Antaeus (mythology)

“ Whenever Antaeus took a walk, supposing it were but ten miles, and that he stepped a hundred yards at a stride, you may try to cipher out how much mightier he was, on sitting down again, than when he first started. And whenever he flung himself on the earth to take a little repose, even if he got up the very next instant, he would be as strong as exactly ten just such giants as his former self. ”

“ In an old myth, Antaeus, the child of Earth, could be overcome when he was lifted from contact with the ground but, whenever he touched again the earth from which he sprang, his old power came back once more. ”

“ Tall Pygmies and mighty little men! You and all of us have seen what a public calamity has been brought to pass, and what an insult has here been offered to the majesty of our nation. Yonder lies Antaeus, our great friend and brother, slain, within our territory, by a miscreant who took him at disadvantage, and fought him (if fighting it can be called) in a way that neither man, nor Giant, nor Pygmy ever dreamed of fighting, until this hour. ”

“ Indeed, it has always seemed to me that the Giant needed the little people more than the Pygmies needed the Giant. For, unless they had been his neighbors and well wishers, and, as we may say, his playfellows, Antaeus would not have had a single friend in the world. No other being like himself had ever been created. ”

“ However this might be, and whatever creatures the Pygmies rode upon, I do not doubt that they made a formidable appearance, armed with sword and spear, and bow and arrow, blowing their tiny trumpet, and shouting their little war cry. They never failed to exhort one another to fight bravely, and recollect that the world had its eyes upon them; although, in simple truth, the only spectator was the Giant Antaeus, with his one, great, stupid eye in the middle of his forehead. ”

“ I think it does everybody good to get away somewhere where they can come in contact with the woods and the brooks and the squirrels and the birds. Who was it we used to read about—that fellow in the old Grecian stories—I think his name was Antaeus, who got into a fight with one of the old heroes and every time he was knocked down, refreshed by contact with mother earth, got up ten times stronger than before. ”

“ There he was, with the sun flaming on his golden helmet, and flashing from his polished breastplate; he had a sword by his side, and a lion's skin over his back, and on his right shoulder he carried a club, which looked bulkier and heavier than the pine-tree walking stick of Antaeus.
By this time, the whole nation of the Pygmies had seen the new wonder, and a million of them set up a shout all together; so that it really made quite an audible squeak.
"Get up, Antaeus! Bestir yourself, you lazy old Giant! Here comes another Giant, as strong as you are, to fight with you." ”

“ The strange Giant's club is bigger than your own, his shoulders are the broadest, and we think him the stronger of the two."
Antaeus could not endure to have it said that any mortal was half so mighty as himself. This latter remark of the Pygmies pricked him deeper than their swords ”

“ A hero, you know, must hold himself in readiness for any kind of fate; and doubtless the glory of the thing was a consolation to him, even in the crane's gizzard. If Antaeus observed that the battle was going hard against his little allies, he generally stopped laughing, and ran with mile-long strides to their assistance, flourishing his club aloft and shouting at the cranes, who quacked and croaked, and retreated as fast as they could. ”

“ But, being the son of Mother Earth, as they likewise were, the Giant gave them his brotherly kindness, and loved them with as big a love as it was possible to feel for creatures so very small. And, on their parts, the Pygmies loved Antaeus with as much affection as their tiny hearts could hold. He was always ready to do them any good offices that lay in his power; as for example, when they wanted a breeze to turn their windmills, the Giant would set all the sails a-going with the mere natural respiration of his lungs. ”

“ As it came nearer and nearer, what should it turn out to be but a human shape, not so big as Antaeus, it is true, although a very enormous figure, in comparison with Pygmies, and a vast deal bigger than the men we see nowadays. ”

“ And Mundiaque and Ottocar—Plato And Ladisläus Kunne; and Welf who bore These words upon his shield his foes before; "Nothing there is I fear." Otho blear-eyed, Zultan and Nazamustus, and beside The later Spignus, e'en to Spartibor Of triple vision, and yet more and more As if a pause at every age were made, And Antaeus' fearful dynasty portrayed. What do they here so rigid and erect? What wait they for—and what do they expect? Blindness fills up the helm 'neath iron brows; Like sapless tree no soul the hero knows. ”

