Leon (giant)

Possibly the god Aither in battle with the giant, also interpreted as Leon, at the Pergamon Altar.

Leon ( ancient Greek Λέων ) is in Greek mythology a giant with a human body and a lion's head, who was killed by Heracles in the war between the giants and the gods . The hero made a coat out of his skin.

On the large frieze of the Pergamon Altar a giant with the head of a lion is depicted, who is equated by parts of science with that very Leon. Before the time of Hellenism , Leon, like the other giants, was portrayed as a human being, it was only during Hellenism that the appearance of some giants changed into beasts.

swell

• Ptolemy Chennos : Kaine Historia 5

literature

• Wilhelm Drexler : Leon 3 . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 2.2, Leipzig 1897, Col. 1943 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Wilhelm Kroll : Leon 5 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume XII, 2, Stuttgart 1925, Sp. 2004.
• Otto Waser : Giants. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Supplement volume III, Stuttgart 1918, Col. 655-759 (Leon is treated with Col. 748-749).