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CHAPTER XVI
MONSTERS
GIANTS, SPHINX, PEGASUS AND CHIMAERA, CENTAURS, GRIFFIN, AND
PYGMIES
Monsters, in the language of mythology, were beings of unnatural
proportions or parts, usually regarded with terror, as possessing
immense strength and ferocity, which they employed for the injury
and annoyance of men. Some of them were supposed to combine the
members of different animals; such were the Sphinx and Chimaera;
and to these all the terrible qualities of wild beasts were
attributed, together with human sagacity and faculties. Others, as
the giants, differed from men chiefly in their size; and in this
particular we must recognize a wide distinction among them. The
human giants, if so they may be called, such as the Cyclopes,
Antaeus, Orion, and others, must be supposed not to be altogether
disproportioned to human beings, for they mingled in love and
strife with them. But the superhuman giants, who warred with the
gods, were of vastly larger dimensions. Tityus, we are told, when
stretched on the plain, covered nine acres, and Enceladus required
the whole of Mount Aetna to be laid upon him to keep him down.
We have already spoken of the war which the giants waged against
the gods, and of its result. While this war lasted the giants
proved a formidable enemy.
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