Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities ...

, Alpos (

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

: Ἄλπον) was Sicilian

giant In folklore, giants (from Ancient Greek: ''gigas'', cognate giga-) are beings of human-like appearance, but are at times prodigious in size and strength or bear an otherwise notable appearance. The word ''giant'' is first attested in 1297 fr ...

son of

Gaea In Greek mythology, Gaia (; from Ancient Greek , a poetical form of , 'land' or 'earth'),, , . also spelled Gaea , is the personification of the Earth and one of the Greek primordial deities. Gaia is the ancestral mother—sometimes partheno ...

(Earth).

Description

Like the Hundred-Handed Ones, Alpos had many arms, and his head was covered with

viper The Viperidae (vipers) are a family of snakes found in most parts of the world, except for Antarctica, Australia, Hawaii, Madagascar, and various other isolated islands. They are venomous and have long (relative to non-vipers), hinged fangs tha ...

s, like

Medusa In Greek mythology, Medusa (; Ancient Greek: Μέδουσα "guardian, protectress"), also called Gorgo, was one of the three monstrous Gorgons, generally described as winged human females with living venomous snakes in place of hair. Those ...

Mythology

Alpos once terrorized Pelorus (modern day:

Punta del Faro Faro Point (Italian ''Punta del Faro'') is the northeastern promontory of Sicily situated in Messina district at northeast of the city. The village is connected to the city center by two ATM bus lines: line 32 (Ponte Gallo - Mortelle - Terminal Mu ...

) in Sicily as described by

Nonnus Nonnus of Panopolis ( grc-gre, Νόννος ὁ Πανοπολίτης, ''Nónnos ho Panopolítēs'', 5th century CE) was the most notable Greek epic poet of the Imperial Roman era. He was a native of Panopolis (Akhmim) in the Egyptian Theb ...

in his '' Dionysiaca'': : No wayfarer then climbed the height of that rock, for fear of the raging Giant and his row of mouths; and if one in ignorance travelled on that forbidden road whipping a bold horse, the son of Earth spied him, pulled him over the rock with a tangle of many hands, entombed man and colt in his gullet! Often some old shepherd leading his sheep to pasture along the wooded hillside at midday was gobbled up. In those days melodious Pan never sat beside herds of goats or sheepcotes playing his tune on the assembled reeds, no imitating

Echo In audio signal processing and acoustics, an echo is a reflection of sound that arrives at the listener with a delay after the direct sound. The delay is directly proportional to the distance of the reflecting surface from the source and the lis ...

returned the sounds of his pipes; but prattler as she was, silence sealed those lips which were wont to sound with the pipe of Pan never silent, because the Giant then oppressed all. No cowherd then came, no band of woodmen cutting timbers for a ship troubled the

Nymphs A nymph ( grc, νύμφη, nýmphē, el, script=Latn, nímfi, label=Modern Greek; , ) in ancient Greek folklore is a minor female nature deity. Different from Greek goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as personifications of nature, are ...

of the trees, their age-mates, no clever shipwright clamped together a barge, the woodriveted car that travels the roads of the sea... Eventually, the giant was killed by

Dionysus In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus (; grc, Διόνυσος ) is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, festivity, and theatre. The Roma ...

with his

thyrsus A thyrsus /ˈθɜːrsəs/ or thyrsos /ˈθɜːrˌsɒs/ (Ancient Greek: θύρσος) was a wand or staff of giant fennel ('' Ferula communis'') covered with ivy vines and leaves, sometimes wound with taeniae and topped with a pine cone, arti ...

in an epic battle: Alpos who does not appear elsewhere in Greek mythology, and received no cult, may be considered an invention of the fertile imagination of Nonnus. Pierre Grimal, ''The Dictionary of Classical Mythology'', ''s.v.'' "Alpos": "Like every giant he was a son of

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

Notes

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References

Nonnus of Panopolis Nonnus of Panopolis ( grc-gre, Νόννος ὁ Πανοπολίτης, ''Nónnos ho Panopolítēs'', 5th century CE) was the most notable Greek epic poet of the Imperial Roman era. He was a native of Panopolis (Akhmim) in the Egyptian Thebai ...

, ''Dionysiaca'' translated by William Henry Denham Rouse (1863-1950), from the Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1940.
Online version at the Topos Text Project.
* Nonnus of Panopolis, ''Dionysiaca. 3 Vols.'' W.H.D. Rouse. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1940-1942
Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library
Ancient Sicily Greek giants Children of Gaia