One of the Aloadae, the towering twin sons whom Iphimedeia bore to Poseidon though married to Aloeus; with his brother Ephialtes he grew to monstrous size, threatened to raise furious war against the Olympians, and strove to pile Ossa upon Olympus and Pelion upon Ossa to scale the heavens, until the son of Leto destroyed the pair before they came of age.1
Among the dead women Odysseus beholds in Hades is Iphimedeia, wife of Aloeus, who tells that she lay with Poseidon and bore two sons, short-lived but towering: Otus and godlike Ephialtes, whom the grain-giving earth raised tallest and handsomest of men after famed Orion. At nine years old they were nine cubits in breadth and nine fathoms in height, and they threatened to raise the din of furious war against the immortals on Olympus. They strove to set Ossa upon Olympus, and upon Ossa leafy Pelion, that they might mount to heaven; and they would have accomplished it had they reached the full measure of their youth, but the son of Zeus whom fair-haired Leto bore destroyed them both before the down had blossomed beneath their temples and clothed their cheeks with the bloom of beards.2
Homer recalls another of the twins' outrages in the mouth of Dione, who comforts the wounded Aphrodite with the gods' own sufferings at mortal hands: so Ares endured when Otus and mighty Ephialtes, the sons of Aloeus, bound him in cruel bonds and held him fast in a brazen jar for thirteen months. There the war-god, insatiate of battle, would have perished, had not their stepmother, beautiful Eeriboea, brought word to Hermes, who stole the now-failing Ares away.3
Apollodorus gathers the brothers' deeds and gives them an ending Homer leaves untold. Iphimedeia, in love with Poseidon, bore him Otus and Ephialtes, called the Aloadae after their nominal father Aloeus; each year they grew a cubit in breadth and a fathom in height. Insolent in their strength, they piled Ossa on Olympus and Pelion on Ossa and by these mountains threatened to climb to heaven, boasting that they would dam the sea and turn the dry land to sea. Otus wooed Artemis and Ephialtes wooed Hera, and they held Ares in bonds — until Artemis crossed to Naxos in the shape of a deer and leapt between the brothers, who, each hurling his javelin to strike the quarry, pierced and killed one another instead.4
Hyginus reckons that each month the brothers grew nine inches, so that at nine years old they tried to climb into heaven, setting Ossa upon Pelion; one telling has Apollo discover and kill them, another that when they assailed Diana the god sent a deer between them, and maddened with rage they slew each other casting their javelins at it.5
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story
