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Greek Name

Αιγαιων Αιγαιος

Transliteration

Aigaiôn, Aigaios

Latin Spelling

Aegaeon, Aegaeus

Translation

Aegean, Goatish, Stormy

AIGAION (Aegaeon) was the god of the storms of the Aegean Sea and an ally of the Titanes in their war against the gods. He was named Aigaion after the Aegean Sea (Pontos Aigaios in Greek) but his name also means "Stormy One" and "Goatish" from the Greek word aigis.

Aigaion was identified with both the hundred-handed giant Briareus--who was sometimes called his son--and the storm-monster Typhoeus.

In Homer's Iliad, Briareus is given a second name, Aigaion, saying that Briareus is the name the gods call him, while mortals call him Aigaion. It is told in the Iliad how, during a palace revolt by the Olympians Hera, Poseidon and Athena, who wished to chain Zeus, the sea goddess Thetis brought to Olympus

This second name does not seem to be a Homeric invention.[32] According to the scholiast on Apollonius of Rhodes, the legendary seventh-century BC poet Cinaethon apparently knew both names for the Hundred-Hander. The name also appears in the lost epic poem the Titanomachy.

FAMILY OF AIGAION

PARENTS

[1.1] PONTOS & GAIA (Titanomachia 3)

OFFSPRING

[1.1] BRIAREOS (Homer Iliad 1.397)

[1.2] BRIAREOS ? (by Thalassa) (Ion of Chios, Frag 741)

ENCYCLOPEDIA

AEGAEON (Aigaiôn) The Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius (i. 1165) represents Aegaeon as a son of Gaea and Pontus and as living as a marine god in the Aegean sea. Ovid (Met. ii. 10) and Philostratus (Vit. Apollon. iv. 6) like-wise regard him as a marine god.

Source: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.

CLASSICAL LITERATURE QUOTES

Homer, Iliad 1. 397 ff (trans. Lattimore) (Greek epic C8th B.C.) :

"The creature of the hundred hands to tall Olympos, that creature the gods name Briareos, but all men Aigaios' (Aegaeus') son, but he is far greater in strength than his father." Not anymore

Eumelus of Corinth or Arctinus of Miletus, Titanomachia Fragment 3 (from Scholiast on Apollonios Rhodius 1. 1165) (trans. Evelyn-White) (Greek epic C8th or 7th B.C.) :

"Aigaion (Aegaeon) was the son of Gaia (the Earth) and Pontos (the Sea) and, having his dwelling in the sea, was an ally of the Titanes (Titans)."

Ion of Chios, Fragment 741 (from Scholiast on Apollonius of Rhodes) (trans. Campbell, Vol. Greek Lyric IV) (Greek lyric C5th B.C.)

"Ion says in a dithyramb that Aigaion (Aegaeon) [i.e. the son of Aigaios] was summoned from the sea by Thetis and taken up to protect Zeus, and that he was the son of Thalassa (Sea)."

Callimachus, Hymn 4 to Delos 140 ff (trans. Mair) (Greek poet C3rd B.C.) :

"The mount of Aitna (Etna) smoulders with fire and all its secret depths are shaken as the Gigantos (Giant) under the earth, even Briareos [here meaning Aigaios or Typhoeus], shifts to his other shoulder, and with the tongs of Hephaistos (Hephaestus) roar furnaces and handiwork withal; and firewrought basins and tripods ring terribly as they fall one upon the other."

Ovid, Fasti 3. 793 ff (trans.Boyle) (Roman poetry C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.) :

"Saturnus [Kronos (Cronus)] was thrust from his realm by Jove [Zeus]. In anger he stirs the mighty Titanes to arms and seeks the assistance owed by fate. There was a shocking monster [the ‘Ophiotauros’] born of Mother Terra (Earth) [Gaia], a bull, whose back half was a serpent (or eel). Roaring Styx [an ally of Zeus] imprisoned it, warned by the three Parcae (Fates) [Moirai], in a black grove with a triple wall. Whoever fed the bull's guts to consuming flames was destined to defeat the eternal gods. Briareus [Aigaion] slays it with an adamantine axe and prepares to feed the flames its innards. Jupiter [Zeus] commands the birds to grab them; the kite brought them to him and reached the stars on merit."

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