Antaeus

This article is about a mythological figure. For other uses, see Antaeus (disambiguation).
Hercules and Antaeus (1690), by Gregorio de Ferrari

Antaeus (/ænˈtəs/; Greek: Ἀνταῖος, Antaios), in Greek and Berber mythology, was the half-giant son of Poseidon and Gaia.[1] His wife was the goddess Tinge, and he had a daughter named Alceis or Barce.

Mythology

Greeks of the sixth century BCE, who had established colonies along the coast of North Africa, placed Antaeus in the interior desert of Libya.[2]

Antaeus would challenge all passers-by to wrestling matches, kill them, and collect their skulls, so that he might one day build out of them a temple to his father, Poseidon.[3] He was indefatigably strong as long as he remained in contact with the ground (his mother earth), but once lifted into the air he became as weak as other men.

Antaeus had defeated most of his opponents until it came to his fight with Heracles (who was on his way to the Garden of Hesperides for his 11th Labour). Upon finding that he could not beat Antaeus by throwing him to the ground as he would reheal due to his parentage (Gaia), Heracles discovered the secret of his power. Holding Antaeus aloft, Heracles crushed him in a bearhug.[3][4]

Hercules crushing Antaeus by Ottavio Mosto (1690)

The struggle between Antaeus and Heracles is a favored subject in ancient and Renaissance sculpture.

Heracles and Antaeus, red-figured krater by Euphronios, 515–510 BCE, Louvre (G 103)

A location for Antaeus somewhere beyond the Maghreb might be quite flexible in longitude: when the Roman commander Quintus Sertorius crossed from Hispania to North Africa, he was told by the residents of Tingis (Tangier), far to the west of Libya, that the gigantic remains of Antaeus would be found within a certain tumulus; digging it open, his men found giant bones; closing the site, Sertorius made propitiatory offerings and "helped to magnify the tomb's reputation".[5] In Book IV of Marcus Annaeus Lucanus' epic poem Pharsalia (c. 65-61 AD), the story of Hercules' victory over Antaeus is told to the Roman Curio by an unnamed Libyan citizen. The learned client king Juba II of Numidia (died 23 BC), husband of the daughter of Antony and Cleopatra, claimed his descent from a liaison of Hercules with Tinga, the consort of Antaeus.[6] In his Life of Sertorius cited above, Plutarch recounts what he says to be a local myth, according to which Heracles consorted with Tinge after the death of Antaeus and had by her a son Sophax, who named a city in North Africa Tingis after his mother. Sophax in his turn was father of Diodorus who conquered many Libyan peoples with his army of Olbians and Mycenaeans brought to Libya by Heracles.[7] Moreover, some related that Heracles had a son Palaemon by Iphinoe, the daughter of Antaeus and (presumably) Tinge.[8]

Scholiasts on Pindar's Pythian Ode 9 also recorded a story which made Antaeus king of the city Irassa in Libya, and father of a daughter named either Alceis or Barce. Antaeus promised her hand to the winner of a race, just like Danaus did to find new husbands for his daughters. Alexidamus beat all the other suitors in the race and married the daughter of Antaeus. Three versions of this story, with minor variations, were collected by the scholiasts; one of those versions made Antaeus, king of Irassa, a figure distinct from the Antaeus killed by Heracles, while another one suggested that they were one and the same.[9]

In the Berber language Antaeus is supposedly known as Änti. A different, unconnected figure from Egyptian mythology, Anti, was transliterated as "Antaios" by the Greeks. The Greek word ἀνταῖος which lies behind his name means "set-against" or "hostile."

He is alluded to in Olson's poem "Purgatory Blind".[10]

In popular culture

References

  1. Apollodorus, 2.5.11; Hyginus, Fabulae 31.
  2. I. Malkin, Myth and Territory in the Spartan Mediterranean, 1994:181-87, giving sources, noted in Robin Lane Fox, Travelling Heroes in the Epic Age of Homer, 2008:182 and note 51.
  3. 3.0 3.1 Chisholm 1911.
  4. Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheke ii. 5; Hyginus, Fabula 31.
  5. Fox 2008:182, noting Plutarch, Sertorius9.3-4.Fox 2008:182
  6. Pliny, Natural History, 5. 2-3; Strabo 17. 3. 8 noted in D.W. Roller, The World of Juba II and Kleopatra Selene, 2003:54 and 154, and by Fox 2008:182.
  7. Plutarch, Life of Sertorius, 9. 4
  8. Tzetzes on Lycophron 662
  9. Scholia on Pindar, Pythian Ode 9, 185, referring to Pherecydes, Pisander of Camirus and other unspecified writers
  10. Olson, Charles. The collected poems of Charles Olson: excluding the Maximus poems. University of California Pr, 1997. p.3

External links