The Gigantomachy

What Led To It

The Gigantomachy comes after the Titanomachy, the ten-year war in which Zeus and his siblings defeated Kronos and the other Titans. Apollodorus opens the Giants' war with a motive: Earth, vexed on account of the Titans, brought forth the Giants. Her own children had been bound in Tartarus, and she raised new ones against the victors.

The Giants are not Titans. Hesiod lists the Titans among the children Earth bore after lying with Heaven, while the Giants come later, from the blood of Ouranos's wound. Hesiod's Theogony mentions the Giants only at their birth. The war itself is told by Apollodorus, Pindar, Ovid and later writers, and by the temple sculptors and vase painters who made it a favourite subject of Greek art.

The Myth

The Gigantomachy begins with a grievance. Apollodorus says that Earth, vexed on account of the Titans, brought forth the Giants, whom she had by Sky (Library 1.6.1). Hesiod gives a different birth: when Kronos cut off his father's members, every bloody drop fell on Earth, and in time she bore the Erinyes, the nymphs of the ash-trees, and "the great Giants with gleaming armour, holding long spears in their hands" (Theogony 183-187).

Apollodorus describes them as matchless in bulk and invincible in might, with long hair drooping from head and chin and dragons' scales for feet. They were born, as some say, in Phlegrae, and according to others in Pallene. They attacked the sky by hurling rocks and burning oaks.

Two Giants stood out, Porphyrion and Alcyoneus. Alcyoneus was immortal so long as he fought in the land of his birth. The gods, meanwhile, had an oracle that none of the Giants could die at the hand of a god. Only with the help of a mortal could they be finished off.

Now the gods had an oracle that none of the giants could perish at the hand of gods, but that with the help of a mortal they would be made an end of.

Earth heard the oracle and went looking for a herb, a "simple", that would protect her sons even from a mortal. Zeus forbade Dawn, Moon and Sun to shine, cut the herb himself before anyone else could reach it, and through Athena summoned Heracles to his side. Heracles was the mortal the oracle required.

He shot Alcyoneus first with an arrow, but the Giant fell to the ground and revived a little, because he touched his native earth. On Athena's advice Heracles dragged him outside Pallene, and there he died. Pindar, in Nemean 1, knows Heracles's part in the war as well. Tiresias foretells that when the gods meet the Giants on the plain of Phlegra, the Giants' shining hair will be stained with dirt beneath that hero's arrows.

In the fighting, Apollodorus says, Porphyrion attacked Heracles and Hera. Zeus then inspired Porphyrion with lust for Hera. When he tore her robes and would have forced her, she called for help, and Zeus struck him with a thunderbolt while Heracles shot him dead with an arrow.

The other Giants fell to named gods. Apollodorus gives the roll in one passage. Apollo shot Ephialtes in the left eye and Heracles shot him in the right. Dionysus killed Eurytus with a thyrsus. Hecate killed Clytius with torches. Hephaestus killed Mimas with missiles of red-hot metal. Artemis killed Gration, and Hermes, wearing the helmet of Hades, killed Hippolytus.

Two of the killings moved land. Enceladus fled, and Athena threw the island of Sicily on him as he ran. She also flayed a Giant named Pallas and used his skin to shield her own body in the fight. Poseidon chased Polybotes through the sea to Cos, broke off a piece of the island called Nisyrum and threw it on him. The Fates, fighting with bronze clubs, killed Agrius and Thoas. Zeus destroyed all the remaining Giants with thunderbolts, and Heracles shot every one of them with arrows as they were dying.

Ovid tells a shorter and grimmer version. In Metamorphoses 1, the Giants pile mountain on mountain to reach the stars, Jove shoots his thunderbolts through Olympus and overturns Pelion from Ossa, and Earth, soaked with her sons' blood, gives it new life in the shape of men. Ovid names no Heracles and no individual duels.

What Followed

The war did not end Earth's resistance. Apollodorus says that when the gods had overcome the Giants, Earth, still more enraged, lay with Tartarus and bore Typhon in Cilicia. Typhon was born as the next challenge to Zeus. When the gods saw him rushing at heaven, Apollodorus says, they fled to Egypt.

The defeat also fixed the Giants in the landscape. In Apollodorus, Sicily lies on Enceladus and Nisyrum, a piece of Cos, on Polybotes. In his note to the passage, Frazer suggests that volcanic phenomena and the fossil bones of large extinct animals fed these tales. That is a modern scholar's guess, not an ancient claim.

Afterlife and Modern Influence

The best-known monument of the war is the great frieze on the Pergamon Altar, built by King Eumenes II of Pergamon in the first half of the second century BC. It shows the gods and Giants in high relief. In the scene on the east side, Athena drags the winged Giant Alcyoneus away from Earth, who rises from the ground beside them, while Nike flies in to crown Athena. The altar was excavated from 1878 by Carl Humann, and its panels went to Berlin, where they are displayed in the Pergamon Museum. Frazer adds that the war was also sculptured on the outside of Apollo's temple at Delphi, citing Euripides's Ion.

Where Accounts Differ

• birth-of-the-giants
• where-the-war-was-fought
• who-killed-porphyrion-and-mimas
• giants-serpent-feet-or-not
• ovid-version-without-heracles

• The Giants' birth is told two ways. Hesiod, Theogony 183-187, has them spring from the blood of Ouranos's wound. Apollodorus, Library 1.6.1, says Earth bore them by Sky. This page gives both and does not choose one.
• Where the war was fought is disputed. Apollodorus, Library 1.6.1, says the Giants were born in Phlegrae according to some and in Pallene according to others. Pindar, Nemean 1.67-72, has the battle on the plain of Phlegra. Pausanias, Description of Greece 8.29.1, reports that the Arcadians place it near their own Bathos, not at Pellene in Thrace.
• Who killed Porphyrion differs. Apollodorus, Library 1.6.2, has Zeus strike him with a thunderbolt and Heracles finish him with an arrow. Pindar, Pythian 8.12-18, names the king of the Giants and gives his defeat to Apollo's bow, setting it beside Zeus's thunderbolt against Typhon. In the note to 1.6.2, Frazer records that other sources also give Mimas's death to Zeus (Euripides's Ion) or to Ares (Apollonius Rhodius and Claudian) rather than to Hephaestus.
• The Giants' form differs. Apollodorus, Library 1.6.1, gives them dragons' scales for feet. Pausanias, Description of Greece 8.29.3, calls that an absurd tale and argues the Giants were mortal men of great size. Frazer notes that later monuments often show them serpent-footed, and Hesiod's armoured Giants have no serpent feet at all.
• Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.89-162, tells a different war. The Giants pile mountains against heaven, Jove shatters them with thunderbolts, and Earth makes men from their blood. There is no oracle, no Heracles and no roll of duels. This page follows Apollodorus for the details and marks where Ovid departs.

Mythology

• Mythology Greek Mythology

Figures In This Myth

• Character Zeus
• Character Gaia
• Character Heracles
• Character Athena
• Character Apollo
• Character Dionysus
• Character Poseidon
• Character Hephaestus
• Character Hera
• Character Hermes
• Character Artemis
• Character Hecate
• Character Typhon

Also Connected

• Character Ouranos
• Character Kronos

Related Terms

• Term Thunderbolt
• Term Titan
• Term Olympian
• Term The Moirai (Fates)
• Term Tartarus

Referenced By

• Term Giants

Sources