The Gigantomachy

The Story

The Gigantomachy is the great war between the Olympian gods and the Giants, the powerful earth-born beings associated with Gaia.

The conflict belongs to the struggles that follow the establishment of Zeus as ruler of the cosmos.

Why did the Giants fight the Olympian gods? Ancient traditions connect the Giants with Gaia and with hostility toward the new Olympian order.

The Giants attack the gods with enormous physical force. Apollodorus describes them throwing rocks and burning trees toward heaven.

The gods nevertheless face an unusual problem.

A prophecy declares that the Giants cannot be completely destroyed by the gods alone. A mortal must take part in the battle.

That mortal is Heracles.

Why was Heracles needed in the Gigantomachy? Zeus calls Heracles into the conflict because his participation fulfils the condition of the prophecy.

Heracles first attacks the Giant Alcyoneus. Alcyoneus cannot die while fighting on the land where he was born, so Athena advises Heracles to drag him beyond the boundary of his native territory. Once removed from that protective ground, Alcyoneus dies.

Another major Giant, Porphyrion, attacks Heracles and Hera. Zeus strikes Porphyrion with a thunderbolt and Heracles finishes him with an arrow.

Other Olympian gods also fight individual Giants. Athena, Apollo, Dionysus, Hecate, Hephaestus, Hermes and Poseidon are all associated with victories over Giants in surviving traditions.

The Gigantomachy therefore differs from the earlier Titanomachy. The Olympians are already the ruling generation, and the war tests whether the new cosmic order can survive another enormous challenge.

The participation of Heracles also joins the world of the gods with the later Heroic Age: a mortal hero becomes indispensable to a battle fought for control of the divine cosmos.