Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained.
In today’s video, we’re going to discuss the 15 most massive monsters in Greek mythology,
going over each one at a time, from smallest to biggest.
Overall, I’m confident with the 15 entries, but I found ranking them quite challenging.
Different versions give different descriptions, and most descriptions don’t give the sort
of details that make for easy comparison.
Anyway, I did my best.
Let me know in the comments how you would have ranked it.
Let’s get into it.
Starting off our list are the Laestrygons
The Laestrygons were a race of cannibalistic giants and one of the chief perils Odysseus
and his men had to overcome on their harrowing return voyage from the sacking of Troy.
Initially, upon first seeing a stream of smoke rising in the distance, Odysseus believed
that perhaps they had lucked upon somewhere civilised, a place where the inhabitants would
extend countenance and give succor, a belief he and his men were quickly disabused of.
He dispatched a small scouting party of three men who came upon the daughter of the local
king, and they were struck by her size and strength, young though she was.
She escorted them to the royal palace, and inside they beheld the queen, a terrifying
woman of great size, described as being the size of the mountain crag.
She called her husband, and when he arrived he immediately grabbed one of the men and
tore him to pieces.
The two survivors fled and ran back to the ships, which, unfortunately, would scarcely
prove safer.
The king raised the whole village, and from the cliffs that encased the bay where the
ships waited, they hurled boulders and threw spears, toppling masts, splintering hulls,
and skewering seamen.
Odysseus’ ship alone managed to escape.
At number 14 is the Hydra of Lerna
The spawn of Typhon and Echidna, The Hydra of Lerna was an enormous multi-headed serpent,
usually described as having nine heads, but more multitudinous variations reach 50 and
even 100.
They hydra dwelt in the marshes of Lerna, and it was incredibly hard to kill because
two heads would grow back each time one was severed or bludgeoned; and what’s more,
the centre head was immortal, meaning it was impossible to kill.
Hercules succeeded in this trial with the help of Iolaus, his nephew and companion,
who cauterised the stump of each severed or destroyed head, preventing them from regenerating.
When the final head, the immortal one, was finally separated from its body, Hercules
had no means of putting it to a permanent end, so he did what he could, burning it beneath
a boulder.
Having overcome his foe, Hercules dipped his arrow heads in the Hydra’s venom, radically
augmenting their lethality, basically imbuing them with the power of instant death - a power
that made Hercules’ life quite a bit easier when confronting by many of the enemies he
would face in the future.
Up next we have Polyphemus
Polyphemus, as said by Homer, was the most powerful of the cyclopes - that is, the most
powerful with the exception of the three Uranian cyclopes born to Uranus and Gaia, who were
godlike and will be covered later.
Polyphemus was the son of Poseidon and of the nymph Thoosa, born to Phorcys, who was
an ancient sea deity.
Like the others of his race, Polyphemus was of great size, described by Odysseus as ‘a
mountain of a man’, had but a single eye, and was barbarous and solitary in nature.
Odysseus and his men famously escaped his cave by blinding him while he slept.
It was this blinding that aroused the ire of Poseidon, Polyphemus’ father, who, as
the sovereign of the seas, contrived for the rest of Odysseus’ return voyage to Ithaca
to be as difficult as possible.
At number 12 are two nameless sea monsters.
This entry includes two sea monsters, one killed by Perseus and one Killed by Hercules.
Not much of them is known, but they were both set loose by Poseidon, the lord of the sea
and everything therein, whether living or inanimate.
After killing Medusa, Perseus came to Ethiopia, where he found Andromeda chained to a coastal
cliff, offered up as a sacrifice to placate Poseidon, who was enraged by Andromeda’s
mother when she claimed to be more beautiful than all the nymphs of the sea.
Perseus fell in love with Andromeda at first sight, and agreed to kill the sea monster
for her hand in marriage.
In Hercules’ case, Poseidon sent a sea monster to prey on Troy after its king, Laomedon,
refused to pay the sea god after he helped build the walls of Troy.
(Apollo was similarly spurned, and his vengeance came in the form of a pestilence.)
Hercules Agreed to kill this sea monster, and the agreed upon payment for this service
were the magnificent mares Zeus had gifted as compensation for his abduction of Ganymede.
Hercules succeeded, of course, but as was the case with the two gods before, Laomedon
once again reneged on his promise of payment, leaving the hero empty handed.
In the end, though, Hercules would pay back this treachery with interest, returning to
Troy and sacking the city after the completion of his 12 labours.
Up next we have Scylla.
Scylla, once a beautiful sea nymph, was hideously transformed at the behest of one whose advances
she rejected.
Many wanted her, and the most persistent and infatuated of them was Glaucus, a mortal fisherman
who became a sea god.
Glaucus sought revenge, and to achieve this, he went to the sorceress Circe, whose services
were rendered twofold: providing Glaucus with a potion to remedy his broken heart and poisoning
Scylla’s favourite bathing pool, this turning Scylla into a monster the next time she submerged
herself.
