Alcyoneus

A giant, who kept possession of the Isthmus of Corinth at the time when Heracles drove away the oxen of Geryon. The giant attacked him, crushed twelve wagons and twenty-four of the men of Heracles with a huge block of stone. Heracles himself warded off the stone with his club and slew Alcyoneus. The block, with which the giant had attempted the life of Heracles, was shown on the Isthmus down to a very late period.1 In another passage2 Pindar calls Alcyoneus a Thracian shepherd, and places the struggle with him in the Phlegraean plains.

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References

Notes

  1. Pindar. Nemean Odes iv, 44, with the Scholiast.
  2. Isthmian Odes vi, 45 ff.

Source

  • Smith, William. (1870). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. London: Taylor, Walton, and Maberly.

This article incorporates text from Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) by William Smith, which is in the public domain.