User:Paul August/Hecatoncheires

Hecatoncheires

To Do

• Add Plutarch (guarding Cronus)?

420 a (Obsolescence of Oracles)

Moreover, they said that in this part of the world there is one island where Cronus is confined, guarded while he sleeps by Briareus; for his sleep has been devised as a bondage for him, and round about him are many demigods as attendants and servants.

• Bos, p. 73

Plutarch described Kronos as having been put in custody, and also talked about a figure charged with the duty of guarding him. H. Cherniss has proposed to reconstruct the relevant text in such a way that it mentions the giant Briareus as Kronos' guard.⁸

• Vinci, p. 270

• Look at and regularize cites (and links) to Sch. Ap. Rh. 1.1165
• Screen grab: Bakhuizen, p. 125, Dowden, p. 35, Kirk? Others?
• Get: Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, Volume 10 [in folder]
• Pindar Paean VIII_a21 =B₃ Rutherford (cited by Fowler 2013, p. 26)
• look at Hyginus making Briareus and Gyges Titans? (see Giants)
• Lane Fox
• Suda s.v. aἰγαῖον πέλαγος (See Fowler 2013 p. 68)
• Cinaethon, fr. dub. 7 Bernabé = Heraclea fr. A Davies p. 142 (see Fowler 2013, p. 69)

  https://www.amazon.com/Epicorum-graecorum-fragmenta-Malcolm-Davies/dp/3525257473/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=9783525257470&qid=1557333630&s=gateway&sr=8-1

  Mugar

New text

Mysian hero

Escape to Mysia; Mysian hero.

• Fowler 1988, p. 100

... Another tradition makes Aigaion a Mysian hero whose tomb was located at the mouth of the Rhyndakos river.¹⁴ Lykillos, whom Gudeman dates to the mid-first century B. C. (RE 13.2 [1927] 1785 ff.), was probably trying to reconcile conflicting traditions when he said that Aigaion fled from Euboia to Mysia; significantly, he calls him a Giant (functionally the same as a Titan). He may may be thinking, therefore, of the Aigaion of epic, and the occasion for his flight was perhaps the Titan’s defeat by Poseidon.¹⁵

¹⁴ Kallim. fr. 459 Pf., Ap. Rhod. 1.1165, Lykillos of Tarrha in Σ Ap. Rhod. 1.1165d, Demetrios of Skepsis fr. 71 Gaede. ("Skepsis" depends on a fairly secure emendation in Σ Ap. Rhod. 1.1165c; ...

• Fowler 2013, p. 68

Competing explanations were that the sea was named after a place Aigai ... or after a Mysian hero at Rhyndakos (Ap. Rhod. loc. cit. with scholia citing Kallim. fr. 459, Demetrios of Skepsis fr. 71 and Lukillos of Tarrha, who makes him a Giant),

• Hasluck, p. 54

the scholiast on Apollonius: Aegaeon is considered by the scholiast to be identical with Briareus or (according to Demetrius of Scepsis) a Mysian hero.

Sources

Ancient

Acusilaus

fr. 8 Fowler pp. 8–9 = FGrHist 2 8

• Fowler 2013, p. 26
• West 1966, p. 209 on line 147

Aelian

Varia Historia (Historical Miscellany)

5.3 [= Aristotle fr. 678 Rose]

Aristotle says [fr. 678 R.] that before the pillars of Hercules were so called they were known as the pillars of Briareus. But when Hercules purified both land and sea and became indisputably the benefactor of mankind, men honoured him, named the pillars after Hercules and ceased to honour the memory of Briareus.²

² The ancients believed that by his labours Heracles had rid the world of various scourges that plagued mankind. Briareus, child of Ge and Uranus, was a monster with 50 heads and 100 hands. He came to be regarded as a typical giant.

Arrian

Bithyn fr. Roos = FGrHist 156 F 92 [=? Eustathius p. 123.35 ff. =? Stephanus of Byzantium, s.v. 'Karystos’]

• Sprawski, p. 107

  … the tradition preserved by Arrian of Nicomedia (FGrHist 156 F 92), cited by Eustathius and Stephanus of Byzantium (s.v. 'Karystos'), according to which the Aegean Sea was named after Briareus-Aegaeon, the son of Gaia and Ouranos. According to this story, he was the ruler of the Euboean town of Carystus, which was also called Aegaeon after him.

• Fowler 1988, p. 100

  With respect to Aigaion, we are told by Arrian (Bithyn fr. 35 Roos, in Eust. p. 123.35 ff. = FgrHist 156 F 92) and the local historian Archemachos (FGrHist 424 F 5, early third century B.C.) that he was a thalassocrat from Euboia.

• Fowler 2013, p. 68

  that the sea was named after a place Aigai, ... or, in euhemeristic vein, after a thalassocrat (naval power) Aigaion (Arrian, Bithyn. fr. 35 Roos = FGrHist 156 F 92, Archemachos FGrHist 424 F 5)

Antimachus

14 Matthews (= 14 Wyss) p. 108

• Matthews, p. 109
• West 2002, p. 111

Echoes of this version appear in Antimachos¹³

¹³Schol. Veron. Virg. Aen. 10.565, Homerus ... Antimachus ... armatum

Apollodorus

1.1.1

Sky was the first who ruled over the whole world. And having wedded Earth, he begat first the Hundred-handed, as they are named: Briareus, Gyes, Cottus, who were unsurpassed in size and might, each of them having a hundred hands and fifty heads.

1.1.2

After these, Earth bore him the Cyclopes, to wit, Arges, Steropes, Brontes, of whom each had one eye on his forehead. But them Sky bound and cast into Tartarus, a gloomy place in Hades as far distant from earth as earth is distant from the sky.

1.1.3

And again he begat children by Earth, to wit, the Titans as they are named: Ocean, Coeus, Hyperion, Crius, Iapetus, and, youngest of all, Cronus; also daughters, the Titanides as they are called: Tethys, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Dione, Thia.

1.1.4

But Earth, grieved at the destruction of her children, who had been cast into Tartarus, persuaded the Titans to attack their father and gave Cronus an adamantine sickle. And they, all but Ocean, attacked him, and Cronus cut off his father's genitals and threw them into the sea; and from the drops of the flowing blood were born Furies, to wit, Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megaera.¹ And, having dethroned their father, they brought up their brethren who had been hurled down to Tartarus, and committed the sovereignty to Cronus.

1.1.5

But he [Cronus] again bound and shut them [the Hundred-Handers and Cyclopes] up in Tartarus, and wedded his sister Rhea; and since both Earth and Sky foretold him that he would be dethroned by his own son, he used to swallow his offspring at birth. His firstborn Hestia he swallowed, then Demeter and Hera, and after them Pluto and Poseidon.

1.2.1

But when Zeus was full-grown, he took Metis, daughter of Ocean, to help him, and she gave Cronus a drug to swallow, which forced him to disgorge first the stone and then the children whom he had swallowed,¹ and with their aid Zeus waged the war against Cronus and the Titans.² They fought for ten years, and Earth prophesied victory³ to Zeus if he should have as allies those who had been hurled down to Tartarus. So he slew their jailoress Campe, and loosed their bonds. And the Cyclopes then gave Zeus thunder and lightning and a thunderbolt,⁴ and on Pluto they bestowed a helmet and on Poseidon a trident. Armed with these weapons the gods overcame the Titans, shut them up in Tartarus, and appointed the Hundred-handers their guards;⁵

Apollonius of Rhodes

Argonautica

1164–1166

But when, in their eagerness to reach the mainland of Mysia, they were passing within sight of the mouth of the Rhyndacus and the great tomb of Aegaeon,¹¹⁹ a short distance beyond Phrygia,

¹¹⁹ A hundred-handed giant also called Briareus (Iliad 1.403).

• Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica, edited and translated by William H. Race, Loeb Classical Library No. 1, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-674-99630-4. Online version at Harvard University Press.

Callimachus

Hymn IV to Delos

141–147

And even as when the mount of Aetna smoulders with the fire and all its secret depths are shaken as the giant under earth, even Briares, shifts to his shoulder,^a and with the tongs of Hephaestus roar furnaces and handiwork withal; and firewrought basins and tripods ring terribly as they fall one upon the other

• Boffa and Leone, p. 385

Briareos is directly related to metalworking within a tradition preserved by Callimachus, who relates him to the Giants and positions him under the volcano Aitne, in Sicily, a place strictly connected to the colonial Euboean presence; here Briareos works with the pincers of Hephaestus.

fr. 59.6 Trypanis, pp. 44, 45 = fr. 59.6 Pfeiffer = Lloyd-Jones and Parsons, SH 265.6

these [games] at the sanctuary of the god Aegaeon,^b will set it^c as a token of

^b Posidon. The Isthmian games.

^c The wreath of celery.

fr. 459 Pfeiffer

Cinaethon

Conon Heracleides fr. Kinkel, p. 223 = Conon FGrHist 26 F 2

Fowler 1988, p. 98 n. 5

⁵ Σ Ap. Rhod. 1.1165c cites a fragment of Kinaithon (p. 212 Kinkel, Epicorum graecorum frgmenta: Κιναίθων … Kinkel preserves the manuscripts’ Κόνων; Κιναίθων, which Wendell prints, is fairly certain: cf. the scholion on Ap. Rhod. 1.1357c.

Fowler 2013, p. 69

Kinaithon in the Herakleia (fr. dub. 7 Bernabé = Heraclea fr. A Davies p. 142) says that [Aegaeon] was defeated by Poseidon (as one would expect), and the scholiast who quotes him (on Ap. Rhod. 1.1165c) paraphrases κατεποντίσθη εἰς τὀ νῦν λεγόμενον ὑπὸ τοῦ Ἀπολλωνίου "ἠρίον Αἰγαίωνος", as if 'tomb of Agaion' meant the sea itself (so Wendell understands the scholiast).

