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NEWS MAY 2023
As part of my process of disengagement from Atlantipedia, from June ’23 I shall be posting less frequently, rather than daily as I have done until now. Atlantipedia will remain online for the foreseeable future. I want to thank everyone who has written to me over the past few months with complimentary expressions of support […]Read More »
Joining The Dots
I have now published my new book, Joining The Dots, which offers a fresh look at the Atlantis mystery. I have addressed the critical questions of when, where and who, using Plato’s own words, tempered with some critical thinking and a modicum of common sense.Read More »
Briareus
Briareus was described in Greek mythology as a fifty-headed and hundred-handed giant, who guarded Cronos on the island of Ogygia. The mythologist, Michael MacRae, interprets this as a reference to Briareus as the captain of a ship with fifty oarsmen[985.180].
Felice Vinci notes that Aristotle had the ‘Pillars of Briareus’ as an earlier name for the Pillars of Heracles(a). Frank Joseph claims that he was also known as Aegeon (Aigaios)[104] whereas Hesiod and Homer have recorded Briareus as the son of Aigaios(b).
Thorwald C. Franke has subsequently advised that Vinci’s reference is incorrect and that it was Aelian rather than Plutarch(c) who quoted Aristotle.
(a) Fragment 687 Rose, in Plutarch, Il Voltodella Luna (Adelphi, Milan, 1991) (see ‘c’ below)
(b) http://www.theoi.com/Titan/HekatonkheirBriareos.html
>(c) Archive 3138 | (atlantipedia.ie) (see footnote 302 where fragment 678 not 687 is cited)<