Silenus: O Bromius, labors numberless have I had because of you, now and when I was young and able-bodied! First, when Hera drove you mad and you went off leaving behind your nurses, the mountain-nymphs; [5] next, when in the battle with the Earthborn Giants I took my stand protecting your right flank with my shield and, striking Enceladus with my spear in the center of his targe, killed him. (Come, let me see, did I see this in a dream? No, by Zeus, for I also displayed the spoils to Dionysus.)
So said son of Cronus; but Hera answered him: "Son of Cronos, neither the might of Athena nor of Ares can avail to deliver the Frogs from utter destruction. Rather, come and let us all go to help them, or else let loose your weapon, the great and formidable Titan-killer with which you killed Capaneus, that doughty man, and great Enceladus and the wild tribes of Giants;
And even as when the mount of Aetna smoulders with fire and all its secret depths are shaken as the giant under earth, even Briares, shifts to his other shoulder,a and with the tongs of Hephaestus roar furnaces and handiwork withal;
In Trinacrian waters Enceladus dies and is buried under Aetna by Jove's decree; with the ponderous mountain above him he tosses restlessly, and defiantly breathes from his throat a penal fire.
But in the battle Porphyrion attacked Hercules and Hera. Nevertheless Zeus inspired him with lust for Hera, and when he tore her robes and would have forced her, she called for help, and Zeus smote him with a thunderbolt, and Hercules shot him dead with an arrow.1 As for the other giants, Ephialtes was shot by Apollo with an arrow in his left eye and by Hercules in his right; Eurytus was killed by Dionysus with a thyrsus, and Clytius by Hecate with torches, and Mimas by Hephaestus with missiles of red-hot metal.2 Enceladus fled, but Athena threw on him in his flight the island of Sicily3; and she flayed Pallas and used his skin to shield her own body in the fight.4 Polybotes was chased through the sea by Poseidon and came to Cos; and Poseidon, breaking off that piece of the island which is called Nisyrum, threw it on him.5 And Hermes, wearing the helmet of Hades,6 slew Hippolytus in the fight, and Artemis slew Gration. And the Fates, fighting with brazer clubs, killed Agrius and Thoas. The other giants Zeus smote and destroyed with thunderbolts and all of them Hercules shot with arrows as they were dying.
The present image at Tegea was brought from the parish of Manthurenses, and among them it had the surname of Hippia (Horse Goddess). According to their account, when the battle of the gods and giants took place the goddess drove the chariot and horses against Enceladus. Yet this goddess too has come to receive the name of Alea among the Greeks generally and the Peloponnesians themselves.
Perhaps I have done a foolish thing," went on Apollonius, "for it was my intention to recall you to more scientific and truer explanations than the poetical myths given by the vulgar of Etna; and I have let myself be drawn into a eulogy of myths. However, the digression has not been without a charm of its own, for the myth which we repudiate is not one of Aesop's stories, but belongs to the class of dramatic stories which fill the mouths of our poets. For they say that a certain Typho or Enceladus lies bound under the mountain, and in his death agony breathes out this fire that we see.
Now I admit that giants have existed, and that gigantic bodies are revealed all over earth when tombs are broken open; nevertheless I deny that they ever came into conflict with the gods; at the most they violated their temples and statues, and to suppose that they scaled the heaven and chased away the gods therefrom - this it is madness to relate and madness to believe.
Nor can I any more respect that other story, though it is more reverent in its tone, to the effect that Hephaestus attends to his forge in Etna, and that there is there an anvil on which he smites with his hammer; for there are many other mountains all over the earth that are on fire, and yet we should never be done with it if we assigned to them giants and gods like Hephaestus.
The Neapolitans living in Italy consider the bones of Alkyoneus a marvel. They say that many giants were thrown down there, and Mount Vesuvius smolders over them. Indeed in Pallênê, which the poets call "Phlegra," the earth holds many such bodies of giants encamped there, and rainstorms and earthquakes uncover many others.