Tsagalis, p. 56 n. 115

(Σ Ap. Rh. 1.1165 [p. 105.9-11 Wendel] = Conon FGrHist 26 F 2: Αἰγαίων ... ).

Sprawski, p. 107

His [Briareus/Aegaeon] double name was known also to another early poet, Cinaithon, the author of the Heracleia, cited by the scholiast to Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica (1.1165).

Euphorion

fr. 169 Lightfoot

169 Σ Dion. Perieg. 64, GGM ii. p. 434b4 Müller

169 Scholiast on Dionysius the Periegete

These pillars were initially called the pillars of Cronos, because the boundary of his kingdom lay in these regions; next they were said to belong to Briareus, as Euphorion says; and thirdly they became known as the pillars of Heracles.

cf. Scholiast on Pindar, Nemean Odes

cf. Σ Pindar, Nem. 3.40, iii. p. 48.10 Drachmann

The pillars of Heracles are also known as the pillars of Briareus, according to < Euphorion?? >:

And the pillars of Aegaeon, the Giant, lord of the sea.¹⁹⁴

¹⁹⁴ See Parthenius 34.

Hesiod

Theogony

147–162

(147) Then from Earth and Sky came forth three more sons, great and strong, unspeakable, Cottus and Briareus and Gyges, presumptuous children. A hundred arms sprang forth from their shoulders, unapproachable, and upon their massive limbs grew fifty heads out of each one’s shoulders; and the mighty strength in their great forms was immense.

(154) For all these, who came forth from Earth and Sky as the most terrible of their children,⁸ were hated by their own father from the beginning. And as soon as any of them was born, Sky put them all away out of sight in a hiding place in Earth and did not let them come up into the light, and he rejoiced in his evil deed. But huge Earth groaned within, for she was constricted, and she devised a tricky, evil stratagem. At once she created an offspring, of gray adamant, and she fashioned a big sickle and showed it to her own children.

⁸ The exact reference is unclear, but apparently only the last two sets of three children each, the Cyclopes and the Hundred-Handers, are meant, and not additionally the first set of twelve Titans.

617–629

When first their father³⁵ became angry in his spirit with Obriareus³⁶ and Cottus and Gyges, he bound them with a mighty bond, for he was indignant at their defiant manhood and their form and size; and he settled them under the broad-pathed earth. Dwelling there, under the earth, in pain, they sat at the edge, at the limits of the great earth, suffering greatly for a long time, with much grief in their hearts. [624] But Cronus’ son and the other immortal gods whom beautiful-haired Rhea bore in love with Cronus brought them back up to the light once again, by the counsels of Earth: for she told the gods everything from beginning to end, that it was together with these that they would carry off victory and their splendid vaunt.

³⁵ Sky.

³⁶ An alternate form for the name Briareus.

654–663

(654) So he spoke. And at once excellent Cottus answered him in turn: “Really, Sir, it is not something unknown you are telling us. We too know ourselves that your thoughts are supreme and your mind is supreme, and that you have revealed yourself as a protector for the immortals against chilly ruin. It is by your prudent plans that we have once again come back out from under the murky gloom, from implacable bonds—something, Lord, Cronus’ son, that we no longer hoped to experience. For that reason, with ardent thought and eager spirit we in turn shall now rescue your supremacy in the dread battle-strife, fighting against the Titans in mighty combats.”

669–675

and those whom Zeus sent up toward the light from Erebus, out from under the earth, terrible and mighty, with defiant strength. A hundred arms sprang forth from their shoulders, in the same way for all of them, and upon their massive limbs grew fifty heads out of each one’s shoulders. They took up their positions against the Titans in baleful conflict, holding enormous boulders in their massive hands;

711–720

And the battle inclined to one side. For earlier, advancing against one another they had battled incessantly in mighty combats. But then among the foremost Cottus and Briareus and Gyges, insatiable of war, roused up bitter battle; and they hurled three hundred boulders from their massive hands one after another and overshadowed the Titans with their missiles. They sent them down under the broad-pathed earth and bound them in distressful bonds after they had gained victory over them with their hands, high-spirited though they were, as far down beneath the earth as the sky is above the earth.

734–735

That is where Gyges, Cottus, and great-spirited Obriareus dwell, the trusted guards of aegis-holding Zeus.

811–819

(811) That is where the marble gates are and the bronze threshold, fitted together immovably upon continuous roots, self-generated; and in front, apart from all the gods, live the Titans, on the far side of the gloomy hasm. The celebrated helpers of loud-thundering Zeus live in mansions upon the foundations of Ocean, Cottus and Gyges; but the deep-sounding Earth-shaker made Briareus, since he was good, his son-in-law, and he gave him Cymopolea, his daughter, to wed.

Homer

Iliad

1.395–406

For often I have heard you glorying in the halls of my father, and declaring that you alone among the immortals warded off shameful ruin from the son of Cronos, lord of the dark clouds, on the day when the other Olympians wished to put him in bonds, even Hera and Poseidon and Pallas Athene. [400] But you came, goddess, and freed him from his bonds, when you had quickly called to high Olympus him of the hundred hands, whom the gods call Briareus, but all men Aegaeon [Αἰγαίων᾽]; for he is mightier than his father.¹ He sat down by the side of the son of Cronos, exulting in his glory, [405] and the blessed gods were seized with fear of him, and did not bind Zeus.

13.20–22

[20] Thrice he [Poseidon] strode in his course, and with the fourth stride he reached his goal, even Aegae, where was his famous palace builded in the depths of the mere, golden and gleaming, imperishable for ever.

Odyssey

5.380–381

[380] So saying, he [Poseidon] lashed his fair-maned horses, and came to Aegae, where is his glorious palace.

Horace

2.17.14

centimanus Gyas

the hundred-handed Gyges

3.4.69

centimanus Gyges⁶

When power is under control, the gods too raise it to greater heights; but they also hate the power that devises every kind of evil in its heart. Gyges of a hundred hands bears witness to what I have said;

Hyginus

Fabulae Theogony [Smith and Trzaskoma, p. 95]

[3] From Ether and Earth came Pain, Deception, ... Fighting, Oceans, Themis, Tartarus, and Pontus; and the Titans, Briareus, Gyges, Steropes, Atlas, Hyperion and Polus, Saturn, ...

Ion of Chios

fr. 741 Campbell

Schol. Ap. Rhod. 1. 1165c (p. 106 Wendel)

(‘the great cairn of Aegaeon’)

Ion says in a dithyramb that Aegaeon¹ was summoned from the ocean by Thetis and taken up to protect Zeus,² and that he was the son of Thalassa (Sea).³

¹ Another name for the hundred-handed giant Briareus: see Kirk on Il. 1. 403–4, West on Hesiod, Theog. 149.

² When Poseidon, Hera and Athena led a revolt against Zeus.

³ In Hesiod he is son of Uranus and Gaia (Heaven and Earth).

Ibycus

fr. 299 Campbell [= Schol. on Apollonius of Rhodes 2.777–779]

299 Schol. Ap. Rhod. 2. 777–9 (p. 187 Wendel)

299 Scholiast on Apollonius of Rhodes

It fits the story when Apollonius says Heracles went off on foot to fetch the girdle of Hippolyta . . . There are many stories about the girdle: some say it belonged to Hippolyta, others to Deïlyca. Ibycus is alone in saying that it belonged to Oeolyca, daughter of Briareus.

Lycophron

Alexandra

135

nor the pure salt of Aigaeon (Αἰγαίωνος)^j

^jPoseidon = Sea.

Nonnus

Dionysiaca

43. 361–362

"O Lord Zeus! If thou hast gratitude for Thetis and the ready hands of Briareus, if thou hast not forgot Aigaion the protector of thy laws,^a ..."

^a Cf. Il. 396 ff.

Ovid

Amores

2.1.11–18 [Loeb, Showerman, revised by Goold]

I had dared, I remember, to sing—nor was my utterance too weak—of the wars of Heaven, and Gyas¹ of the hundred hands, when Earth made her ill attempt at vengeance, and steep Ossa, with shelving Pelion on its back, was piled upon Olympus. I had in hand the thunder-clouds, and Jove with the lightning he was to hurl to save his own heaven.

¹ Gyan several MSS.: gygen P ς.

2.1.11–18 [Marlowe]

I durst the great celestiall battells tell,

Hundred-hand Gyges [Gyen], and had done it well,

With earthes revenge and how Olimpus toppe

High Ossa bore, mount Pelion up to proppe.

Jove and Joves thunderbolts I had in hand

Which for his heaven fell on the Gyants band.

Fasti

3.793–805

The star of the Kite^d slopes downwards towords the Lycaonian Bear ... If you would know what raised the bird to heaven, Saturn had been dethroned by Jupiter. In his wrath he stirred up the strong Titans to take arms and sought the help the Fates allowed him. There was a bull born of its mother Earth, a wondrous monster, the hinder part whereof was a serpent: him, at the warning of the three Fates, grim Styx had shut up in gloomy woods enclosed by a triple wall. There was an oracle that he who should burn the inwards of the bull in the flames would be able to conquer the eternal gods. [805] Briareus sacrificed him with an axe made [cont.]

^d The star is unknown; but the comming of the bird was a sign of spring. The Bear was supposed to be Callisto, daughter of Lycaon.

3.806–808

of adamant, and was just about to put the entrails on the fire: Jupiter commanded the birds to snatch them away; the kite brought them to him and was promoted to the stars for his services.

