Pythian 8.12–18
- Porphyrion did not know your power, when he provoked you beyond all measure. Gain is most welcome, when one takes it from the home of a willing giver. [15] Violence trips up even a man of great pride, in time. Cilician Typhon with his hundred heads did not escape you, nor indeed did the king of the Giants.1 One was subdued by the thunderbolt, the other by the bow of Apollo,
The Birds
- 553
- Oh, Cebriones! oh, Porphyrion! what a terribly strong place!
- 1249–1252
- I shall send more than six hundred porphyrions [1250] clothed in leopards' skins up to heaven against him; and formerly a single Porphyrion gave him enough to do.
Odes 3.4.49–51
- Yet Jove had fear'd the giant rush,
- Their upraised arms, their port of pride,
- And the twin brethren bent to push
- Huge Pelion up Olympus' side.
- But Typhon, Mimas, what could these,
- Or what Porphyrion's stalwart scorn,
- Rhoetus, or he whose spears were trees,
- Enceladus, from earth uptorn,
- As on they rush'd in mad career
- 'Gainst Pallas' shield?
1.6.1
- Such is the legend of Demeter. But Earth, vexed on account of the Titans, brought forth the giants, whom she had by Sky.1 These were matchless in the bulk of their bodies and invincible in their might; terrible of aspect did they appear, with long locks drooping from their head and chin, and with the scales of dragons for feet.2 They were born, as some say, in Phlegrae, but according to others in Pallene.3 And they darted rocks and burning oaks at the sky. Surpassing all the rest were Porphyrion and Alcyoneus, who was even immortal so long as he fought in the land of his birth. He also drove away the cows of the Sun from Erythia. Now the gods had an oracle that none of the giants could perish at the hand of gods, but that with the help of a mortal they would be made an end of. Learning of this, Earth sought for a simple to prevent the giants from being destroyed even by a mortal. But Zeus forbade the Dawn and the Moon and the Sun to shine, and then, before anybody else could get it, he culled the simple himself, and by means of Athena summoned Hercules to his help. Hercules first shot Alcyoneus with an arrow, but when the giant fell on the ground he somewhat revived. However, at Athena's advice Hercules dragged him outside Pallene, and so the giant died.4
1.6.2
- 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.
Gigantomachia
- 34–35 (pp. 282–283)
- [Gaia:] "... Porphyrion, wreathe thou thy head with Delphi's laurel and take Cirrah for thy sanctuary."
- 114–116 (pp. 288–289)
- Impious Porphryrion, carried by his serpents into the middle of the sea, tries to uproot trembling Delos, wishing to hurl it at the sky.
[Nonnus]]
Dionysiaca, 48.7–22 (III, pp. 424–427)
- [Hera] addressed her deceitful prayers to Allmother Earth [Gaia], 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 [Gaia] 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 Bakkhos [Dionysos] 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 Bakkhos 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.