Editing Giants (Greek mythology) (section)

==Origins==

The name "Gigantes" is usually taken to imply "earth-born",<ref>Hard, [https://books.google.com/books?id=r1Y3xZWVlnIC&pg=PA86 p. 86]; Gantz, p. 16; Merry, ''Homer's Odyssey'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0055%3Abook%3D7%3Acommline%3D59 7.59]; Douglas Harper mentions that a [[Pre-Greek]] origin has also been proposed ([http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=giant "giant"]. ''[[Online Etymology Dictionary]]'').</ref> and [[Hesiod]]'s ''[[Theogony]]'' makes this explicit by having the Giants be the offspring of [[Gaia]] (Earth). According to Hesiod, Gaia, mating with [[Uranus (mythology)|Uranus]], bore many children: the first generation of [[Titan (mythology)|Titans]], the [[Cyclopes]], and the [[Hundred-Handers]].<ref>[[Hesiod]], ''[[Theogony]]'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hes.+Th.+132 132&ndash;153]</ref> However, Uranus hated his children and, as soon as they were born, he imprisoned them inside Gaia, causing her much distress. Therefore, Gaia made a sickle of [[adamant]] which she gave to [[Cronus]], the youngest of her Titan sons, and hid him (presumably still inside Gaia's body) to wait in ambush.<ref>[[Hesiod]], ''[[Theogony]]'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hes.+Th.+154 154&ndash;175]; Gantz, p. 10.</ref> When Uranus came to lie with Gaia, Cronus castrated his father, and "the bloody drops that gushed forth [Gaia] received, and as the seasons moved round she bore ... the great Giants."<ref>[[Hesiod]], ''[[Theogony]]'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hes.+Th.+176 176 ff.]</ref> From these same drops of blood also came the [[Erinyes]] (Furies) and the [[Meliai]] (ash tree nymphs), while the severed genitals of Uranus falling into the sea resulted in a white foam from which [[Aphrodite]] grew. The mythographer [[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]] also has the Giants being the offspring of Gaia and Uranus, though he makes no connection with Uranus' castration, saying simply that Gaia "vexed on account of the Titans, brought forth the Giants".<ref>[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]], [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Apollod.+1.6.1 1.6.1]; Hansen, p. 178.</ref>

There are three brief references to the ''Gigantes'' in [[Homer]]'s ''[[Odyssey]]'', though it is not entirely clear that Homer and Hesiod understood the term to mean the same thing.<ref>Gantz, p. 446. Ogden, [https://books.google.com/books?id=FQ2pAK9luwkC&pg=PA82 p. 82 n. 74] says that the "''Odyssey''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s Giants stand a little outside the remainder of the tradition, in so far as they are ethnologized into a wild, arrogant, and doomed race, formerly presided over by a king Eurymedon." Hanfmann 1937, p. 175, sees in the "conflicting" descriptions of Homer and Hesiod, "two different local traditions".</ref> Homer has Giants among the ancestors of the [[Phaiakian]]s, a race of men encountered by [[Odysseus]], their ruler [[Alcinous]] being the son of [[Nausithous]], who was the son of [[Poseidon]] and [[Periboea]], the daughter of the Giant king Eurymedon.<ref>[[Homer]], ''[[Odyssey]]'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hom.+Od.+7.59&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0136 7.56&ndash;63]. [[Alcaeus of Mytilene|Alcaeus]] and [[Acusilaus]] make the Phaiakians, like the Giants, offspring of the castration of Uranus, Gantz, p. 16.</ref> Elsewhere in the ''Odyssey'', Alcinous says that the Phaiakians, like the Cyclopes and the Giants, are "near kin" to the gods.<ref>[[Homer]], ''[[Odyssey]]'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hom.+Od.+7.199&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0136 7.199&ndash;207].</ref> Odysseus describes the [[Laestrygonians]] (another race encountered by Odysseus in his travels) as more like Giants than men.<ref>[[Homer]], ''[[Odyssey]]'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hom.+Od.+10.120&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0136 10.119&ndash;120].</ref> [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], the 2nd century AD geographer, read these lines of the ''Odyssey'' to mean that, for Homer, the Giants were a race of mortal men.<ref>[[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Paus.+8.29.1 8.29.1&ndash;4]. Smith, William, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0104%3Aalphabetic+letter%3DG%3Aentry+group%3D7%3Aentry%3Dgigantes-bio-1 "Gigantes"] and Hanfmann 1992, ''[[The Oxford Classical Dictionary]]'' s.v. "Giants", following Pausanias, both assert that, for Homer, the Giants were a "savage race of men". For the mythographer [[Diodorus Siculus]], the Giants were also a race of men, see [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/4B*.html 4.21.5], Gantz, p. 449.</ref>

The 6th&ndash;5th century BC lyric poet [[Bacchylides]] calls the Giants "sons of the Earth".<ref>[[Bacchylides]], [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0064%3Abook%3DDith 15.63]; Castriota, [https://books.google.com/books?id=tnMWWeZwt8EC&pg=PA233 pp. 233&ndash;234].</ref> Later the term "gegeneis" ("earthborn") became a common epithet of the Giants.<ref>[http://www.encquran.brill.nl/entries/brill-s-new-pauly/gegeneis-e420500?s.num=10 "Gegeneis"], ''Brills New Pauly''; Crusius, [https://books.google.com/books?id=f35J6nfeZe0C&pg=PA93 p.93]; ''[[Batrachomyomachia]]'' [https://archive.org/stream/hesiodhomerichym1914hesi#page/542/mode/2up 7 (pp. 542&ndash;543)]; [[Sophocles]], ''[[Women of Trachis]]'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Soph.+Trach.+1058 1058]; [[Euripides]], ''[[The Phoenician Women]]'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text;jsessionid=432E6B38906EB97E3B6E0D6EDADF1CB8?doc=Eur.+Phoen.+1131 1131]; [[Lycophron]], ''Alexandra'' [https://archive.org/stream/callimachuslycop00calluoft#page/504/mode/2up 127 (pp. 504&ndash;505)], [https://archive.org/stream/callimachuslycop00calluoft#page/610/mode/2up 1408 (pp. 610&ndash;611)].</ref> The first century Latin writer [[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus]] has the Giants being the offspring of Gaia and [[Tartarus]], another primordial Greek deity.<ref>[[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus]], ''[[Fabulae]]''  [https://topostext.org/work/206#0.2 Preface]. [http://la.wikisource.org/wiki/Genealogiarum_liber_-_Praefatio Latin]</ref>