Son of Canace by Poseidon and brother to Hopleus, Nireus, Epopeus, and Triops. He married Iphimedeia, daughter of his brother Triops, who longed for Poseidon and bore by the god the giant twins Otus and Ephialtes — the Aloadae, who take their name from Aloeus though the sea-god begot them.1
Of the children Canace bore to Poseidon, Apollodorus names five — Hopleus, Nireus, Epopeus, Aloeus, and Triops. Aloeus stands among them as the link onward: through his marriage the Aeolid stem reaches the most monstrous offspring of the house.2
Aloeus took to wife Iphimedeia, daughter of Triops, but she conceived a passion for Poseidon. Going often to the sea, she would draw up the waves with her hands and pour them into her lap, and by the god she bore two sons, Otus and Ephialtes, called the Aloadae after the husband whose name they carry though they were none of his getting.3
Odysseus among the dead beholds Iphimedeia, wife of Aloeus, who declares she lay with Poseidon and bore Otus and far-famed Ephialtes — the tallest and fairest children the grain-giving earth ever reared, after Orion. At nine years they stood nine cubits broad and nine fathoms high, and in their fury they piled Ossa upon Olympus and leafy Pelion upon Ossa to scale heaven and make war on the immortals; but the son whom fair-haired Leto bore slew them both before the down had bloomed beneath their temples. So the giants nominally Aloeus' are by their own mother's word the sons of the sea.4
Apollodorus tells their end in full: growing a cubit broader and a fathom taller each year, the Aloadae resolved to fight the gods, wooed Hera and Artemis, and put Ares in bonds, until — after Hermes stole Ares free — Artemis killed them on Naxos by a ruse, springing between them as a deer so that in their eagerness for the quarry they cast their darts and struck each other dead.5
Pausanias records a different death and a resting place: at Anthedon stand the graves of the children of Iphimedeia and Aloeus, who met their end at the hands of Apollo.6
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story