“ A double signification, patrician and plebeian, was given in the same way to Vulcan and Mars. The stormy relations of the fathers with the slaves, the struggles and penalties referred to in the myths of Tantalus and Sisyphus, begin to be reflected in the twelve greater gods. Hercules, struggling with Antaeus, signifies the nobles of the heroic cities, and Antaeus the mutinied slaves led back into the primitive cities on the mountain-tops (Antaeus lifted up into the air) and overcome and bound down to the earth, that is to say forced back to their servile labour. ”

“ At that moment the twenty thousand archers twanged their bowstrings, and the arrows came whizzing, like so many winged mosquitoes, right into the face of Hercules. But I doubt whether more than half a dozen of them punctured the skin, which was remarkably tough, as you know the skin of a hero has good need to be.
"Villain!" shouted all the Pygmies at once. "You have killed the Giant Antaeus, our great brother, and the ally of our nation. We declare bloody war against you, and will slay you on the spot." ”

“ Angerbode, giant prophetess, mother of Fenris, Hela and the Midgard Serpent
Anglesey, a Northern British island, refuge of Druids fleeing from Romans
Antæus, giant wrestler of Libya, killed by Hercules, who, finding him stronger when thrown to the earth, lifted him into the air and strangled him
Antea, wife of jealous Proetus
Antenor, descendants of, in Italy
Anteros, deity avenging unrequited love, brother of Eros (Cupid)
Anthor, a Greek
Antigone, daughter of Ædipus, Greek ideal of filial and sisterly fidelity
Antilochus, son of Nestor
Antiope, Amazonian queen. ”

“ Intuitively I divined that Electra must be the steam fire-engine. Big, brawny Antaeus was in love! The ludicrousness of the notion did not strike me then as it did afterward. On the contrary, it seemed to be one of the most natural things imaginable.
“Yes,” he said, in response to my thoughts, “I am passionately enamored of her. I desire unutterably to gain her friendship, her esteem, her love—even though she may scorn me. I realize that her station in life is far above mine. ”

“ Nor is less care displayed in the figure of Antaeus, who, pressed by the arms of Hercules, is seen to be sinking and deprived of all power of resistance, his mouth is open, he is breathing his last sigh. In the second figure, Hercules is killing the Lion; he presses the left knee against the chest of the animal, whose jaws he has seized with both hands; grinding his teeth and extending his arms, he tears the mouth open and rives the creature asunder by main force, although the lion defends himself with his claws and is fiercely tearing the arm of his assailant. ”

“ As Hercules contended in vain against Antaeus, the Son of Earth—so long as the earth gave her giant offspring new strength in every fall,—so the soul contends in vain with evil—the natural earth-born enemy, while the very contact of the earth invigorates the enemy for the struggle. ”

“ On came Antaeus, hopping and capering with the scorching heat of his rage, and getting new vigor wherewith to wreak his passion, every time he hopped.
But Hercules, you must understand, was wiser than this numskull of a Giant, and had thought of a way to fight him--huge, earth-born monster that he was--and to conquer him too, in spite of all that his Mother Earth could do for him. Watching his opportunity, as the mad Giant made a rush at him, Hercules caught him round the middle with both hands, lifted him high into the air, and held him aloft overhead. ”

“ He is not half so bright as we are, to be sure; and, for that reason, he needs us to look after his comfort and happiness. Let us be kind to the old fellow. Why, if Mother Earth had not been very kind to ourselves, we might all have been Giants too."
On all their holidays, the Pygmies had excellent sport with Antaeus. He often stretched himself out at full length on the ground, where he looked like the long ridge of a hill; and it was a good hour's walk, no doubt, for a short-legged Pygmy to journey from head to foot of the Giant. ”

“ The Solar hero wages war with the mischief done to nature by an excess of heat. Thus the battle of Herakles with Antaeos is only the form localised in the deserts of Libya, of the story of the contest against the stifling heat, against the simoom which gains its strength from the sandy soil, as Movers, who also sees in the Erymanthean boar only a variant of Antaeos, has ingeniously explained. In Tingis, i.e. Tangier, the grave of Antaeos was shown, with a spring beside it. A similar legend among the Hebrews might perhaps assume in time the above strictly Jahveistic form. ”

“ He sustained many single combats, one very famous struggle being the wrestling with the Libyan Antaeus, son of Poseidon and Ge (Earth) , who had to be held in the air, as he grew stronger every time he touched his mother, Earth. ”