4.593

[Ceres to Jupiter:] What worse wrong could I have suffered if Gyges^a had been victorious and I his captive

^a He confuses the hundred-handed brothers with the giants who tried to storm heaven (see iii.805).

5.35–38

Earth brought forth the Giants, a fierce brood, enormous monsters, who durst assault Jove’s mansion; she gave them a thousand hands, and snakes for legs,

Metamorphoses

1.182–186

I was not more troubled than now for the sovereignty of the world when each one of the serpent-footed giants was in act to lay his hundred hands upon the captive sky. For, although that was a savage enemy, their whole attack sprung from one body and one source.

2.8–10

The sea holds the dark-hued gods: tuneful Triton, changeful Proteus, and Aegaeon, whose strong arms can overpower huge whales;

Tristia

4.7.18

[included in a list of hard to believe things:] a hundred-handed Gyes

P.Oxy. X 1241 col. IV

Boffa and Leone, p. 385

"the first to use metal armour was Briareos, whilst previously men protected their bodies with animal skins."

Palaephatus

19

Stern, p. 50 [in folder]

Parthenius

fr. 34 Lightfoot

34 Σ Dion. Perieg. 456, GGM ii. p. 448b25 Müller

34 Scholiast on Dionysius the Periegete

...Cádiz, and that is where the pillars of Heracles are. Dionysus’ are in the east. Parthenius says the pillars belong to Briareus:

To bear us witness, at Cádiz he left a record (?), Erasing the old name of ancient Briareus.²⁷

²⁷ One of the hundred-handers or hekatogcheirs [sic] who supported Zeus against the Titans in Hesiod’s Theogony. For his connection with the Pillars of Heracles, see Aristotle fr. 678 Rose, Plut. Mor. 420 a, and Euphorion 169.

Pausanias

2.1.6

A legend of the Corinthians about their land is not peculiar to them, for I believe that the Athenians were the first to relate a similar story to glorify Attica. The Corinthians say that Poseidon had a dispute with Helius （Sun） about the land, and that Briareos arbitrated between them, assigning to Poseidon the Isthmus and the parts adjoining, and giving to Helius the height above the city.

Ever since, they say, the Isthmus has belonged to Poseidon.

2.4.6

The Acrocorinthus is a mountain peak above the city, assigned to Helius by Briareos when he acted as adjudicator, and handed over, the Corinthians say, by Helius to Aphrodite. As you go up this Acrocorinthus you see two precincts of Isis, one if Isis surnamed Pelagian （Marine） and the other of Egyptian Isis, and two of Serapis, one of them being of Serapis called “in Canopus.” After these are altars to Helius, and a sanctuary of Necessity and Force, into which it is not customary to enter.

Philostratus

Life of Apollonius of Tyana

4.6

poured a libation saying: "O ye Gods, who are patrons of the Ionians, may ye grant .... and, Aegeon, the author of earthquakes, may never shake down their cities."

Plato

Laws

795.c

[795c] ... Indeed, if a man were gifted by nature with the frame of a Geryon or a Briareus, with his hundred hands he ought to be able to throw a hundred darts.

Pliny the Elder

Natural History

7.207 [= Archemachus FGrHist 424 F 5 (see Sprawski, p. 118)]

The first voyage made in a long ship is attributed by Philostephanus to Jason, by Hegesias to Parhalus, by Ctesias to Samiramis, and by Archemachus to Aegaeo.

Plutarch

Moralia

93 c (On Having Many Friends)

Briareus of the hundred hands

420 a (Obsolescence of Oracles)

Moreover, they said that in this part of the world there is one island where Cronus is confined, guarded while he sleeps by Briareus; for his sleep has been devised as a bondage for him, and round about him are many demigods as attendants and servants.

470 e (On Tranquility of Mind)

unless, indeed, you make a Briareus or a Heracles your opponent.

940 e (Concerning the Face Which Appears in the Orb of the Moon)

Schol. on Apollonius of Rhodes

1.1165c

p. 61 [Internet Archive]

p. 431

Ῥυνδαχὸς ... Φρυγιας, ... . Ταἵς ... Βριἁρεω ... . Καλλιμαχος ... Άσιαν ... Δημήτριος ό Σχήψιος ... . Ἄλλος.

κατεποντίσθη [overwhelmed] εἰς τὀ νῦνὶ λεγόμενον ὑπὸ τοῦ Ἀπολλωνίου ἠρίον [cont.]

p. 432

Αἰγαίωνος, ... Βριάρεων ... Νησιάδος ... τῆς Καρυστίας τῆς Αὶγαίης ὀνομάζομένης ... Εὔμηλος δὲ ἐν τῆ Τιτανομαχίαι τὸν Αἰγαίωνα Γῆς καὶ Πόντου φησὶ παῖδα, κατοικοῦντα δὲ ἐν τῆ θαλάσση τοῖς Τιτᾶσι συμμαχεῖν. ... Καὶ Ἴων φησὶν ἐν διθυράμβῳ, ἐχ μὲν τοῦ πελάγους αὐτὸν παραχληθέντα ὑπὸ Θέτιδος ἀναχθῆναι φυλάξοντα τὸν Δία· Θαλάσσης δὲ παῖδα. ... θαλάσσιον θηρίον

Hasluck, p. 54

the scholiast on Apollonius, who says that the ... ἤρίον Αἰγαίῶνος marked the place where Aegaeon was overwhelmed (κατεποντίσθη) by Poseidon: Aegaeon is considered by the scholiast to be identical with Briareus or (according to Demetrius of Scepsis) a Mysian hero. Arrian² says that the tomb of Briareus, a hill which was also called after Aegaeon, was shewn by the Rhydacus: from which flowed a hundred springs which were called the arms of Briareus.

Fowler 2013, p. 69

... κατεποντίσθη εἰς τὀ νῦν λεγόμενον ὑπὸ τοῦ Ἀπολλωνίου "ἠρίον Αἰγαίωνος" ['tomb of Aigaion'],

Kinkel, p. 212

... δὲ ἐν τῆ Ήραλείᾳ ...

Fowler 1988, p. 98 n. 5

... Κιναίθων δὲ ἐν τῆ Ήραλείᾳ ...

Eumelus fr. 3 West pp. 224–225

Εὔμηλος δὲ ἐν τῆι Τιτανομαχίαι τὸν Αἰγαίωνα Γῆς καὶ Πόντου φησὶ παῖδα, κατοικοῦντα δὲ ἐν τῆι θαλάσσηι τοῖς Τιτᾶσι συμμαχεῖν.

Eumelus in the Titanomachy says that Aigaion was the son of Earth and Sea, lived in the sea, and fought on the side of the Titans.⁴

⁴ Compare Antimachus, fr. 14 Matthews.

• West 2002, p. 110: The scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius ...

Ion of Chios fr. 741

καὶ Ἴων φησὶν ἐν διθυράμβῳ ἐκ μὲν τοῦ πελάγους αὐτὸν (sc. τὸν Αἰγαίωνα) παρακληθέντα ὑπὸ Θέτιδος ἀναχθῆναι φυλάξοντα τὸν Δία· Θαλάσσης δὲ παῖδα.

(‘the great cairn of Aegaeon’)

Ion says in a dithyramb that Aegaeon¹ was summoned from the ocean by Thetis and taken up to protect Zeus,² and that he was the son of Thalassa (Sea).³

¹ Another name for the hundred-handed giant Briareus: see Kirk on Il. 1. 403–4, West on Hesiod, Theog. 149.

² When Poseidon, Hera and Athena led a revolt against Zeus.

³ In Hesiod he is son of Uranus and Gaia (Heaven and Earth).

West 2002, p. 111 n. 10

θαλάσσιον θηρίον

LSJ s.v. θα^λάσσ-ιος: A. of, in, on, or from the sea,

LSJ s.v. θηρίον: A. wild animal, esp. of such as are hunted ... III. as a term of reproach, beast, creature

[= sea monster?]

Fowler 2013, p. 68

Competing explanations were the [Aegean] sea was named after a place Aigai ( ... schol. Ap. Rhod. 1.1165c, Eust. Il. 252.14), ...

Bakhuizen, p. 140 n. 28

Statius ... Schol. on Apoll. Rh. I. 1165:... τῆς Καρυστίας τῆς Αὶγαίης ὀνομάζομένης

Schol. on Iliad

1.404a (Aristarchus)

• Fowler 1988, p. 96 n. 1

the A-scholion on Il. 1.404 (whose impliction is that thus view of Aigaion's parentage [as the son of Poseidon] was held by Aristarchos), ...

• West 2002, p. 111 n. 10

ἐνάλιος δαίμων

D 1.399 (Didymus)

• Fowler 1988, p. 96 n. 1

... and the D-scholion to Il. 1.399 (repeated in A): Ζεὺς παραλαβὼν ... Αιγαίωνα ... θαλάσσιος δαίμων ... ταῦτα ἐταμιεύσατο. The subscription reads ... Δίδυμος; M. van der Valk, Researches on the Text and Scholia of the Iliad 1 (leiden 1963) 244, gives reasons for thinking the subscription reliable in this case.

West 2002, p. 111 n. 10

θαλάσσιος δαίμων

LSJ s.v. δαίμων: god

LSJ s.v. θα^λάσσ-ιος: A. of, in, on, or from the sea,

Semos

Nesias

• Stevens, p. 342
• p. 1343
• Fowler 1988, p. 100

Servius

On Aeneid

6.287

centumgeminus briareus centies ...

West 2002, p. 112

Who, as some record, waged war on the gods' behalf against the Giants; but as others affirm, he fought against the gods, above all on the occasion when Jupiter and Saturn were contesting for the kingship of heaven. Hence they record that he was driven down by Jupiter to the underworld with a thunderbolt.

10.565

aegaeon qualis ...

