User:Paul August/Pallas (Giant)

Pallas (Giant)

Sources

Ancient

Euripides

Ion 987–997

Creusa

Listen, then; you know the battle of the giants?

Tutor

Yes, the battle the giants fought against the gods in Phlegra.

Creusa

There the earth brought forth the Gorgon, a dreadful monster.

Tutor

[990] As an ally for her children and trouble for the gods?

Creusa

Yes; and Pallas, the daughter of Zeus, killed it.

Tutor

[What fierce shape did it have?

Creusa

A breastplate armed with coils of a viper.]

Tutor

Is this the story which I have heard before?

Creusa

[995] That Athena wore the hide on her breast.

Tutor

And they call it the aegis, Pallas' armor?

Creusa

It has this name from when she darted to the gods' battle.

Cicero

De natura deorum 3.59

The fifth [Minerva] is Pallas, who is said to have slain her father when he attempted to violate her maidenhood; she is represented with wings attached to her ankles.

Clement of Alexandria

Protrepticus 2.28.2

[Athena] the daughter of Pallas and Titanis, the daughter of Oceanus, who, having wickedly killed her father, adorned herself with her father's skin, as if it had been the fleece of a sheep.

Claudian

Gigantomachia

91–103 (pp. 286–289)

Minerva rushed forward presenting her breast whereon glittered the Gorgon's head. The sight of this, she knew, was enough: she needed not use a spear. One look sufficed. Pallas drew no nearer, rage as he might, for he was the first to be changed into a rock. When, at a distance from his foe, without wound, he found himself rooted to the ground, and felt the murderous visage turn him, little by little, to stone (and all but stone he was) he called out, "What is happening to me? What is this ice that creeps o're all my limbs? What is this numbness that holds me prisoner in these marble fetters?" Scare had he uttered these few words when he was what he feared, and savage Damastor, seeking a weapon wherewith to repel the foe, hurled at them in place of a rock his brothers stony corpse.

Suidas

s.v. Παλλάς (Pallas) :

"[the name of] a great virgin. It is an epithet of Athena; from brandishing (pallein) the spear, or from having killed Pallas, one of the Giants."

Modern

Robertson

p. 42

Or Athena was sexually molested by her father, called Pallas in this story, and she killed him and flayed him, and now wears his hide as the aigis.³⁰

There is a larger class of stories in which Athena acquires the Aigis as she plunges into battle against an adversary variously named, a giant or a monster or an invulnerable warrior: Pallas, Aegis, also Aster, Asterius, even Gorgon.³¹ she kills him (or her, Gorgon) and flays the hide to make the aigis, then wares it in further fighting. Such stories go back to Euripides and Epicharmus and to the Meropis as a local epic of Cos. The Meropis indeed suggests that the pattern is much older, as old as a story that Homer knows, of Heracles blown by storm to Cos (Il. 14.250–256). For it is in aid of Heracles that Athena fights a Coan champion, and we shall see below that the details are true to ancient ritual.

³⁰ Cic. Nat. D. 3.59; Clem. Al. Protr. 2.28.2; Ampelius 9.10; Arn. Adv. nat. 4.14; Firm. Mat. Err. prof. rel. 16.2; Tzetz. Lycoph. Alex 255.

³¹ Pallas a giant: Epicharm. (note 28 above); Apollod, Bibl, 1.37. Aegis a fiery monster: ...

pp. 43–44

As Heracles returns from Troy, his ship is driven to the island by an autumn storm, and a fierce battle follows against the natives, and Heracles and his men are almost defeated — until Athena intervenes. In the recently discovered Meropis, Athena creates the aigis by killing and flaying the invulnerable warrior Asterus.

Fowler

p. 66

In Athens, the commonest story about how Athena aquired her aegis involved her killing and flaying the invulnerable giant Pallas in the Battle of Gods and Giants:²⁵³ the Gigantomachy was perpetually depicted on the Panathenaic peplos. Other stories were told: for instance, in Apollodorus Bibl. 3.114–5, we reed how Athena, while a girl in Triton's care, practiced the arts of war with his daughter Pallas. One day Pallas was about ...

