Hey Everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today’s video,
we’re going to discuss the Aloads, Otus and Ephilates, giant twins and strong contenders
for the most reckless and arrogant characters in all of Greek mythology.
They abducted Ares, the god of war, and imprisoned him for 13 months.
They stacked mountains so that they could climb to the heavens and attack Mount Olympus, and
they even tried to abduct a couple of goddesses, Hera and Artemis, and claim them for their own.
Let’s get into it.
Otus and Ephialtes were twin brothers, the largest and most handsome the world had ever seen.
Only the great hunter Orion was said to be more perfect of form and more
handsome of face. Their mother was mortal, a princess of Thessaly. Iphimedeia was her name,
and she was so infatuated with Poseidon that each day she would wander down to the shore and
fill her lap with water. One day, Poseidon came to her daily place of yearning and bedded her,
and though it was his seed that made these mighty twins, the god himself did not raise
them. Another of Poseidon’s sons, Aloeus, Lord of the Winds, was the stepfather, and
he was the namesake for the moniker Aloadae, which meant son of Aloeus, that the twins were called.
Otus and Ephialtes were of colossal size and were blessed with prodigious strength.
They were behemoths. At just nine years old, they were about 22.5 feet, or 7 meters, wide,
and about 54 feet, or 16 meters, tall. They were giants, though not of the ilk of giants
born from the droplets of blood that fell to the earth from Uranus’ severed genitals,
but giants because of their towering statures.
The lives of Otus and Ephialtes were cautionary tales, showing what fate awaited those whose
minds’ were pervaded by hubris, especially when the gods were challenged. Zeus could
have erased them from the face of the earth with his lightning, so each time the twins grew bolder,
there was a feeling that they were tightening the proverbial noose around their own necks.
First, they abducted Ares, bound him in chains, and then imprisoned him in a bronze jar for 13
months. By the end, Ares was so neglected and emaciated that he almost died. Were it not
for the twins’ new stepmother, Eeriboeia, who went and informed the gods of what transpired,
Ares would not have been rescued by Hermes, but left in his wretched,
pitiable state; and it was said that he would have perished had he been left as he was,
though that information is at odds with the immortal nature of the Greek gods.
This transgression against Ares was only morsel to wet their appetite, which was ravenous and
seemingly insatiable for audacity and impudence. The situation escalated tenfold when the twins
turned their sights on the rest of the gods. They aspired to assail Olympus itself, though the abode
of the gods was situated at a lofty height, so uninvited as they were, stepping foot where
the gods themselves lived would require a combination of strength and creativity.
The solution the twins settled on was to stack several mountains on top of each other,
then to climb those mountains like a ladder into the heavens. Olympus, Ossa, and Pelion were the
three mountains intended for this structure. Here, Zeus was resolved to smite the twins,
reducing them to piles of blackened bones buried in heaps of Ash, but Poseidon appealed to Zeus’
forgiving nature, placating him with the promise of keeping his wayward sons out of trouble.
Unfortunately, though, the sense Poseidon was able to instill in his sons was
ephemeral. Otus and Ephialtes turned their attention to other prospects. They decided
that each of them would claim one of the goddesses. Otus set his sights on Hera,
and Ephialtes, his sights on Artemis. Lots were drawn to see whose prize would first be pursued.
Ephialtes won, so they scoured the land for any sign of Artemis, canvassing forests,
roaming hills, and hunting around mountain crags. They eventually found her, but Artemis was no
easy prey. She was the divine huntress and much craftier than the two brutes trying to lay hands
on her. She took the form of a deer and bounded between the twins. They struck, but missed the
deer, instead stabbing each other, both of them inflicting a mortal wound on the other.
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