West 2002, p. 112

Others say he was born from Earth and Sea, and had Koios¹⁵ and Gyges as his brothers. He is said to have assisted Jupiter against the Titans; or as some would have it, to have assisted Saturn.

Solinus

• Farnell, p. 26 note c

Solinus, 11.16 Titanas in ea (Euboea) antiquissime regnasse ostendunt ritus religionum. Briereo enim rem divinam Carystii faciunt, sicut Aegaeoni Chalcidenses: nam omnis fere Euboea Titanum fuit regnum.

• Fowler 1988, p. 101 n. 20

Titanas in ea [sc. Euboea] ...

Statius

Thebaid

2.595–601

Not otherwise in Getic Phlegra, if we may believe it, did vast Briareus stand against heaven in arms, despising Phoebus’ quiver on one side and the snakes of frowning Pallas on another, there Mars’ steel-tipped Pelethronian pine, here thunderbolt after thunderbolt till Pyracmon grows weary; assailed in vain by all Olympus, he complains that so many hands⁵⁴ are idle.

⁵⁴ He had a hundred.

[1]

rocky Carystos, nor of lowlying Aegae and lofty Caphereus.

• West 2002, p. 111 n. 14

Statius, Theb. 2.596, is probably dependent on Virgil.

• Matthews, p. 109

Wyss (9, cf: X n.1) declares that Statius is dependent not on Antimachus but on Virgil, Aen. 10.565 ff.: ... But ...

Strabo

8.7.4

The order of the places in which the Achaeans settled, after dividing the country into twelve parts, is as follows: ... third, Aegae, which has a temple of Poseidon; ... Of the same name as this Aegae is the Aegae in Euboea; ... And [Homer] speaks of both places called Aegae: the Achaean Aegae, when he says, "yet they bring up gifts for thee into both Helice and Aegae"⁷ but when he says, "Aegae, where is his famous palace in the deeps of the mere,"⁸ "where Poseidon halted his horses,"⁹ it is better to take him as meaning the Aegae in Euboea, from which it is probable that also the Aegean Sea got its name; and here too the poet has placed the activities of Poseidon in connection with the Trojan War.

⁸ Hom. Il. 13.21

⁹ Hom. Il. 13.34

9.2.13

Opposite this seaboard is situated, it is said, the Aegae³ in Euboea, in which is the temple of the Aegaean Poseidon, which I have mentioned before. The distance across the strait from Anthedon to Aegae is one hundred and twenty stadia, but from the other places it is much less. The temple is situated on a high mountain, where there was once a city. And Orobiae also is near Aegae.

³ See Hom. Il. 13.21, Hom. Od. 5.381. Aegae was on the site of the modern Limni, or else a little to the south of it (see Pauly-Wissowa, s.v. "Aigai."

Titanomachy

fr. 1 (Evelyn-White via Theoi)

Photius, Epitome of the Chrestomathy of Proclus:

The Epic Cycle begins with the fabled union of Heaven and Earth, by which they make three hundred-handed sons and three Cyclopes to be born to him.

fr. 3 (Evelyn-White via Theoi)

Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius, Arg. i. 1165:

Eumelus says that Aegaeon was the son of Earth and Sea and, having his dwelling in the sea, was an ally of the Titans.

Virgil

Aeneid

3.74

mother of the Nereids and Aegean Neptune,

6.282–294

There in the middle court a shadowy elm
Its ancient branches spreads, and in its leaves
Deluding visions ever haunt and cling.
Then come strange prodigies of bestial kind :
Centaurs are stabled there, and double shapes
Like Scylla, or the dragon Lerna bred,
With hideous scream; Briareus clutching far
His hundred hands, Chimaera girt with flame,
A crowd of Gorgons, Harpies of foul wing,
And giant Geryon's triple-monstered shade.
Aeneas, shuddering with sudden fear,
Drew sword and fronted them with naked steel;
And, save his sage conductress bade him know
These were but shapes and shadows sweeping by,
His stroke had cloven in vain the vacant air.

10.565–571

Like old Aegaeon of the hundred arms,
the hundred-handed, from whose mouths and breasts
blazed fifty fiery blasts, as he made war
with fifty sounding shields and fifty swords
against Jove's thunder;—so Aeneas raged
victorious o'er the field, when once his steel
warmed to its work.

Modern

Bachvarova

p. 257

" ... between the Sea-god Yam and the Storm-god Baal, ¹⁶⁶ ... ¹⁶⁶ M. L. West notes that ... could be derived from the conflict between the Storm-god and the Sea.

Bakhuizen

p. 90

Other Cults [of Chalcis]

Aigaion. Solinus XI, 16.

p. 125

It is sometimes surmised that an early town of Agaea lay to the north of Chacis. This view is based on Steph. Byz. s.v. Αἰγαί. ..., and on Strabo IX, 2, 13, p. 405C, ... Caution may be exercised.

p. 126

... The association of the name of Agae with Carystos²⁸ (with a Poseidon temple at Geristos²⁹) may be another petrification of the ancient term. The connection of Aigaion-Briareos with Euboea³⁰ belongs to the same sphere.

... In an early epoch the whole of Euboea could be named Aegae, I believe. It was the world of Aigaion.

p. 140

28. Statius ... Schol. on Apoll. Rh. I. 1165:... τῆς Καρυστίας τῆς Αὶγαίης ὀνομάζομένης

Boffa and Leone

p. 383

The record shows that Poseidon was worshipped in several Euboean communities: in Aigai, as attested by Homer (Il. XIII, 21), who does not mention more than the toponym. However Strabo, quoting his verses in book VIII (7.4), thinks this should be identified with the town in Euboea and not in Achaea. Moreover in book IX, the geographer provides us with a location for this Aigai, oppossite Larimna and Halai in Boetia, and adds that here there was a tou Poseisonos hieron tou Aigaiou.¹⁶ Hesychius adds: s.v. Αἰγαί. νῆσος πρὸς τῆ Εὐβοίᾳ, ἱερὸν Ποσειδῶνος. Aigai has not been located with certainty, but it was probably near modern Limni. It was a deme of Chalkis, as attedted in a Delphic proxeny decree dated to the end of the 4th or the begining of the 3rd century BC.

16. The possible connection between the cult of Poseidon at Agai and the epclesis Aigaios found in Homer is not accepted by Knoepfler (2000, 338).

p. 384

Homer says, ... [cont.]

p. 385

... he is stronger than his father. It is not easy to understand who is the father being named by the poet: some scholars suggest Poseidon, but there is no solid evidence to support this idea.³⁹

It is logical and realistic to think of a fusion of two entities: ‘the strong one’, Briareos, referring to the strength due to his 100 arms, and the sea-god, Aigaion, perhaps belonging to a pre-Greek tradition.⁴⁴

Briareos is directly related to metalworking within a tradition preserved by Callimachus, who relates him to the Giants and positions him under the volcano Aitne, in Sicily, a place strictly connected to the colonial Euboean presence; here Briareos works with the pincers of Hephaestus.⁴⁵ Furthermore, a papyrus from Oxyrinchus tells us that "the first to use metal armour was Briareos, whilst previously men protected their bodies with animal skins." Before this passage, the papyrus refers to the invention of weapons, which is attributed, as some say, to the Cyclopes in a cave in Euboea called Teuchion.⁴⁶

Aigaion, on the other hand, is mainly connected to the sea. … first user of a longa nave … He is also connected, in several ways, to Poseidon (Briareos married the daughter of Poseidon, Kymopoleia.⁵⁰ Moreover, he was defeated by Poseidon in Propontis, where there is, near the mouth of the River Ryndakos, a place named ‘the grave of Aigaion’⁵¹), to the Aigaion Sea and to both of them.

… Following other sources, it is [cont.]

45. Callim. H. IV, 141-147.

46. P.Oxy. X 1241 col. IV.

50. Hes. Theog. 817-819.

51. Ap. Rhod. I, 1165.

p. 386

possible to suggest that Solinus misunderstood the matter. Karystos, in fact, was connected mainly to Aigaion: the city was called also Aigaia by the dynastes Aigaion (another interesting element), who also gave his name to the Aigaion (Aegean) Sea.53 Briareos, on the other hand, as we have seen, is related to metalworking, a specific Chalkidian skill,54 and to the Chalkidian area of Sicily; thus he would seem more appropriate to Chalkis. Moreover, the connection with Euboea is clear on two other occasions: a scholium of the already cited text of Apollonius, which describes the escape of Briareos from Euboea to Phrygia,55 and an entry of Hesychius, which informs us about Titanis Euboea, a daughter of Briareos.

54. See Mele 1981.


55. Schol. Ap. Rhod. I, 1165. e source recalls the late opinion of Lucius Tarrheius.

Bos

[In folder]

p. 73

Plutarch described Kronos as having been put in custody, and also talked about a figure charged with the duty of guarding him. H. Cherniss has proposed to reconstruct the relevant text in such a way that it mentions the giant Briareus as Kronos' guard.⁸

Aristotle talked about the figure of Briareus too, namely when he reported that the 'pillars of Hercules' ... used to be called the 'pillars of Briareus'.⁹ ...

Plutarch also points out that the islands of Briareus and Kronos lie west of Britannia at a distance of five days travel. The later island is mentioned in the Corpus Aristotelicum in De mundo 3.¹¹

⁹ Aelianus, Var. Hist. 5.3: ... = V. Rose³, Aristoteles, Fragm. 678 (there included among the Dubia).