Scylla came to dwell in an ocean side cave.
She, along with Charybdis, each occupied one side of the infamous strait Odysseus had to
sail through, meaning he had to choose which one of them he would chance in his passage.
He chose Scylla, the lesser of two evils, yet she does manage to snatch six sailors
off of the ship’s deck as they pass by.
Here’s a passage from the Odyssey that describes her:
“She has twelve legs, all writhing, dangling down, and six long swaying necks, a hideous
head on each, each head barbed with a triple row of fangs, thickset, packed tight - and
armed to the hilt with black death!
Holed up in the cavern’s bowels from her waist down she shoots out her heads, out of
that terrifying pit, angling right from her nest, wildly sweeping the reefs for dolphins,
dogfish, or any bigger quarry … Nor mariners yet can boast they’ve raced their ship past
Scylla’s lair without some mortal blow.
At 10 is Python
Python was a huge monster, either serpent-like or dragon-like in appearance, that dwelt near
the spring at Delphi.
According to Ovid, Python emerged from Gaia when her body was mud-covered, both filthy
and fetid, following the great flood that nearly exterminated humanity, once the surging
water of the world had withdrawn.
Python was a scourge upon humanity; however, the threat she posed did eventually come to
an end when confronted by Apollo, who killed her with his bow, his weapon of choice.
Up next we have Orion.
Of enormous size, unsurpassed in prowess as a hunter, and incredibly handsome, Orion was
the son of Poseidon and of Euryale, one of the daughters of king Minos, though there
are other versions of his parentage.
According to some accounts, he could either walk on water or effortlessly stride through
it.
After his first wife was sent to the underworld by Hera, Orion pursued the daughter of king
Oenopion, but he became impatient and forced himself on her, a transgression the king paid
back by blinding Orion in his sleep.
Later, Orion, guided by a boy who stood on his shoulders, travelled to Helios, the sun
god, who restored his sight.
There are many versions that detail Orion’s death, and they include permutations of these
events: being killed by Artemis or by a scorpion sent by Artemis for either trying to force
himself on someone or for having the temerity to challenge Artemis is some contest of sport,
most are punctuated by his form being set in the sky amongst the stars as a constellation.
At number 8 are Otus & Ephialtes
Per Homer’s account, Otus and Ephialtes were among the most handsome men of Greek
mythology, surpassed in this respect only by Orion, and were the tallest.
Unlike almost all of the other entries on this list, their size is precisely documented.
When only nine years old, their breadth was nine forearm lengths (about 7 metres, or 22.5
feet), and their height was nine arm spans (about 16 metres, or 55 feet.
According to Apollodorus, they grew at a rate of about one phantom in height and one cubit
in breath per year, about 6 feet and 2 feet, respectively, per year.
Their story is a series of bad decisions, each more impulsive and impudent than the
one before.
They abducted Ares, chained him, and kept him imprisoned in a bronze jar for 13 months
- the god of war deprived of food and drink for the entirety of his incarceration.
They endeavoured to climb Olympus and reach the lofty abode of the gods, and, this next
to be their final brazen act, they attempted to capture two goddesses and claim them as
wives, one of them being Artemis, who thwarted their efforts by having them simultaneously
strike each other with a mortal blow.
Up next we have Talus.
In one version, Talus is a giant bronze automaton forged by Hephaestus.
In another, he’s the last of the bronze age humans.
The bronze age was the third of 5 iterations of humanity, the five being gold, silver,
bronze, heroic, and iron.
Talus was indefatigable, an ever-vigilant sentinel, as well as invulnerable, with the
exception of his ankle where there was a large vein.
His undoing came when Jason sailed to his island on his way back to Greece after obtaining
the golden fleece.
Talus tried to sink Jason’s ship, hurling massive boulders from the shore, but because
of a curse uttered by Medea, he grazed his ankle, inflicting a mortal wound that drains
him of his life’s blood, his ichor pouring from him like molten lead.
At number 6 are The Uranian Cyclopes:
Born to Gaia, the personification of the earth, and Uranus, the personification of the sky,
the trio of Uranian Cyclopes were of great size and strength, godlike in appearance save
for the fact that they had but one eye instead of two.
Their names were Steropes, meaning ‘Lightener’ or ‘Lightning Bolt’, Brontes, meaning
‘The Thunderer”, and Arges, meaning ‘The Flashing One’.
Their father found them to be abominations so he kept them imprisoned within Tartarus,
the abyssal depths beneath the earth - almost a cavernous reflection of the sky.
They joined the gods in the war against the Titans after Zeus rescued them.
Their primary contribution to the war effort was the forging of three awesome weapons:
the thunderbolt for Zeus, the Trident for Poseidon, and the Helm of Darkness for Hades.
According to Virgil, their forge was located beneath Mount Etna, Located in Sicily.
Up next we have Charybdis.
Charybdis was one of two monsters, the other being Scylla, that dwelt within a strait Odysseus
and his men had to sail through.
