adsertoris:

William Blake - “Antaeus Setting Down Dante and Virgil in the Last Circle of Hell” (1824-27)

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Antaeus (also Antaios) (Ἀνταίος) in Greek and Berber mythology was a half-giant, the son of Poseidon and Gaia, whose wife was Tinjis. Antaeus had a daughter named Alceis or Barce.

Greeks of the sixth century BC, who had established colonies along the coast, located Antaeus in the interior desert of Libya.^[1]

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. He was indefatigably 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 other men.

Antaeus had defeated most of his opponents until it came to his fight with Heracles (who was on his way to the Garden of Hesperides for his 11th Labour). Upon finding that he could not beat Antaeus by throwing him to the ground as he would regain his strength and be fortified, Heracles discovered the secret of his power. Holding Antaeus aloft, Heracles crushed him in a bearhug.^[2] The story 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 and Renaissance sculpture.

In Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, Antaeus is shown among the giants half-frozen up to their torsos at the edge of the Circle of Treachery. He lowers Dante and Virgil into the Circle of Treachery.

(via darksilenceinsuburbia)