Bremmer

p. 76

Aigaion was the eponymous ruler of Carystus-Aigaie and worshipped in Euboean Chalcis, whereas Briereos was the father of Euboea (Hsch. τ 972).²¹ The mythological tradition of the Hundred-Hander(s) thus points to the island of Euboea. This is hardly contradicted by the fact that Kottos is a typically Thracian name,²² since Thracian influence on Euboea is not improbable, considering its relative vicinity. As Homer, like the Titanomachy, mentions only one Hundred-Hander whom "the gods call Briareos but all mortals Aigaion" (Il. I.403),²³ Hesiod probably expanded upon an older tradition of only one Hundred-Hander.

²¹ Solinus 11.16; Steph. Byz. s.v. Karystos; schol. AR 1.1165; Eust. on Il. II.539. Verg. Aen. 10.565 (with Harrison) still pictures him as an opponent of Zeus.

Caldwell

p. 9

When Zeus grows up he releases his uncles, the Kyklopes and Hundred-Handed, from their prison within the earth, and joins his brothers and sisters, whom Kronos has been forced to disgorge, to begin the great war between the gods and the Titans.

p. 37

on lines 147–153

The three Hundred-Handed, as later mythographers call them, do not have names as explicitly metaphoric as those of the Kyklopes. Kottos seems to be a Thracian name, Briareus has connotations of strength, and Gyges may be related to Ogyges, a mythical Attic king (West, T 209-210). The name Ogyges became synonymous with "primaeval"; the "primal water" of Styx (805) is "hydor ogygion."

on lines 154–160

All the children of Ouranos share Kronos' attribute of "most terrible," and the reason for this, as well as the reason Kronos hated his father, is now made clear; their father hates them and refuses to allow them to come out of the body of their mother, and he fears that his children will want to follow his example and replace him (In 16). The "dark hole" of Gaia in which the children are confined is presumably her womb, and this innermost place of the earth may also be Tartaros. The means by which Ouranos suppresses his children must be continuous sexual intercourse with Gaia; this would explain why their imprisonment will be ended immediately by castration.

p. 56

on lines 501–506

The "uncles" (501) must be the Kyklopes, who were imprisoned in Tartaros by Ouranos and who will give Zeus the lightning (504-505); the freeing of their brothers the Hundred-Handed, will be reported in 617-626.

p. 65

on line 636

We learn now that the war has already lasted for ten years when Zeus learns from Gaia of the need for the Hundred-Handed.

Dowden

p. 36

TITANOMACHY, TYPHON, GIGANTOMACHY

Zeus's control of the order of the universe ...

p. 36

The key part is played by the Hundred-Handers (Hekattoncheires), Kottos, Briareos and Gyges. In Eumelos, it would seem, the sea-monster Aegaeon-Briareos 'blazed fire from fifty upper bodies and clattered so many shields against the thunderbolts of Jove'.²⁰ This version is closer to the pattern on Near-Eastern myths like the myth form Ugarit (on the coast of what later became Syria), cited by West, in which Baal fights the seven-headed dragon Yammu (the sea).²¹

Farnell

p. 26 note c

^c Solinus, 11, 16 Titanas ... in regnum. Dr. Mayer supposes Briareus-Aegaeon to be an older cult-title of Poseidon: but it appears more probable that Poseidon took the title occassionally of this older Euboean sea-giant: vide Callimach. Frag. 106.

Fowler 1988

p. 96

... who is stronger than Poseidon¹ ... The story is anything but well-known; it occurs in surviving literature nowhere else but here, and other sources' inability to say who Aigaion's father was suggests they knew no other versions. In fact [cont.]

¹ Aigaion is not called a son of Poseidon in earlier sources, who call him rather a son of Pontos (Eumelos, quoted below, n. 5) or simply of the sea (Ion of Chios ‘’apud’’ S. Ap. Rh. 1.1165c = Page, ‘’PMG’’ 741). … the A-scholion on Il. 1.404 (whose impliction is that thus view of Aigaion's parentage [as the son of Poseidon] was held by Aristarchos), and the D-scholion to Il. 1.399 (repeated in A): Ζεὺς παραλαβὼν ... Αιγαίωνα ... θαλάσσιος δαίμων ... ταῦτα ἐταμιεύσατο. The subscription reads ... Δίδυμος; M. van der Valk, Researches on the Text and Scholia of the Iliad 1 (leiden 1963) 244, gives reasons for thinking the subscription reliable in this case. ...

p. 97

it is very likely Homer's invention. based upon the better-known story of the Hundred-handers who helped the Olympians in Hesiod's Theogony and the single fact of a double-named, reputedly fearful, but largely retired sea-god.² ...

... It is difficult to believe, however, that Briareos, who is summoned from (one presumes) the sea by a sea-goddess, acquired his connection with all things Αἰγαι-, the Aegean sea [cont.]

² ... the invention does not include the name of Aigaion: see below, n. 5.

p. 98

foremost among them, by a linguistic accident. Moreover, there is good evidence, both early and independent of Homer, for the god's double name.⁵

⁵ Σ Ap. Rhod. 1.1165c cites a fragment of Kinaithon (p. 212 Kinkel, Epicorum graecorum frgmenta: Κιναίθων … καλῶν) and Eumelos (Titanomachia fr. 2, p. 6 Kinkel: ...). In the first passage Kinkel preserves the manuscripts’ Κόνων; Κιναίθων, which Wendell prints, is fairly certain: cf. the scholion on Ap. Rhod. 1.1357c. Antimachos fr. 14 Wyss and Vergil (‘’Aen.’’ 10.585) echo this tradition. A Corinthian story in Pausanias (2.1.6, 2.4.6) holds that Briareos settled a dispute between Poseidon and Helios, giving the Isthmos to the former, and Acrocorinth to the latter;

p. 99

... If Homer actually thought that Poseidon was Aigain's father, he either conveniently forgot it or did not notice the embarrassing consequences of using the motif; but he does not in fact say that Poseidon was his father, and we do not know what he thought.¹¹

II ΑΙΓ- AND THE SEA

Aigaion in Homer is, it seems, a sea-god. Other evidence exists for connecting our root with the sea.

¹¹ ... The name Aigaion, as has sometimes been pointed out, could be a patronymic by formation (Lattimore, for example, translates "Aigaios' son");

p. 100

... the site would be a rival to Karystos in Euboia, which was also known as Aigaie, according to the Nesias just mentioned, Stephanos of Byzantion s.v. Κάρυστος, and Eustathios p. 281.3. With respect to Aigaion, we are told by Arrian (Bithyn fr. 35 Roos, in Eust. p. 123.35 ff. = FgrHist 156 F 92) and the local historian Archemachos (FGrHist 424 F 5, early third century B.C.) that he was a thalassocrat from Euboia. The euhemeristic nature of this story does not inspire confidence in antuquity, but the connection with Euboia, having no motivation within the story itself, may be inherited and significant (see below, note 20). Another tradition makes Aigaion a Mysian hero whose tomb was located at the mouth of the Rhyndakos river.¹⁴ Lykillos, whom Gudeman dates to the mid-first century B. C. (RE 13.2 [1927] 1785 ff.), was probably trying to reconcile conflicting traditions when he said that Aigaion fled from Euboia to Mysia; significantly, he calls him a Giant (functionally the same as a Titan). He may may be thinking, therefore, of the Aigaion of epic, and the occasion for his flight was perhaps the Titan’s defeat by Poseidon.¹⁵

Other information connecting the root αιγ- with the sea is not lacking. Hesychius preserves the words αἰγες and αἰγάδες meaning "waves" (α 1679, 1700 Latte).¹⁶ αἰγιαλός means "shore;" ... Aigai is moreover the legendary home of Poseidon himself (Il. 13.21, Od. 5.381).

¹⁴ Kallim. fr. 459 Pf., Ap. Rhod. 1.1165, Lykillos of Tarrha in Σ Ap. Rhod. 1.1165d, Demetrios of Skepsis fr. 71 Gaede. ("Skepsis" depends on a fairly secure emendation in Σ Ap. Rhod. 1.1165c; ...

¹⁵ Above, n. 5. Eust. on Dion. Per. 135 = Müller, GGM 2.240.23, tells us that the sea was named for the Homeric Aigaion, but he is the only source to do so.

p. 101

The relations of Poseidon and Aigaion bear further discussion. We have already seen that they are not father and son; the version of Kinaithon and Eumelos is to be preferred that Aigaion was a Titan/Giant whom Poseidon defeatred in battle. Wilamowitz observed that the name Aigaion can mean "the man form Aiga(i),"¹⁸ being formed like ... Aigai survives as the legendary home of Poseidon, and is the site of his actual worship in Achaia, Euboia and Lakonia (Aigai).²⁰ We observe further that Kallimachos (fr. 59.6 Pfeiffer = Lloyd-Jone and Parsons, SH 265.6) and Lykophron (135) used Αιγαίων as an epithet of Poseidon.

²⁰ ... For the temple of Poseidon at Euboian Aigai see Strabo 9.405, who however has not seen it. The location of his Aigai is controversial. ... M. B. Wallace, ... makes a good case that Strabo ... is quite confused, and that there is but one famous Euboian Aigai, situated on the windswept promintory of Philagra (between Karystos and Kaphereus). The same scholar ingeniously suggests that the ... if so, we have further evidence for the association of Aigai and the storm of the Nostoi. Further evidence for a Titanic Aigaion with Euboia is provided by Solinus 11.16: Titanas ...

p. 102

That Aigaion was a diety of the pre-Hellenic religion is a hypothesis easily suggested by the evidence.

Perhaps more than anything, the connections of Aigaion with the name of the sea and with the great storm at Aigai lead one to think that he was the pre-Greek sea-god. ...

Fowler 2013

p. 26

Hesiod in the Theogony is somewhat unclear as to the history of these fearsome brothers. the data are these ... We infer retrospectively that when Kronos severed Ouranos' genitals, only his fellow Titans were released, not the Kyklopes and Hundred-Handers, even though his action should have resulted in the release of everyone imprisoned in Gaia.⁸⁸ Apollodorus, Bibl. 1.4, solves this problem ...

