Heracles and Antaeus

Catalogue ID: 03-heroes/187-heracles-antaeus-wrestling-apollodorus

Cycle: Heroes — Heracles / side labor (Libya)

Version line: Apollodorean / Pindaric — earth-giant wrestler slain by lifting

Sources: Apollodorus, *Library* 2.5.11; Pindar, *Isthmian* 4.52–54; Plato, *Theaetetus* 169b (proverbial)

Source file: /workspace/greek-myth-catalogue/03-heroes/187-heracles-antaeus-wrestling-apollodorus.md

Characters

Ajax — wrestler; lifts Antaeus from earth; crushes him
Amphitrite — father; temple roofed with victims’ skulls (handbook detail)
Antaeus — Libyan giant; son of Poseidon and Gaia; slain
Gaia — mother whose contact renews Antaeus

Places

Ethiopia — Antaeus’s wrestling ground
Temple of Poseidon — adorned with strangers’ skulls (reported)

Themes

None detected.

Narrative

In Libya Heracles met Antaeus, son of Poseidon and Gaia, who forced strangers to wrestle and used their skulls to roof Poseidon’s temple. Antaeus drew fresh strength whenever he touched his mother Earth; thrown to the ground, he rose stronger. Heracles, discovering the trick, lifted him in a bear’s hug clear of the earth and crushed him in mid-air until he died. The bout becomes the classic Greek image of intelligence over brute regeneration—and a western labor-adjacent deed on the path of the apple-quest.