- Gigantes
:"See
gigantes y cabezudos for the giant figures of Spanish culture."In
Greek mythology , the Gigantes (Γίγαντες; singular "Gigas") or, commonly, Giants, were a race of giants, children of Gaia or Gaea, who was fertilized by the blood of Ouranos whenCronus castrated him. [A parallel to the Gigantes' birth is the birth ofAphrodite from the similarly fertilized sea.]Gaea, incensed by the imprisonment of the
Titans inTartarus by the Olympians, incited the Gigantes to rise up in arms against them, end their reign, and restore the Titans' rule. Led on byAlcyoneus andPorphyrion , they tested the strength of the Olympians in what is known as the "Gigantomachia" or Gigantomachy. The Olympians called upon the aid ofHeracles after a prophecy warned them that he was required to defeat the Gigantes. Heracles slew not onlyAlcyoneus , but dealt the death blow to the Gigantes who had been wounded by the Olympians. The Gigantes Otus and Ephialtes hoped to reach the top of Mount Olympus by stacking the mountain ranges ofThessaly ,Pelion , and Ossa, on top of each other."Power is latent violence, which must have been manifested at least in some mythological once-upon-a-time. Superiority is guaranteed only by defeated inferiors,"Walter Burkert remarked of the Gigantomachy. [Burkert, p. 128]This battle parallels the
Titanomachy , a fierce struggle between the upstart Olympians and their older predecessors, the Titans (who lost the battle). In the Gigantomachia, however, the Olympians were already in power when the Gigantes rose to challenge them. With the aid of their powerful weapons andHeracles , the Olympians defeated the Gigantes and quelled the rebellion, confirming their reign over the earth, sea, and heaven, and confining the Gigantes to theNetherworld .Whether the Gigantomachia was interpreted in ancient times as a kind of indirect "revenge of the Titans" upon the Olympians — as the Gigantes' reign would have been in some fashion a restoration of the age of the Titans — is not attested in any of the few literary references. Later
Hellenistic poets and Latin ones tended to blur Titans and Giants. [In a surviving fragment of Naevius' poem on the Punic war, he describes the Gigantes Runcus and Purpureus (Porphyrion)::"Inerant signa expressa, quo modo Titani"
:"bicorpores Gigantes, magnique Atlantes":"Runcus ac Purpureus filii Terras".
Eduard Fraenkel remarks of these lines, with their highly unusual plural "Atlantes", "It does not surprise us to find the names "Titani" and "Gigantes" employed indiscriminately to denote the same mythological creatures, for we are used to the identification, or confusion, of these two types of monsters which, though not original, had probably become fairly common by the time of Naevius". (Fraenkel, "The Giants in the Poem of Naevius" "The Journal of Roman Studies" 44 (1954, pp. 14-17) p. 15 and note.] According to the Greeks of southern Italy, the Gigantes were buried by the gods beneath the earth, where their writhing caused volcanic activity and earthquakes.In iconic representations the Gigantomachy was a favorite theme of the Greek vase-painters of the fifth century ("illustration above right").
More impressive depictions of the Gigantomachy can be found in classical sculptural relief, such as the great altar of Pergamon, where the serpent-tailed giants are locked in battle with a host of gods, or in Antiquity at the Temple of Olympian Zeus at Acragas. [A repertory of the theme in Greek arts is offered in Francis Vian, "Répertoire des gigantomachie figurées" (Paris) 1951 and his "La Guerre des Géants" (Paris) 1952.] The Gigantes identified by individual names were
Alcyoneus slain byHeracles ,Porphyrion wounded byZeus with lightning bolts and finished off by Heracles, Enceladus and Pallas killed byAthena ,Polybotes crushed byPoseidon beneath the island ofNisyros , Hippolytus slain byHermes with his sword and wearing the cap of invisibility, Ephialtes of theAloadae shot byApollo with arrows,Gration slain by the goddessArtemis with her arrows,Eurytos slain byDionysos with his pine-cone tippedthyrsos ,Agrios andThoon clubbed to death by theMoirae with clubs of bronze,Mimas slain byHephaestus with bolts of metal andClytius byHecate with flaming torches.ee also
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Pergamon Altar References
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* [http://www.theoi.com/Gigante/Gigantes.html The Gigantes in Classical Literature and Art]
*Burkert, Walter. "Greek Religion" (1977) 1985.
* [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0062%3Aid%3Dgigantes "Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities" - "Gigantes"]
* [http://www.theoi.com/Gigante/Gigantes.html Theoi Project - Gigantes]
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