Hesiod does not use the expression 'Hundred-Handers' but describes the brothers as having one hundred hands. Homer, however, does apply the adjective to Briareos/Aigaion in his unusual story at Il. 1.399-406 (-> 1.8.5), which shows that it was to be found in earlier epic tradition (i.e. not Akousilaos' invention; also at Pindar VIIIa21 = B₃ Rutherford).

p. 68

The scholion [to Ap. Rhod. 1.831 (71.19 Wendel), see Fowler 2001 p. 303] gives various explanations for the name of the Aegean Sea. The story most famous in modern times about its naming, that involving the leap of Aigeus, father of Theseus, ... Competing explanations were that the sea was named after a place Aigai (vel sim.: Strab. 8.7.4, 13.1.168, schol. Ap. Rhod. 1.1165c, Eust. Il. 252.14), or after a Mysian hero at Rhyndakos (Ap. Rhod. loc. cit. with scholia citing Kallim. fr. 459, Demetrios of Skepsis fr. 71 and Lukillos of Tarrha, who makes him a Giant), or, in euhemeristic vein, after a thalassocrat (naval power) Aigaion (Arrian, Bithyn. fr. 35 Roos = FGrHist 156 F 92, Archemachos FGrHist 424 F 5)²⁶²

Pherekydes (fr. 43) said that the sea is called after Poseidon, for he bore the epithet 'Aigios'. The epithet is not particulary common, buit it is attested in the contemporary satyr-dramatist Aristias (TrGF 9 F 1); ...

p. 69

In the Titanomachy (fr. 3), Aigaion, son of Pontos, fought with the Titans against the gods (cf. Antimachos fr. 14 Matthews, Verg. Aen. 10.565, Stat. Theb. 2.596); Kinaithon (fr. dub. 7 Bernabé = Heraclea fr. A Davies p. 142) says that he was defeated by Poseidon (as one would expect), and the scholiast who quotes him (on Ap. Rhod. 1.1165c) paraphrases κατεποντίσθη εἰς τὀ νῦν λεγόμενον ὑπὸ τοῦ Ἀπολλωνίου "ἠρίον Αἰγαίωνος", as if 'tomb of Aigaion' meant the sea itself (so Wendell understands the scholiast). In Hesiod ... Either way, we are dealing with a somewhat shadowy figure of early legend, a member of the previous generation of gods. Above all because of the name of the Aegean sea itself, the guess is easy that he was a pre-Greek sea-god, perhaps the pre-Greek sea-god, ousted by Poseidon upon arrival.²⁶⁴ Various evidence connects the root αἰγ- with the sea: the words αἰγιαλός 'shore', αἰγες and αἰγάδες 'waves', perhaps αἰγίς ... the legendar home of Poseidon ...

p. 70

Gantz

p. 10

Last come three more brothers, the Hundred-Handers, the most monstrous of all with their fifty heads and hundred hands, Kottos, Briareos (or Obriareos), and Gyges (Th 147-53). What follows in Hesiod is not entirely clear—Ouranos hates his children, perhaps just the last six but more likely all eighteen, and as soon as they are born imprisons them deep within earth, that is both underground and in the womb of their mother. The reason for his hatred may be their horrible appearance, though Hesiod does not quite say this (Th 155 comes close to implying it as the reason). In any event, he delights in the deed, and Gaia in her anger and distress fashions a sickle of adamant, after which she asks her children to take revenge on their father. Only Kronos has the courage to volunteer, and is placed by his mother in ambush (inside her body, we will understand, if he too is prisoner) to await Ouranos.

p. 44

In Hesiod, Zeus' first act after recovering the other Olympians is to release the Kyklopes; they remember the favor, and in return give him the thunderbolt, which Gaia had previously hidden (Th 501-6). Subsequently ... we find the same tale related at greater length of the Hundred-Handers, with the addition that Gaia advised the release so that the Olympians might win victory (Th 617-23).

p. 45

Hesiod's account does not quite say whether the Hundred-Handers were freed before the conflict or only in the tenth year. Either way the gods appeal to these older powers for help, and Kottos promises their assistance.

... Eventually, if not at the beginning, the Hundred-Handers are fighting, but the battle is not turned until Zeus strikes forth from Olympos with his thunderbolt. The heat stuns the Titans, the glare blinds them, and the Hundred-Handers, after pelting them with stones, bind them up and cast them down into Tartaros, as far below earth as heaven is above. There the Hundred-Handers guard them (though Briareos is later married to Poseidon's daughter Kymopoleia: Th 817-19) by the will of Zeus. This Briareos is a more complex figure than one might expect, since in both the Iliad and the Titanomachia he has an alter ego, Aigaion, to whom we will be returining in discussing Zeus' rule (Il 400-406; Tit fr 3 PEG). ... Apollodorus would seem acquainted with a more detailed version of some events than that given by Hesiod, for he tells us that Zeus slew a female guard named Kampe in orer to release those under the earth (ApB 1.2.1).

p. 59

On the one occasion on which Hera, Athena, and Poseidon do make a serious attempt, by plotting to bind him, Thetis summons Briareos/Aigaion to his side, and the conspiritors hastily abandon their plans (Il. 1.396–406). This story survives only in the Iliad, ... Ion of Chios seems to have told the tale as well, or at least mentioned the summoning of Aigaion to Olympos by Thetis (741 PMG); we cannot say whether he had other sources besides Homer. Though the Iliad scholia also reflect puzzlement, the A group recounts Didymos' story that Hera, Poseidon, Athena, and Apollo plotted against Zeus because of his high-handedness and outspoken nature; when Aigaion saved him, he hung up Hera in her own chains and bound Poseidon and Apollo to serve Laomedon (ΣA Il 1.399).

Grimal

s.v. Aegaeon p. 16

Among the hundred-handed giants (Hecatoncheires) there was one called Briareus by the gods and Aegaeon by mortals. Together with his brothers he took part in the struggle against the Titans in alliance with the Olympians. Sometimes he is portrayed in the role of the warder of the Titans in their underground prison, together with his two brothers, and sometimes it is said that Poseidon rewarded him for his courage in the struggle by giving him the hand of his daughter Cymopolea and exempting him from keeping guard over the Titans. When the Olympians Hera, Athena and Poseidon wanted to put Zeus in chains it was Aegaeon that Thetis turned to for help, and his mere presence and the fear of his prodigious strength was enough to deter them from their plan.

Oddly enough one tradition claims that this faithful friend and loyal adherent of Zeus was an ally of the Titans, with whom he is said to have fought against the Olympians.

s.v. Gyes

s.v. Hecatoncheires p. 182

Giants who were endowed with a hundred arms and fifty heads. The were three in number: Cottus, Briareus (or AEGAEON), GYGES (or Gyes). They were the sons of Uranus and Gaia (Table 12), and belonged to the same generation as the Cyclopes. Like the latter thye fought on the side of Zeus and the Olympians in the war against the Titans. Euhemeristic interpretations claim that the Hecatoncheires were not giants but men, who lived in the city of Hecatoncheiria in Macedonia. They were have helped the inhabitants of the city of Olympia in their struggle against the Titans, who were finally expelled from the region.

Hansen

p. 25

It is in this darkness [of Tartarus] that Zeus keeps hidden the defeated Titans, who cannot hope to escape, for Poseidon has installed a bronze door, and the Hundred-Handers, serving presumably as guards, live nearby.

p. 66

The Succession of World Rulers

Gaia mated with Ouranos, ...the Hundred-Handers, each with fifty heads and a hundred arms.

But Ouranos, who understood only sexuality, hated his children, and as each child was born pushed it back into Gaia, causing her to groan in pain. Taking countermeasures, she ...

p. 67

The fight raged without resolution for ten years. Finally Zeus released the Hundred-Handers, gave them nectar and ambrosia, and asked them to engage in battle on the side of the Olympians in return for their release. Acknowledging the superior intelligence of Zeus and their debt to him, the Hundred-Handers agreed. In a final encounter ... Hurling 300 rocks at a time, the Hundred-Handers drove the Titans into the earth. There they fettered them, putting them in Tartaros, ...

p. 159

The three Hundred-Handers—Kottos, Briareos, and Gyges—are similarly homogeneous in appearance and function. Each brother is a terrifying fighting machine, having fifty heads and a hundred arms, so that together they are able to throw 300 rocks simultaneously. By means of this firepower they overwhelmed the Titans in the battle between the Titans and the Olympians, driving them down into Tartaros, where subsequently the Hundred-Handers themselves took up residence, presumably in order to guard the Titans (Theogony 147-153, 617-735).

p. 231

The Hundred-Handers ... they each posses a hundred arms and fifty heads, ...

p. 293

SUCCESSION MYTH

Myth recounting the successive reigns of the first rulers of the gods.

The first ruler of the gods was Ouranos (Sky), who mated with his mother Gaia (Earth), ... To Gaia's distress, Ouranos did not allow his children to be born, either because he engaged in continual sexual intercourse with Gaia or because he shoved them back into their mother, imprisoning them within her (our principal source for the myth, Hesiod, somewhat confusingly conflates these two images). So she ...

p. 294

imprisoning them permanently in Tartaros, where they are guarded by the Hundred-Handers.

