Theos-Talk Archives (August 1998 Message tt00394)

      Along with the last post on Giants, R. Robb sent my newsletter the
following piece on Giants:

"On Admirable Things; and Those that have lived to a Great Age," by Phlegon
Trallianus:     "Not many years since, in Messene, Apollonius (grammarian)
says, that a large stone vessel was broke through violent tempests, and a
great inundation of water, and that a head was washed out of it, three times
as large as that of a man, with two rows of teeth.  An inscription informed
those that were endeavoring to find whose head it was, that it was the head of
Idas:  for this was the inscription, ...... OF IDAS. (see Homer, Illiad, 9, v.
554)
      "In Dlmatia, too, in that which is called the cavern of Diana, many
bodies may be seen, whose ribs exceed sixteen cubits.* (*A cubit was an
ancient measurement of approximately 18 - 22 inches.)  But the grammarian
Apollonius relates that there was an earthquake during the reign of Tiberius
Nero, through which many celebrated cities of Asia were entirely destroyed....
Not a few too, of the cities of Sicily suffered through this earthquake, and
places near Rhegium, together with several cities in Pontus.  But in those
parts in which the earth was rent asunder, very large dead bodies were
found.... they sent to Rome one of the teeth of these bodies;  and it was more
than a foot long.  Nor ought we to refuse to assent to this narration, since
there is a place in Egypt called Litrae, in which bodies are to be seen not
less in size than the above mentioned, and these not buried in the earth, but
exposed to the view, neither confused nor disturbed, but placed in proper
order, so that he who looks at them can tell which are the bones of the
thighs, legs, and other members.  I am likewise informed, that at Rhodes there
are bones which far surpass in magnitude the bones of men of the present day.
And the same Apollonius says, that there is a certain island near Athens,
which the Athenians fortified with walls;  and that when they were digging the
foundations of these walls, they found a sepulchre of one hundred cubits in
length, in which there was a skeleton of the same dimensions with the
sepulchre, with this inscription:  I, MACROSEIRIS, WHO LIVED FIVE THOUSAND
YEARS, AM BURIED IN LONG ISLAND.
          "Eumachus, in his discription of the earth, says that the
Carthaginians, when they were digging a trench in their own country, found two
skeletons placed in coffins, one of which was twenty-three, and the other
twenty-four cubits.  And Theopompus Sinnopensis, in his "Treatise on
Earthquakes," says, that a sudden earthquake happening in the Cimerian
Bosphorus, a certain hill was rent asunder, and the bones of a prodigious
magnitude were thrown out of it;  for the length of the whole skeleton was
found to be twenty-four cubits.  He adds, that the Barbarians who dwelt about
those parts threw these bones into lake Maeotis."  (Vol. III, p. 240-42)
         Reference:  British Museum Catalog shows: Phlegon, of Tralles.  De
Mirabilibus et longaevus libellus.  Eiusdem de Olympijs fragmentum. (Gr. &
Lat.)  See:  Antonius Liberalis.  Transformationum Congeries, etc. (Gr. &
Lat.)  1568. (no place or publisher shown)
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          - Jake J.