[199] The neighbouring island, my boy, we may consider a marvel;1 for fire smoulders under the whole of it, having worked its way into underground passages and cavities of the island, through which as though ducts the flames break forth and produce terrific torrents from which pour mighty rivers of fire2 that run in billows to the sea. If one wishes to speculate about such matters, the island provides natural bitumen and sulphur; and when these are mixed by the sea, the island is fanned into flame by many winds, drawing from the sea that which sets the fuel aflame. But the painting, following the accounts given by the poets,3 goes farther and ascribes a myth to the island. A giant, namely, was once struck down there, and upon his as he struggled in the death agony the island was placed as a bond to hold him down, and he doest not yet [201] yield but from beneath the earth renews the fight and breathes forth this fire as he utters threats. Yonder figure, they say, would represent Typho in Sicily or Enceladus here in Italy,1 giants that both continents and island are pressing down, not yet dead indeed but always dying.2 And you, yourself, my boy, will imagine that you have not been left out of the contest, when you look at the peak of the mountain; for what you see there are thunderbolts which Zeus is hurling at the giant, and the giant is already giving up the struggle but still trusts in the earth, but the earth has grown weary because Poseidon does not permit her to remain in place. Poseidon ahs spread a mist over the contest, so that it resembles what has taken place in the past rather than what is taking place now.
[Gaia:] "... Let Typhoeus seize the thunderbolt and the sceptre; Enceladus, rule the sea, and another in place of the sun guide the reins of dawn's coursers. ..."
In the midst of the island rise the charred cliffs of Aetna, eloquent monument of Jove’s victory over the Giants, the tomb of Enceladus, whose bound and bruisèd body breathes forth endless sulphur clouds from its burning wounds. Whene’er his rebellious shoulders shift their burden to the right or left, the island is shaken from its foundations and the walls of tottering cities sway this way and that.
But while the maidens so disport themselves, wandering through the fields, a sudden roar is heard, towers crash and towns, shaken to their foundations, totter and fall. None knows whence comes the tumult; Paphus’ goddess alone recognized the sound that set her companions in amaze, and fear mixed with joy fills her heart. For now the king of souls was pricking his way through the dim labyrinth of the underworld and crushing Enceladus, groaning beneath the weight of his massy steeds. His chariot-wheels severed the monstrous limbs, and the giant struggles, bearing Sicily along with Pluto on his burdened neck, and feebly essays to move and entangle the wheels with his weary serpents; still o’er his blazing back passes the smoking chariot.
Ceres approached her, and when at length her grief allowed her sighs free rein: “What ruin is here?” she said. “Of what enemy am I become the victim? Does my husband yet rule or do the Titans hold heaven? What hand hath dared this, if the Thunderer be still alive? Have Typhon’s shoulders forced up Inarime or does Alcyoneus course on foot through the Etruscan Sea, having burst the bonds of imprisoning Vesuvius? Or has the neighbouring Etna oped her jaws and expelled Enceladus? Perchance Briareus with his hundred arms has attacked my house? Ah, my daughter, where art thou now? Whither are fled my thousand servants, whither Cyane? What violence ahs driven away the winged Sirens? Is this your faith? Is this the way to guard another’s treasure?”
There was a wood, hard by the stream of Acis, which fair Galatea oft chooses in preference to Ocean and cleaves in swimming with her snowy breast – a wood dense with foliage that closed in Etna’s summit on all sides with interwoven branches. ‘Tis there that Jove is said to have laid down his bloody shield and set his captured spoil after the battle. The grove glories in trophies from the plain of Phlegra and signs of victory clothe its every tree. Here hang the gaping jaws and monstrous skins of the Giants; affixed to trees their faces still threaten horribly, and heaped up on all sides bleach the huge bones of slaughtered serpents. Their stiffening sloughs smoke with the blow of many a thunderbolt, and every tree boasts some illustrious name. This one scarce supports on its down-bended branches the naked swords of hundred-handed Aegaeon; that glories in the murky trophies of Coeus; this bears up the arms of Mimas; spoiled Ophion weighs down those branches. But higher than all the other trees towers a pine, its shady branches spread wide, and bears the reeking arms of Enceladus himself, all powerful king of the Earth-born giants; it would have fallen beneath the heavy burden did not a neighbouring oak-tree support its wearied weight. Therefore the spot winds awe and sanctity; none touches the aged grove, and ‘tis accounted a crime to violate the trophies of the gods. No Cyclops dares pasture there his flock nor hew down the trees, Polyphemus himself flies from the hallowed shade.