“ In the Palace of the Signoria of Florence, at the Porta della Catena, he made a S. John the Baptist; and in the house of the Medici he painted for the elder Lorenzo three figures of Hercules in three pictures, each five braccia in height. The first of these, which is slaying Antaeus, is a very beautiful figure, in which the strength of Hercules as he crushes the other is seen most vividly, for the muscles and nerves of that figure are all strained in the struggle to destroy Antaeus. ”

“ Hercules, in combat with him, discovered the source of his strength, and lifting him up from the earth crushed him to death. The struggle between Antaeus and Hercules is a favourite subject in ancient sculpture. ”

“ This rapid enumeration will suffice to show that Antinous was universally conceived as a young deity in bloom, and that preference was given to Phoebus and Iacchus, the gods of divination and enthusiasm, for his associates. In some cases he appears to have been represented as a simple hero without the attributes of any deity. Many of his busts, and the fine nude statues of the Capitol and the Neapolitan Museum, belong to this class, unless we recognise the two last as Antinous under the form of a young Hercules, or of the gymnastic Hermes. ”

“ An-Ath, whose temple in Canaan was styled Beth-Anath, is found often reversed, and styled Ath-An; whence came Athana, and Αθηνα of the Greeks. Anath signified the fountain of light, and was abbreviated Nath and Neith by the Egyptians. They worshipped under this title a divine emanation, supposed to be the Goddess of Wisdom. The Athenians, who came from Sais in Egypt, were denominated from this Deity, whom they expressed Ath-An, or Αθηνη, after the Ionian manner. Της πολεως (Σαϊτων) Θεος αρχηγος εστιν, Αιγυπτιστι μεν τ' ουνομα Νηϊθ, Ἑλληνιστι δε, ὡς ὁ εκεινων λογος, Αθηνα. ”

“ And verily once to the house of Antaios came a man to wrestle against him, of short stature but of unbending soul, from Kadmean Thebes even unto corn-bearing Libya, that he might cause him to cease from roofing Poseidon's temple with the skulls of strangers—even the son of Alkmene, he who ascended up to Olympus, after that he had searched out the surface of the whole earth and of the crag-walled hoary sea, and had made safe way for the sailing of ships. ”

“ Robbers broke in the tomb for the treasure just as Anthia awoke. They carried her off with them to Alexandria. No one else knew she was alive. Habrocomes heard from an old woman the story of Anthia’s death, of the pillaging of her tomb and the carrying off of her body. So leaving Hippothoos he started off alone by ship for Egypt hoping to find the brigands who had committed such sacrilege. The bandits had already sold Anthia to a rajah named Psammis, but Anthia saved herself from his amorousness by telling him that she was a consecrated priestess of Isis so he respected her. ”

“ Another new deity was added to the number with great religious pomp in Egypt, and was near being so in Greece by the king of the Romans, who deified Antinous, whom he loved as Zeus loved Ganymede, and whose beauty was of a very rare order: for lust is not easily restrained, destitute as it is of fear; and men now observe the sacred nights of Antinous, the shameful character of which the lover who spent them with him knew well. Why reckon him among the gods, who is honoured on account of uncleanness? ”

“ Yet, once we have rid our minds of trivial mythology, there is religion in Athena also. Athena is an ideal, an ideal and a mystery; the ideal of wisdom, of incessant labour, of almost terrifying purity, seen through the light of some mystic and spiritual devotion like, but transcending, the love of man for woman. Or, if the way of Athena is too hard for us common men, it is not hard to find a true religious ideal in such a figure as Persephone. In Persephone there is more of pathos and of mystery. She has more recently entered the calm ranks of Olympus ”

“ Amyntas, son of Arrhabaeus, 40, 43-45, 59, 74, 95. Amyntas, son of Nicolaüs, 237, 238, 247. Amyntas the Theban, 25. Anaxagoras, 407. Anaxarchus, 222-226. Anaxippus, 191, 192. Anchialus, 87, 88. Ancyra, 84. Androcles, 129. Andromachus, 127, 150, 162, 192, 210, 213-215. Andronīcus, 189, 191. Androsthenes, 409. Anicētus, 134. Antaeus, 145. Antalcidas, 79, 80. Anteas, 363. Anthemūs, 98. Antibēlus, 182. Anticles, 230. Antigĕnes, 291, 344. Antigŏnē, 193. Antigŏnus, 76, 88, 305, 405. Anti-Libănus, 125, 156, 308. Antiochus, 97, 149, 263. ”