ANTAEUS

:''This article is about the god of Greek mythology. For the musical band, see Antaeus (band). For LA-based electronica DJ/artist/producer, see Antaeus (electronica). For the publication, see Antaeus (magazine).''


'Antaeus' in Greek and Berber mythology was a giant of Libya, the son of Poseidon and Gaia, and his wife was Tinjis. He was extremely strong as long as he remained in contact with the ground (his mother earth), but once lifted into the air he became as weak as water. He would challenge all passers-by to wrestling matches, kill them, and collect their skulls, so that he might one day build out of them a temple to his father Poseidon. Heracles, finding that he could not beat Antaeus by throwing him to the ground, as he would regain his strength and be fortified, discovered the secret of his power (touching the ground) and held Antaeus aloft until he died (Apollodorus ii. 5; Hyginus, ''Fab''. 31). The myth of Antaeus has been used as a symbol of the spiritual strength which accrues when one rests one's faith on the immediate fact of things. The struggle between Antaeus and Heracles is a favorite subject in ancient sculpture.
In Dante's ''The Divine Comedy'', Antaeus is a giant who guards the ninth circle of Hell, and lowers Dante and Virgil down to the iced-over Cocytus.
One of the stories of the Tanglewood Tales features Antaeus and the Pygmies (Chapter: "The Pygmies").

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See also

References

See also

★ In the Berber language Antaeus is supposedly known as Änti. A different figure from Egyptian mythology, Anti, was transliterated as "Antaeus" by the Greeks.

★ Antaeus is a Greek born, LA-based electronica DJ/artist/producer.

★ ''Ан тей'' (Antaeus in Russian) is the original name of both the ''Oscar-II'' class submarine and the Antonov An-22 transport aircraft.

★ There was a literary magazine, edited by Daniel Halpern, named Antaeus.

★ "Antaeus" is the title of a short story by American novelist Borden Deal.

★ There are two poems by the Irish poet Seamus Heaney about this myth in his collection North:

... He may well throw me and renew my birth

But let him not plan, lifting me off the earth,

My elevation, my fall.^[1]

★ There are two comic book characters named after this myth, see Antaeus (comics)

★ Antaeus is the name of the battlecruiser in the PC game ''Hostile Waters (game)''

★ Antaeus is the name of a men's cologne by Chanel

★ The Antaeus myth features heavily in the Pat Barker novel ''Regeneration'' as a metaphor for men psychologically disturbed in World War One

★ Antaeus is a french black metal band

★ The Antaeus Company in Los Angeles is a professional classical theater ensemble founded in 1991. www.antaeus.org.
There is a new paraglider model, an high-end intermediate/performance glider name Antea by the Czech paragliding brand SKY. They tend to name gliders after characters of Greek mythology, like Brontes, one of the cyclopses

References

1. Seamus Heaney (1998), Opened Ground: Poems 1966-1996, London: Faber and Faber, p. 16.


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