Antaeus

“ 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. ”

“ For these earth-born Giants are not only difficult to conquer on their own ground but may easily be managed if we can contrive to lift them into a loftier and purer region.
When Antaeus' strength and breath were gone, Hercules gave his huge body a toss and flung it a mile off where it lay heavily with no more motion than a sand hill. His ponderous form may be lying in the same spot to-day, and might be mistaken for those of an uncommonly large elephant.
What a wailing the poor little Pygmies set up when they saw their enormous brother treated in this terrible way! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Hence they placed in it the Isles of the Blest, the ruddy Isle Erythea, on which the bright oxen of Geryon were pastured, and the Isle of the Hesperides. The apples are supposed by some to be the oranges of Spain, of which the Greeks had heard some obscure accounts.
A celebrated exploit of Hercules was his victory over Antaeus. Antaeus, the son of Terra, the Earth, was a mighty giant and wrestler, whose strength was invincible so long as he remained in contact with his mother Earth. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.
When the two armies joined battle, the cranes would rush forward, flapping their wings and stretching out their necks, and would perhaps snatch up some of the Pygmies crosswise in their beaks. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Scaring the foes yet more, by Ares' will.
Thou hadst said, "It craveth still for horsemanship!"
So bare the steed that sign of his slain lord.
Aeneas hurled his spear; it found the waist
Of Anthalus' son, it pierced the navel through,
Dragging the inwards with it. Stretched in dust,
Clutching with agonized hands at steel and bowels,
Horribly shrieked he, tore with his teeth the earth
Groaning, till life and pain forsook the man. ”

“ I was thinking about Ántonia and her children; about Anna's solicitude for her, Ambrosch's grave affection, Leo's jealous, animal little love. That moment, when they all came tumbling out of the cave into the light, was a sight any man might have come far to see. Ántonia had always been one to leave images in the mind that did not fade—that grew stronger with time. ”

“ In spite of the perplexity and mystery that involve the death of Antinous in impenetrable gloom, he is a true historic personage, no phantom of myth, but a man as real as Hadrian, his master.
Antinous, as he appears in sculpture, is a young man of eighteen or nineteen years, almost faultless in his form. His beauty is not of a pure Greek type. Though perfectly proportioned and developed by gymnastic exercises to the true athletic fulness, his limbs are round and florid, suggesting the possibility of early over-ripeness. The muscles are not trained to sinewy firmness, but yielding and elastic ”

“ For thou hast shamed me and my horses, putting thine own in front, which are, of a truth, much worse than they. Judge, therefore, between us, ye chiefs of the Greeks. And thou, Antilochus, stand before thy chariot and thy horses, as the custom is, holding in one hand thy whip, and laying the other hand on thine horses, and swear by Poseidon that thou didst not hinder my chariot by fraud."
To him Antilochus made reply: "Bear with me, Menelaus, for I am younger than thou, and thou knowest how young men go astray, for their judgment is hasty and their wit small. ”

“ Now when Antony had received Antigonus as his captive, he determined to keep him against his triumph; but when he heard that the nation grew seditious, and that, out of their hatred to Herod, they continued to bear good-will to Antigonus, he resolved to behead him at Antioch, for otherwise the Jews could no way be brought to be quiet. And Strabo of Cappadocia attests to what I have said, when he thus speaks: "Antony ordered Antigonus the Jew to be brought to Antioch, and there to be beheaded. ”

“ And fourth Antilochus made ready his fair-maned horses, he the peerless son of Nestor, the king high of heart, the son of Neleus; and bred at Pylos were the swift-footed horses that drew his car. And his father drew nigh and gave counsel to him for his profit—a wise man to one that himself had knowledge. "Antilochus, for all thou art young, yet have Zeus and Poseidon loved thee and taught thee all manner of horsemanship; wherefore to teach thee is no great need, for thou knowest well how to wheel about the turning-post ”

“ But now Anatolius was at hand and had made his entry into Athens. When he had with great courage offered sacrifices [120] and formally visited all the temples, as the divine ordinance commanded, he summoned the sophists to the competition. When they were in his presence they one and all strove to be the first to declaim; so prone to self-love is man! But Anatolius laughed at the boy pupils who were applauding them, and commiserated the fathers whose sons were being educated by such men. Then he called on Prohaeresius who alone was left. ”