Hard

p. 32

Gaia bore three sets of children to Ouranos, first a group of primordial gods who were know as the Titans (properly Titanes in Greek), then two sets of monsters the one-eyed Kyklopes and the hunfred-armed giants who came to be known as the Hekatocheires or Hundred-Handers. Ourenos hated them all, however, and prevented them from emerging into the light, causing such anguish to Gaia that she finally urged them to take action against him.

p. 65

THE GREEK SUCCESSION MYTH

In the standard version of the succession myth, as recounted by Hesiod, the Titans were the first-born children of the primordial couple Gaia (Earth) and Ouranos (Sky), [cont.]

p. 66

who then generated two sets on monsters, the Kyklopes and the Hekatoncheires (Hundred-Handers).²

...

The second group of monstrous sons of Ouranos and Gaia consisted of three gigantic beings who each had fifty heads and a hundred arms; although Hesiod refers to them by individual names alone, Kottos Briareos and Gyges, mythographers in later times devised a convenient name for them, calling them HEKATONCHEIRES or HUNDRED-HANDERS¹² he corresponding adjective is already applied to Briareos in the Iliad¹³). As hundred-handed giants of irresistible strength, [cont.]

p. 67

Trouble arose within the newly generated family of Ouranos because he hated his offspring and prevented them from coming into the light. Although Hesiod is vague about the cause of his hatred, it would seem that he took a dislike to them because they were terrible to behold, especially the monsters who were born first of all. He hid them deep away inside the earth as each was born, apparently blocking their emergence by engaging in ceaseless intercourse with his consort (although Hesiod is vague on this matter as too); ... The Titans were now able to emerge into the light, and to assume power as the lords of the unierse under the sovereignty of Kronos. It would seem, however, that in Hesiod's version (unlike that of Apollodorus, see below) the Kyklopes and Hundred-Handers remain imprisoned beneath the earth until they were rescued by Zeus.

p. 68

Zeus now joined together with his brothers and sisters to wrest control of the universe from Kronos and the Titans, confronting them in the greatest war ever fought, the Titanomachy ... The battle raged on for ten long years without either side gaining a clear advantage, until Gaia revealed to Zeus and the Olympians that they would be victorious if they recruited the Hundred-Handers as their allies. So Zeus released the monsters from their confinement (for they had remained imprisoned beneath the earth like the Kyklopes), and revived their strength and spirits with nectar and ambrosia. They were then quite happy to respond to Zeus' appeal for help. The struggle now reached its decisive phase as Zeus unleashed full fury against the Titans, dazing them with his thunderbolts, while the Hundred-Handers pelted them with huge rocks in successive salvos. ... To ensure that they would be securely detained, Zeus appointed the Hundred-Handers as their warders. ...

Such is the standard account of the succession myth as provided by Hesiod; Apollodorus offers an account of uncertain origin (perhaps derived from the lost Titanomachia, or from the Orphic literature) which differs from the Hesiodic version in some important respects. ...

p. 611

¹² ... called Hekatoncheires, Palaeph. 19, Apollod. 1.1.1.

Hasluck [in folder]

p. 54

the scholiast on Apollonius, who says that the ... ἤρίον Αἰγαίῶνος marked the place where Aegaeon was overwhelmed (κατεποντίσθη) by Poseidon: Aegaeon is considered by the scholiast to be identical with Briareus or (according to Demetrius of Scepsis) a Mysian hero. Arrian² says that the tomb of Briareus, a hill which was also called after Aegaeon, was shewn by the Rhydacus: from which flowed a hundred springs which were called the arms of Briareus.

Kirk

p. 94

Both names [Briareos/Aigaion], in fact, are probably Greek, βρι- implying 'strong' as in ὄβριμος and αιγ- being probably connected with 'goat'.

p. 95

Leaf

p. 32 1.403 (Perseus)

Both Βριάρεως and Αἰγαίων may be equally referred to Greek roots (βρι of βριαρός, βριθύς, and αἰγίς, cf. Αἰγαῖον πέλαγος). The father of Briareus was, according to the legend, Poseidon, who himself was sometimes called Αἰγαίων or Αἰγαῖος. — The legend is one of a number referring to revolts against the Olympian gods, as of the Titans, Prometheus, etc. αὖτε, again: as Poseidon, in union with the other gods, was stronger than Zeus, so his son again was stronger than he. To avoid the synizesis in Βριάρεων van L. suggests Βριάρην, the gen. of which, Βριάρηο, is quoted from Ibykos.

Most

p. 15

(154) For all these, who came forth from Earth and Sky as the most terrible of their children,⁸ were hated by their own father from the beginning. And as soon as any of them was born, Sky put them all away out of sight in a hiding place in Earth and did not let them come up into the light, and he rejoiced in his evil deed. But huge Earth groaned within, for she was constricted, and she devised a tricky, evil stratagem. At once she created an offspring, of gray adamant, and she fashioned a big sickle and showed it to her own children.

⁸ The exact reference is unclear, but apparently only the last two sets of three children each, the Cyclopes and the Hundred-Handers, are meant, and not additionally the first set of twelve Titans.

Smith

s.v. Aegaeon

Αἰγαίων), a son of Uranus by Gaea. Aegaeon and his brothers Gyges and Cottus are known under the name of the Uranids (Hes. Th. 502, &c.), and are described as huge monsters with a hundred arms (ἑκατόγχειρες) and fifty heads. (Apollod. 1.1.1; Hes. Th. 149, &c.) Most writers mention the third Uranid under the name of Briareus instead of Aegaeon, which is explained in a passage of Homer (Hom. Il. 1.403, §c.), who says that men called him Aegaeon, but the gods Briareus. On one occasion when the Olympian gods were about to put Zeus in chains, Thetis called in the assistance of Aegaeon, who compelled the gods to desist from their intention. (Hom. Il. 1.398, &c.) According to Hesiod (Hes. Th. 154, &c. 617, &c.), Aegaeon and his brothers were hated by Uranus from the time of their birth, in consequence of which they were concealed in the depth of the earth, where they remained until the Titans began their war against Zeus. On the advice of Gaea Zeus delivered the Uranids from their prison, that they might assist him. The hundred-armed giants conquered the Titans by hurling at them three hundred rocks at once, and secured the victory to Zeus, who thrust the Titans into Tartarus and placed the Hecatoncheires at its gates, or, according to others, in the depth of the ocean to guard them. (Hes. Th. 617, &c. 815, &c.) According to a legend in Pansanias (2.1.6, 2.4.7), Briareus was chosen as arbitrator in the dispute between Poseidon and Helios, and adjudged the Isthmus to the former and the Acrocorinthus to the latter. The Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius (1.1165) represents Aegaeon as a son of Gaea and Pontus and as living as a marine god in the Aegean sea. Ovid (Ov. Met. 2.10) and Philostratus (Vit. Apollon. 4.6) like-wise regard him as a marine god, while Virgil (Aen. 10.565) reckons him among the giants who stormed Olympus, and Callimachus (Call. Del. 141, &c.), regarding him in the same light, places him under mount Aetna. The Scholiast on Theocritus (Idyll. 1.65) calls Briareus one of the Cyclops. The opinion which regards Aegaeon and his brothers as only personifications of the extraordinary powers of nature, such as are manifested in the violent commotions of the earth, as earth-quakes, volcanic eruptions and the like, seems to explain best the various accounts about them.

Sprawski

[In folder]

p. 106

There is a similar problem with Archemachus' opinion that the first man "who sailed in a long vessel was Aegaeon [Aigaion]," preserved by Pliny (NH 7.207).

p. 107

His [Briareus/Aegaeon] double name was known also to another early poet, Cinaithon, the author of the Heracleia, cited by the scholiast to Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica (1.1165). Archemachus could also have been interested in the tradition preserved by Arrian of Nicomedia (FGrHist 156 F 92), cited by Eustathius and Stephanus of Byzantium (s.v. 'Karystos'), according to which the Aegean Sea was named after Briareus-Aegaeon, the son of Gaia and Ouranos. According to this story, he was the ruler of the Euboean town of Carystus, which was also called Aegaeon after him. Aelian also claims (VH 5.3) that the pillars of Heracles were previously called the Pillars of Briareus. ... On the other hand it is not difficult to see that Aegaeon was very closely linked to Euboea. According to the tradition preserved by Arrian (‘’FGrHist’’ 156 F 92) he was the ruler of Euboea who subjugated the neighboring islands.⁹

⁹ Bury 1886; Fowler 1988, 99.f.

Tripp

s.v. Hundred-handed or Hecatoncheires, pp. 307–308

Three giants, each with fifty heads and onehundred arms. The Hundred-handed, named Briareüs (or Obriareüs, or Aegaeon), Gyes, and Cottus, were the most terrible of all the children of Uranus (Sky) and Ge (Earth). Their father envious of their strength ...

(p. 308) Like other monstrous offspring Ge and Uranus, such as the Cyclops, the Giants, and Typoeus, the Hundred-handed have been thought to personifications or spirits of violent natural phenomena such as volcanic eruptions.

Tsagalis

p. 19

Fr. 3 ...

p. 20

p. 53

Fr. 3

In contrast to Hesiod's Theogony in which Aigaion/Briareos was one of the three Hundred-Handers (Kottos, Gyges, Briareos) summoned by the Olympians after the advice of Gaia in order to defeat the Titans (Th. 624-8), in the Titanomachhy he is fighting on the Titans' side.¹⁰⁴ Despite the initial oddity of presenting the [cont.]

¹⁰⁴ For a similar role of Aigaion/Briareos, see Antim. Theb. fr. 14 (Matthewa), Virg. Aen. 10.565-8, and Stat. Theb. 2.596. Virgil and his commentators do not contain an ascription to Eumelos or [cont.]

p. 54

Hundred-Handers being imprisoned at the dark depths of the world (Hes. Th. 617-23), Hesiod then has Kottos and Gyges leaving [sic: living] ... ('at the foundations of Okeanos'), Hes. Th. 816-17), and Briareos being worthy of special treatment as Posidon gives him his daughter Kymopoleia as his wife (Hes. Th. 817-19). In the Iliad (1.398-406) where his double name is explained on the basis of the different language of gods and men, the Hundred-Hander Aigaion/Briareos is fetched from his watery abode by Thetis ... The Iliadic version is in line with the Hesodic, since Aigaion/Briareos is supporting Zeus and he is living in the sea (as suggested by his marriage to Poseidon's daughter).

