythographer Apollodorus. None of the early sources give any reasons for the war. Scholia to the Iliad mention the rape of Hera by the Giant Eurymedon, while according to the scholia to Pindar's Isthmian 6, it was the theft of the cattle of Helios by the Giant Alcyoneus that started the war. Apollodorus, who also mentions the theft of Helios' cattle by Alcyoneus, suggests a mother's revenge as the motive for the war, saying that Gaia bore the Giants because of her anger over the Titans. Seemingly, as soon as the Giants are born they begin hurling "rocks and burning oaks at the sky".There was a prophecy that the Giants could not be killed by the gods alone, but they could be killed with the help of a mortal. Hearing this, Gaia sought for a certain plant that would protect the Giants. Before Gaia or anyone else could find this plant, Zeus forbade Eos, Selene and Helios to shine, harvested all of the plant himself and then he had Athena summon Heracles.
According to Apollodorus, Alcyoneus and Porphyrion were the two strongest Giants. Heracles shot Alcyoneus, who fell to the ground but then revived, for Alcyoneus was immortal within his native land. So Heracles, on Athena's advice, dragged him beyond the borders of that land, where Alcyoneus then died. Porphyrion attacked Heracles and Hera, but Zeus caused Porphyrion to become enamoured of Hera, whom Porphyrion then tried to rape, but Zeus struck Porphyrion with his thunderbolt and Heracles killed him with an arrow.
Other Giants and their fates are mentioned by Apollodorus. Ephialtes was blinded by an arrow from Apollo in his left eye, and another arrow from Heracles in his right. Eurytus was killed by Dionysus with his thyrsus, Clytius by Hecate with her torches, and Mimas by Hephaestus with "missiles of red-hot metal" from his forge. Athena crushed Enceladus under the Island of Sicily and flayed Pallas, using his skin as a shield. Poseidon broke off a piece of the island of Kos called Nisyros, and threw it on top of Polybotes. Hermes, wearing Hades' helmet, killed Hippolytus, Artemis killed Gration with her bow and arrows, and the Moirai killed Agrius and Thoas with bronze clubs. The rest of the giants were "destroyed" by thunderbolts thrown by Zeus, with each Giant being shot with arrows by Heracles.