Picolous
In Greek mythology, Picolous is the name of one of the Gigantes, the offspring of the earth-goddess Gaia and the sky-god Uranus. Picolous fought against the Olympian gods during the Gigantomachy. When the Giants lost, he fled the battle, only to be slain shortly thereafter by the sun-god Helios when the giant attempted to attack his daughter Circe on Aeaea, her island.
Picolous's role in the Gigantomachy is attested by two Byzantine scholars of the Middle Ages, Eustathius of Thessalonica and Patriarch Photios I of Constantinople, both of which quote earlier writers, Alexander of Paphos and Ptolemaeus Chennus respectively.
Etymology
The 'unique' etymology of Picolous's name is unclear and hard to decipher, having no apparent cognates in ancient Greek language. Derivation from the Hesiodic phrase Φῖκ' ὀλοήν has been proposed but rejected on the grounds of being "entirely fanciful.Mythology
, who attributes the tale to Ptolemy Chennus, writes of an unnamed giant that attacked Circe and was killed by her ally and father the sun-god Helios, who was protecting his daughter. From the giant's dark blood sprang a new white herb, named moly after the hard battle that took place between the giant and the god.In greater detail, the homeric scholiast Eustathius of Thessalonica, quoting Alexander of Paphos, writes that Picolous fought alongside the other Giants against Zeus during the war that was known as the Gigantomachy, but fled the battle as the tide turned against them and the gods felled one after another.
He then went to Aeaea, the home island of the sorceress-goddess Circe and attempted to chase her away from her land. Seeing that, her father Helios slew him. From the blood of the giant that seeped on the ground a herb, moly, sprang that had a black root for the black blood of Picolous, and a white flower for the white Sun that killed him, or for the fact that Circe grew white out of terror.
Picolous's plant
Moly, the plant that sprang from Picolous's death, moly, has been linked to the Prometheion, the special plant that Circe's niece Medea used for her potion, which has a similar origin story as both were said to have grown from blood, that of Picolous and Prometheus respectively, as well as the Κιρκαῖον, "Circe's plant", another magical herb connected to Circe.As for real-world plant identifications, the flower that grew from Picolous's blood has been suggested to be the snowdrop, a white flower that counteracts amnesia, hallucinations, and delusions, which are hypothesized to be the real physics behind Circe's magic.