There was one monster per side, so any ship with a crew desperate to make the passage
had to choose which of the two they would subject themselves to.
Little is known of Charybdis beyond that she was female and of colossal size.
Three times each day she would suck down such a volume of water that whirlpool was created,
one of such size and force that even Poseidon himself couldn’t rescue a ship when the
vortex took it.
Understanding that choosing the side with Charybdis spelled certain destruction for
his ship and certain death for himself and his entire crew, Odysseus sailed down the
side guarded by Scylla, knowing that by her at least the ship would remain afloat and
there would be some survivors, shocked and savaged though they may be.
While I didn’t find any information about her size, something would have to be truly
massive to create a whirlpool that could swallow a full-sized war galley.
At number 4 is Tityus
Tityus was the son of Zeus and Elara.
To keep secret this extramarital affair from Hera, whose wrath plagued the objects of her
husband’s lustful conquests, Zeus hid Elara, whom he had impregnated, in the earth.
Later, Tityus was born, rising like the sudden emergence of a mountain.
His life was one destined for torment and torture, for he tried to force himself upon
Leto, the mother of the divine twins Apollo and Artemis.
His crime earned him a residency in Tartarus, that most infernal plane reserved for those
who commit the most egregious sins, exclusively or almost exclusively meaning people who transgressed
against the gods.
A thunderbolt hurled by Zeus struck him down, and his incarceration was one characterised
by perpetual pain.
His massive form sprawled over nine acres, and a nearby serpent was stationed to eat
his liver, which regenerated with the pale glow of each new moon.
Up next we have the giants.
Born of the blood that fell to the earth when Cronus ambushed and castrated Uranus, the
Giants were powerful behemoths.
Thick matted hair hung from their cheeks; they had serpent’s coils for legs; and they
wore gleaming armour and wielded spears.
How big they were exactly is difficult to discern because of conflicting accounts, adding
much ambiguity, but their ranking is predicated on their more extreme description, which comes
from Apollodorus, who says they’re unsurpassable in size and unassailable in strength.
Gaia was deeply angered when the Titans, her children, were imprisoned in Tartarus following
their defeat in the Titanomachy.
Impregnated by the blood of Uranus, She created the giants as an act of vengeance; and to
be clear, here the word giants refers to a particular race of giants, not to the catch-all
term for anyone of giant size and humanoid form in Greek mythology.
Though the giants weren’t gods, in power they were much closer to being divine than
mortal, and though they could be killed, they were incredibly resilient: none of them could
be killed unless the gods had a mortal fighting with them (this ended up being Hercules),
and one of the two mightiest giants, Alcyoneus, couldn’t be killed while he remained within
the lands of his birth.
In the end, all of the giants were destroyed, marking the end of the Gigantomachy.
At number 2, taking the penultimate spot, we have the Hecatonchires.
According to Hesiod, the trio of Hecatonchires were the youngest of the children born to
Gaia and Uranus.
Their names were Briareus, “The Mighty One”, Cottus “Wrathful One”, and Gyges, “Son
of the Earth”.
They were colossal creatures, superlatives of both size and strength.
A rippling tangle of 50 arms bulged from each shoulder, making for 100 arms each, and a
knot of 50 heads surmounted the breadth of their massive shoulders.
When Zeus freed them from Tartarus, thereby winning their allegiance, they became an indomitable
force of destruction for the gods.
They gouged craters, ripped cliffs free, and broke off mountain peaks, launching volley
after volley of massive stone projectiles at the Titans.
Once the war was won and the Titans imprisoned, Zeus tasked the Hecatonchires with guarding
the entrance to Tartarus.
In the Iliad, a coup is described in which Poseidon, Hera, and Athena chain Zeus and
endeavour to overthrow him; however, their efforts are frustrated by Briareus, here said
to be a son of Poseidon, whose mere presence, his sheer size and strength, serving to intimate
all three gods, allowing him to free Zeus without any of the opposition putting up a
fight.
Taking the crown and wrapping up our list is Typhon.
In addition to being the most powerful, Typhon is unequivocally the biggest monster in Greek
mythology.
He’s the son of Gaia and Tartarus, and he’s the last existential threat faced by Olympus,
the previous two being the Gigantomachy and the Titanomachy.
According to Hesiod, 100 strangling snakes writhed from his shoulders, the ferocious
sound of every sort of beast bellowed from him, and his heavy footfalls made Olympus
quake and Hades tremble in the underworld.
According to Apollodorus, he dwarfed all of Gaia’s other children in size and strength.
He towered over all the mountains of the world, his head brushing against the stars as he
walked.
If his arms were fully outstretched, he could simultaneously touch the farthest eastern
and western points of the world.
In one version, Zeus destroys him in a one sided battle; however, in others Zeus is initially
defeated, only coming back to claim victory after other gods rescue him.
And that’s it for this video.
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Let me know in the comments how you would have ranked this list.
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