Briareos
Also called Briareus, Obriareos, Obriareus, Aegaeon, Aigaion.
Briareos is one of the three Hundred-Handers of Greek myth, a hundred-armed, fifty-headed son of Sky and Earth, also known as Aigaion, imprisoned by his father and remembered as a guard and ally of the gods.
At a glance
- Tradition
- Greek mythology
- Trait family
- The Ward-Holders
Near this figure
Traits
Read from the figure's description, which a model wrote. Open "why" for the sentence a trait came from.
Form
- Multi-headed body
why
Each brother carried a hundred arms springing from his shoulders and fifty heads, and the poets call them unsurpassed in size and might.
Offensive powers
- Superhuman strength
why
Each brother carried a hundred arms springing from his shoulders and fifty heads, and the poets call them unsurpassed in size and might.
Defensive powers
- Guardianship
why
The epic tradition knows him also as Aigaion, and the two names are reconciled in the Homeric way: Briareos is what the gods call him, Aigaion the name men use — the Iliad has Thetis summon him to sit beside Zeus as an unanswerable bodyguard when the other Olympians plotted to bind the king of the gods.