Epicharmos fr. 135; Apollod. Bibl. 1.37; Etym. Gen. (Etym. Magn.) s.v. Παλλάς; Tzetzes on Lykoph. Alex. 355. Euripides ...

Burkert

p. 139

The word Pallas remains obscure; it was interpreted sometimes as Maiden, and sometimes as the weapon-brandishing, but it might equally have had a non-Greek origin.⁴

p. 140

The emblem and armour of Athena is the aegis;¹⁶ whenever she raises up the aigis her enemies are overtaken by panic and soon are lost.¹⁷ The aigis, as its name tells, is a goat-skin; a special goat sacrifice forms part of the Athena cult in Athens.¹⁸ Myth recounts how this goat was a monster, a gorgo, which Athena herself killed and skinned;¹⁹ pictorial art tyrned the animal head into a Gorgon head and bordered the aigis with snakes, while the Iliad poet speaks more circumspectly of golden tassels.²⁰ More unsettling still are myths which tell how on the island of Kos athena slew and skinned a human creature, a giant called Pallas, and clothed herself in his skin, which is why she is called Pallas; it was even claimed that this Pallas had been her own father.²¹

Guillén

p. 83

Regarding the myths dealt with by Epicharmus, it is also noted in fr. 135 (278 R-N), from an unidentified play, the birth of Athena from the head of Zeus is mentioned together with the fight against the Titans, and the name of Pallas is said to be derived from a giant Pallas, out of whose skin Athena had made herself a cloak.

Wilk

p. 82

One story has it that Athena fought a fire-breathing monster named Aegis, killed it, skinned it, and wore its tough skin as protection ever after—but the one who tells this story is the ever-untrustworthy Dionysius Skytobrachion. And he is the only one to tell it (aside from Diodorus Siculus, who quoes him). Somewhat similar stories, however are told by Apollodorus, who says that Athena skinned a scaly giant named Pallas, and Cicero, who syays that Pallas was the father of Athena and tried to rape her.

Yasumura

pp. 49–58 (see Amazon )

p. 50

The Catalogue of Ships (Il. 2,676-9) records that Cos was the city of Euryalus. ...

A recently discovered papyrus fragment of the epic poem called the Meropis⁴⁰ has revealed more about Heracles' expedition to Cos. The papyrus, from the first century BC, contains 24 lines of a local heroic epic with a commentary by the Hellenistic writer Apollodorus of Athens, the follower of Aristarchus, c, 150-125 BC. A Hellenistic date has been suggested for the epic,⁴¹ but it seems more likely to date from the seventh of sixth century BC.⁴²

In this poem, Heracles is nearly killed by Asterus, one of the Meropes (vv. 1-7); Apollodorus explains in his commentary that Asterus is invulnerable (άτρωτος, 25). However, Athena comes to Heracles' aid and kills Asterus with her spear (vv. 8-17) and, after stripping and drying it, uses Asterus' strong skin for her aegis (vv. 18-24). According to Apollodorus, she considers the skin will be useful for other dangerous situations (35).

As is suggested by the episode in which Asterus' skin forms Athena's aegis, the Meropes are not ordinary humans but Gigantes.⁴³ Philostratus (Heroicus 8.14) writes of the Meropes that ... - the same height as Otus and Ephialtes (Od. 11.311-12). Fragment 637 of Aristotle (schol. to Aristides Panathenaicus 189.4) records that Asterius — as he is referred to here — was a giant who was killed by Athena.⁴⁴

p. 91

In the fragment of the Meropis discussed in Chapter II, the aegis is made by Athena from the skin of the Giant Asterus whom she killed in the Gigantomachy.

p. 173

43 For the Meropes as Gigantes, see Janko (1992) ad 14.250-61.

44. Janko (1992) ad 14.250-61 holds that Asterus must be the same as Asterius.