No, Bacchos reaped the stubble of snakehaired giants, a conquering hero with a tiny manbreaking wand, when he cast the battling ivy against Porphyrion, when he buffelted Encelados and drove Alcyoneus with a volley of leaves: then the wands flew in showers, and brought the Gegenees (Earthborn) down in defence of Olympos, when the coiling sons of Earth with two hundred hands, who pressed the starry vault with manynecked heads, bent the knee before a flimsy javelin of vineleaves or a spear of ivy. Not so great a swarm fell to the fiery thunderbolt as fell to the manbreaking thyrsus.
She [Hera] addressed her deceitful prayers to Allmother Earth, crying out upon the doings of Zeus and the valour of Dionysos, who had destroyed that cloud of numberless earthborn Indians; and when the lifebringing mother heard that the son of Semele had wiped out the Indian nation with speedy fate, she groaned still more thinking of her children. Then she armed all around Bacchos the mountainranging tribes of Giants, earth's own brood, and goaded her own sons to battle:
"My sons, make your attack with hightowering rocks against clustergarlanded Dionysos—catch this Indianslayer, this destroyer of my family, this son of Zeus, and let me not see him ruling with Zeus a bastard monarch of Olympos! Bind him, bind Bacchos fast, that he may attend in the chamber when I bestow Hebe on Porphyrion as a wife, and give Cythereia [Aphrodite] to Chthonios, when I sing Brighteyes [Athene] the bedfellow of Encelados, and Artemis of Alcyoneus. Bring Dionysos to me, that I may enrage Cronion [Zeus] when he sees Lyaios [Dionysos] a slave and the captive of my spear. Or wound him with cutting steel and kill him for me like Zagreus, that one may say, god or mortal, that Earth in her anger has twice armed her slayers against the breed of Cronides—the older Titans against the former Dionysos [Zagreus], the younger Giants against Dionysos later born."
There was infinite tumult. Bacchos raised himself and lifted his fighting torch over the heads of his adversaries, and roasted the Giants’ bodies with a great conflagration, an image on earth of the thunderbolt cast by Zeus. The torches blazed: fire was rolling all over the head of Encelados and making the air hot, but it did not vanquish him--Encelados bent not his knee in the steam of the earthly fire, since he was reserved for the thunderbolt. Vast Alcyoneus leapt upon Lyaios armed with his Thracian crags; he lifted over Bacchos a cloudhigh peak of wintry Haimos--useless against that mark, Dionysos the invulnerable. He there the cliff, but when the rocks touched the fawnskin of Lyaios, they could not tear it, and burst into splinters themselves. Typhoeus towering high had stript the mountains of Emathia (a younger Typhoeus in all parts like the older, who once had lifted many a rugged strip of his mother earth), and cast the rocky missiles at Dionysos. Lord Bacchos pulled away the sword of one that was gasping on the ground and attacked the Giants' heads, cutting the snaky crop of poison-spitting hair; even without weapon he destroyed the selfmarshalled host, fighting furiously, and using the treeclimbing longleaf ivy to strike the Giants.
In passage 1 [Apoll. 1.6.1] Porphryrion and Enkelados [Alcyones!?] are the supreme giants. Enkelados is also named as Zeus' opponent (passage 6 [should be passage 7 Batrachomyomachia?] , although in passage 1 Athena kills him as she does on, for example, several black-figured amphoras18 and on the sacred Peplos presented in the Panatheniac procession to the ancient wooden image of Athena.19 In Euripides' Cyclops 5–8 a satyr claims to have killed Enkelados, which Carpenter is probably right to see as a detail added for 'the humour of its obvious untruth', 20 although satys do assist Dionysos in the Gigantomachy (cf. 1.61, reverse). The Caeretan vase noted above has names for all three opponents of Zeus which we do not hear of elsewhere in that role (Hyperbios, Ephialtes, and Agasthenes), whereas Athena fights her usual opponent, Enkelados. The tradition regarding Athena's opponent was stronger than that of Zeus'.
