Antaeus. Antaeus, was a figure in Greek mythology.
In Greek sources, he was the giant son of Poseidon and Gaia. His wife was the goddess Tinge, and he had a daughter named Alceis or Barce.
He was famed for his loss to Heracles as part of his twelve Labours. Antaeus would challenge all passers-by to wrestling matches and remained invincible as long as he remained in contact with his mother, the earth.
As Greek wrestling, like its modern equivalent, typically attempted to force opponents to the ground, he always won, killing his opponents. He built a temple to his father using their skulls.
Antaeus fought Heracles as he was on his way to the Garden of Hesperides as his 11th Labour. Heracles realized that he could not beat Antaeus by throwing or pinning him. Instead, he held him aloft and then crushed him to death in a bear hug. The contest between Heracles and Antaeus was a favored subject in ancient and Renaissance sculpture. Antaeus is placed in the interior desert of Libya. A location for Antaeus somewhere beyond the Berber world 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, 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 offering
In Greek sources, he was the giant son of Poseidon and Gaia. His wife was the goddess Tinge, and he had a daughter named Alceis or Barce.
He was famed for his loss to Heracles as part of his twelve Labours. Antaeus would challenge all passers-by to wrestling matches and remained invincible as long as he remained in contact with his mother, the earth.
As Greek wrestling, like its modern equivalent, typically attempted to force opponents to the ground, he always won, killing his opponents. He built a temple to his father using their skulls.
Antaeus fought Heracles as he was on his way to the Garden of Hesperides as his 11th Labour. Heracles realized that he could not beat Antaeus by throwing or pinning him. Instead, he held him aloft and then crushed him to death in a bear hug. The contest between Heracles and Antaeus was a favored subject in ancient and Renaissance sculpture. Antaeus is placed in the interior desert of Libya. A location for Antaeus somewhere beyond the Berber world 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, 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 offering
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