Gaia, the Earth, gave birth to the Giants in order
to avenge the Titans whom Zeus imprisoned in Tartarus. They are
chthonian beings, symbolizing, by their gigantic physical mass and
their spiritual poverty, the predominance of forces arising from the
Earth. Giants represent magnified commonplaceness and the image of
unrestrained physical and brutal instincts.
They can only be overcome by the joint efforts of a god and a man. All
the Gods who fought the Giants as Athena, Dionysus, Aphrodite and
Poseidon, entrusted a human with the task of exterminating the monsters.
The evolution of life in the direction of increasing spiritualization
represents the real battle of the Giants. However this battle involves
an effort to be carried out by man himself.
The myth of the Giants is a summons to human heroism.
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