Zeus is indeed sometimes said to have piled Aitne on Typhon (Aisch. P.v. 351 ff., Pind. Pyth. I. 13 ff., cp. Strab. 626 f.) or on Enkelados (Lucilius (?) Aetna 71 ff., Stat. Theb. 11. 8, cp. Verg. Aen. 3.578 ff., Opp. [Oppian] de venat. I. 273 ff.); but Typhon is more properly located in the land of Arima (supra p. 826) or in the Corycian Cave (supra p. 448 n. 2), and Enkelados is commonly described as the victim of Athena, not of Zeus.
"Virgil Aeneid 3.578–82 tells of Enceladus, struck by Zeus' thunderbolt, buried beneath the volcano, Mount Aetna.
Frazer, note to Pausanias 8.47.5 "Enceladus" pp. 431, 432
The combat of Athena with Enceladus is very often represented in ancient art, particularly on vases. See A. H. Smith, 'Athene and Enceladus,' Journal of Hellenic Studies, 4 (1883), pp. 90–95 ; M. Mayer, Die Giganten und Titanen, p. 309 sqq.
The exterior duels [on Berlin F2531] are symmetrically arranged in threes: on one side, from left, Artemis fights Gaion, Zeus Porphyrion and Athena Enkelados; on the other Ares fights Mimon (cf. p. 16 above), Apollo Ephialtes and Hera Phoitos.
Sides A and B: gigantomachy. Six figures battle on side A, six on side B. ... Athena battles Enkelados on the right. He has fallen onto one knee, his sword still sheathed and his shield on the wrong side. His head is turned toward Athena as she advances toward him, spear raised. Her left arm, covered by her aegis, is extended. She wears a chiton, bracelets and a crested helmet as well as the aegis.
The Caeretan vase noted above [Louvre E732] has names for all three opponents of Zeus which we do not hear of elsewhere in that role (Hyperbios, Ephialtes, and Agasthenes), whereas Athena fights her usual opponent, Enkelados.
Stewart, Andrew, Greek Sculpture: An Exploratio Volume II:Plates [1]
368. Attic red-figured calyx-krater from Ruvo, ca, 400: Gigantomachy, Naples, Museo Nationale 2883. Original ht. ca. 31 cm.
Arafat
pp. 25–26
The one on the left-hand corner [of Naples 81521] with the shield is named Enkeledos and the [p. 26] one between the two rock-holding giants is named Porphyrion. These names are by now long familiar, and suggest that the divine opponents would have been Athena and Zeus respectively. The presence of Zeus would confirm the idea suggested by the chariot-team. These two giants are worthy of such divine opponents, a rank emphasized by their shields which both have relief bosses; that of Enkelados has a painted battle scene on the interior. Enkelados also has a helmet.
A (Gigantomachy): Enkelados (labelled above his head), crouched profile to the right, both legs bent, wearing an Attic helmet, and a shield shown in 3/4-inside-view on his bent left arm; Mimas (labelled in red wash, below his rock), leaning 3/4-view to the right, with his head frontal, both legs bent, holding a large rock (shaped like a wine skin!) in both arms, wearing a nebris on his left arm; above him, two nude men, of whom only the legs are preserved; a giant (labelled above his head), lunging 3/4-back-view to the right, both legs bent, with weight on his left leg, wearing a nebris over his left arm, and holding an unidentifiable object in his right hand, extended to the right; another male figure above him, crouching near profile to the right, with his bent, left leg raised on a rock, holds a short spear in his lowered right hand, and raises his left hand on top of a rock; another male figure, standing 3/4-view to the left, with his weight on his bent, right leg, wearing a nebris over his left arm, raises a large rock in both arms; a female figure, probably Attika or Ge, shown only above her hips, standing 3/4-view to the left, wearing a belted peplos, and long hair, raises both bent arms, and looks up; Helios (shown from his hips up; the tops of the four horses also shown) riding a quadriga 3/4-view to the left; another quadriga (?).