Briareos may well have been a sea monster challenging the sky-god, as Yammu challenges Baal in Ugaritic tradition.¹⁰⁵

¹⁰⁵ West (2002) 111.

p. 56 n. 115

(Σ Ap. Rh. 1.1165 [p. 105.9-11 Wendel] = Conon FGrHist 26 F 2: Αἰγαίων ... ).

Vinci

[in folder]

p. 270

According to Aristotle,² the Pillars of Hercules were also known as the Pillars of Briareus.

West 1966

p. 19

[Uranus' castration] enables Uranos' children to be born;

...

Kronos now rallies the other Titans to war against the new gods. This war drags on until, on the advice of Gaia, Zeus fetches the three Hundred-Handers up from the lower world. With their aid the Titans are at last overwhelmed and consigned to Tartarus (617-720.)

p. 206

on lines 139–153

To the Titan children are now appended two further sets of children of Earth and Heaven, the Cyclopes and the Hundred-Handers. There appearance here is hard to reconcile ...

... Zeus releases both the Cyclopes (501) and the Hundred-Handers (617) from bondage, and this is why they assist him. In each place it is mentioned, as if the story had already been told, that they were imprisoned by their father. This can only be understood from the text of the poem if we assume that they were shut up together with the Titans, but that only the Titans were released by the castration of Uranos.

p. 209

on line 147

The Hundred-Handers stand out as individuals much more than the Cyclopes. When they are mentioned, it is by their individual names (617-18, 714, 734, 817); Hesiod has no collective name for them, and in 669 he has to call them 'the gods whom Zeus brought up from the dark'. Ἑκατόγχειρες is a label of the mythographers (Apld. 1.1.1, Palaeph. 19, etc.; it is not clear from Phld. π. εὐσ. 60.15 that Acusilaus used the term (2 F 8)); though the adjective 'εκατόγχειρoς' is applied to Briareos-Aigaion in Homer (Il. 1.402, cf. Pi. fr. 52 i(A). 21). In some myths only one Hundred-Hander appears: Il. 1.410 ff., Titanom. fr. 2, Virg. A. 10.565; and one may observe that in order to win a long-drawn-out war, a single hero is involved (Heracles in the Gigantomachy, Philoctes in the Trojan War).

It is precisely the Hundred-Handers' hundredhands that make them such useful allies in battle. Some such extraordinary endowment is characteristic of the helper in this kind of myth; see Meuli, Odyssee u. Argon. pp. 2 ff.

on line 149 Κόττος

a Thracian name, like that of the goddess Kotys or [cont.] Kotyto or Kotto. It was borne by various Thracian princes; see Nisbet on Cic. Pis. 84.

p. 210

on line 149

Βριάρεως: much the most eminent of the three brothers. In 617 and 743 he is called Ὀβριάρεως. ... The name is probably formed from βριάρός 'strong', ... In Il. 1.403 Briareos is said to be the gods' name for him, the human name being Aigaion. ... In the Titanomachy (fr. 2), Aigaion is a son of Ge and Pontos, lives in the sea, and fights on the side of the Titans (cf. Virg. A. 10. 565). In the Iliad too he seems to live in the sea, for it was Thetis who fetched him to overawe the other gods when they tried to tie Zeus up; though Zenodotus' text of 404a makes him (now at any rate) a denizen of Tartarus (cf. on 734-5). The scholia describe him as a θαγάσσιος δαίμων and son of Poseidon (cf. below, 817-19). Solinus 11.16 says that Briareos was worshipped at Carystus, and Aigaion at Chalcis; an Aigaion was known as the eponymous ruler of Carystus-Aigaie (cf. sch. A.R. 1.1165, St. Byz. s.v. Κάρυστος, Eust. 281.3), and Briareos was father of Euboea herself (Hsch. s.v. Τιτανίδα).

Γύγης: this and not Γύης, is the correct form. It is given by all the MSS. in 734 ...

This form should be therefore be preferred in Hesiod, and in Apld. 1.1.1 and Ov. Tr. 4.7.18, where the form without the second g occurs as a variant. Γύης perhaps results, as Welcker says ... It is nowhere attested without variant, and I do not know why Rzach preferred it in the face of overwhelming evidence ...

The name is reminiscent of Ὠγύγης; ...

p. 214

on line 158

The story must have been that the Titans were kept in Gaia's womb by Uranos' unremitting embrace: that is why she is so distressed (159-60), and why castration solves the problem. But if this is what Hesiod means, it is a shy way of saying it. He seems deliberately to have employed less explicitly personified terms at this point, mindful perhaps that Zeus has to release the Cyclopes and Hundred-Handers from the same confinement, and in their case it must merely be an infernal prison and not the womb of a personified Gaia.

p. 338

on line 618

On the binding of the Hundred-Handers see notes on 139-53 and 158. What Hesiod tells us of the place where they were bound indicates that it was Tartarus, but he avoids saying so outright (620-2, 652-3, 658-60, 669): Tartarus is reserved for Zeus' enemies.

p. 347

on line 675

The Hundred-Handers fight with natural, not manufactured weapons; ...

p. 358

on lines 720–819

Next we hear that Gyges, Kottos, and Obriareos are there too [in the underworld, along with the Titans] (734-5). This is unsatisfactory. We shall certainly want to know what became of them; but we shall be told in 815-19; and what we are told there is different than what we are told here. The information that they have returned to the lower world is conveyed much more naturally and accepatably there than here, where we come upon them with the surprise we might feel at the zoo if we passed the lions and then found their hunters in the next cage.

p. 363

on lines 734–5.

See on 720-819. It is usually assumed that the Hundred-Handers are acting as prison guards (so Tz. Th. 277 τοὺς Ἑκατόγχειρας αὺτοῖς φύλακας ἐπιστήσας). The poet does not say this—πιστοὶ φύλακες Διὸς probably refers to their help in battle, cf. 815 κλειτοὶ ἐπίκουροι ... So in Zenodotus' version of Il. 1.404, Briareos is the strongest of all those who dwell ὑπὸ τάρτρον εὐρώεντα.

p. 379

on line 816

Kottos and Gyges live at the end of the world, but clearly not in the same part as the Titans, as all three brothes seemed to in 734.

on line 819

Κυμοπόλειαν: otherwise unknown. The name is the same type as the Nereids (cf. especially ...), and is not likely to be traditional.

West 1988

p. 7

For all those that were born of Earth and Heaven were the most fearsome of children, and their own father loathed them from the beginning.

West 2002

[in folder]

p. 109

The Titanomachy and ... were composed in the late seventh century at the earliest,

p. 111

Another peculiarity of the Titanomachy, at least as against Hesiod, is that Aigaion, who cannot be distinguished from Hesiod's Briareos,⁹ was the son of Pontos, not of Ouranos, and fought on the Titans' side instead of against them: schol. Ap. Rhod. 1.1165c,

Eumelos in the Titanomachy says that Aigaion was the son of Earth and Sea, lived in the sea and fought on the side of the Titans.

Hesiod then describes the underworld at length. In the the course of this we are surprised to find the three Hundred-handers have returned ther (Th. 734-5). A little later this is modified: Kottos and Gyges are there, 'at the foundations of Okeanos', but Briareos, 'being good', has been specially favoured by Poseidon, who has given him one of his daughters to marry. It is implied that he lives somewhere else, presumably in the sea (Th. 815-19). It must have been from the sea that Thetis brought him up to support Zeus against his enemies on the occasion recalled at Il. 1.397-406.

There is later evidence for his marine connections,¹⁰ and it seems likely that this many-armed figure was a marine monster in origin, a demonized giant polyp, an embodiment of the sea itself in its unruly strength.¹¹ The myth in which he rises up against the storm-god and is quelled and confined to his elemet looks older than the one in which he is brought up to perform as Zeus's ally and then sent back to the deep. It recalls the Ugaritic myth of the battle between Baal and Yammu (Sea), conceived as a seven-headed dragon, and its Biblical and Mesopotamian parallels. Its Hesiodic reflex seems to be Zeus's conflict with the hundred-headed Typhoeus.¹² Hesiod's treatment of Briareos, then, would involve a secondary reassignment of function, and the Eumelian account, whether or not written before the Hesiodic; would preserve the older version.

Echoes of this version appear in Antimachos¹³ and ...

⁹ The two are explicitly identified in Iliad 1.402-4, though presumably separate in origin.

¹³Schol. Veron. Virg. Aen. 10.565, Homerus ... Antimachus ... armatum

Willcock

p. 11

396–406 This story of a revolt on Olympos, which Thetis helped to preent by bring Briareus/Aigaion to defend Zeus, is not attested anywhere else. Every consideration makes it probable that we have here the free invention of the poet, not an allusion to preexisting myth.

p. 12

The Homeric text gives the second name as Aigaion, which might indeed means [sic] Aigaios' son, as Lattimore translates it; cf. "Kronion" in the next line. The name seems to be that of a sea divinity connected with the Aegean Sea. but no certain information can be obtained from ancient sources. Homer's identification of him with the hundred-handed Briareus is unexplained and adds to the impression that these lines are sheer invention.

Similarly, if there are any facts behind the statement that [cont.]

p. 13

Aigaion (or Aigaios' son) was stronger than his father, they are not available to us.