Aloids

The aloads or aloids are a pair of brothers in Greek mythology . They are called Otos and Ephialtes and are sons of Poseidon and Iphimedeia . The name comes from Aloeus , her mother's husband, who, according to another tradition, was also her father.

The two grew up to be giants in childhood. At the age of 9 they defeated the god of war Ares and locked him in an iron barrel for 13 months. They put the Ossa and the Pelion on Mount Olympus in order to climb this ladder to heaven and dethrone the gods. But Apollon killed them with his arrows “before their beards germinated”. According to another report, Artemis let a doe walk between the two. The brothers threw their spears at the animal, but met one another in the process. In Tartaros they were punished for their disrespectful behavior by being tied back to back to a pillar with snakes.

Alleged graves of the Aloaden were in Anthedon in Boiotien as well as on Naxos and Crete .

swell

• Homer : Iliad , 5, 385 ff.
• Hesiod : Ehoien
• Pindar : Pythia IV 88-92.
• Virgil : Culex 234ff.
• Ovid : Metamorphoses , 1, 151-162
• Pausanias : Travels in Greece 9, 22, 6; 9, 29, 1

literature

• Hans von Geisau : Aloads, aloids . In: The Little Pauly .
• Michael Grant and John Hazel: Who's who in classical mythology . Hodder & Stoughton, New York 1979, ISBN 0-340-23846-1 .
  • German: Lexicon of ancient myths and figures . Dtv, Munich 1986, ISBN 3-423-03181-6 .
• Tanja Scheer : Aloads. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 1, Metzler, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-476-01471-1 , Sp. 532.
• Johannes Toepffer : Aloadai, Aloeidai . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume I, 2, Stuttgart 1894, Col. 1590-1592.