Helloooo, it's been a while again (on a bit of a break myself) and naturally I'm thinking of Ares. And of course that means the Jar he was trapped in and it had me wondering
Had no one noticed Ares was gone??
He was trapped for thirteen months so it always made me wonder if the other Gods just never suspected anything or didn't notice (he had gotten significantly weak, after all)
I haven't looked much into it or of the Aloadai, so I don't know much of the context (except the version of Artemis being involved)
I make a lot of ramble posts (tho not as detailed and interesting as yours, I'd say) so this topic is one I hope to prattle about when I come back from my break.
(Also I hope you've been well)
I mean is hard to tell. For once not all gods reside on Olympus 24/7 and oftentimes they are known to travel or live somewhere else. Not to mention that 13 months is in fact one year plus one month. That amount of time for gods who are immortals might seem like nothing. It seems to be the turn of a year. This kind of turn for godly travels seems to be a relatively common amount of time such as the annual trips of Apollo to the land of Hyperboreans or the travels of gods and goddesses like Persephone etc. So I guess 13 months is not such a worrying amount of time for a god to be missing from the picture.
Hmm it depends on which myth with Artemis you are referring to. Like the myth where Artemis transforms into a deer and makes them kill each other?
because there is also the myth that the Aloades even tried to court her for her hand and she refused of course.
Like the myth of Aloades (Oto and Ephialtes) is known already in Homer. In Iliad we hear the story about Ares being trapped in a vase and in the Odyssey we hear that the Aloades were in fact two children/giants that grew up in immense rhythm and they were already huge at nine years of age. As they grew bigger and stronger they became arrogant and attacked the gods (which in some versions is the reason why they started with Ares) which of course led to the anger of Zeus and in this version they find death by Apollo (I believe there is one more version at least with Apollo being the killer like Nonnus)
For example Hyginus mentions how they attempt to rape Artemis. Artemis seems to be no match for their combined strength but she is rescued by her brother Apollo who is in fact the one to send the deer among them and they kill each other in their attempt to strike it.
In Virgil we hear also Zeus's contribution being more personal at their downfall something that Statius also seems to repeat. That the two brethern giants tried to climb the mountain of gods or that they took over Pelion and Ossa but were striken by the thunders of Zeus unless I am mistaken. In general their whole essence seems to revolve around hubris and nemesis once more either because they think they can take over the gods (arrogance that was increased when they managed to capture Ares) or because they try to violate the virgin goddess Artemis among others but one way or another the two of them get punished.
There is one positive mention of theirs that they are the first to offer sacrifices to the Muses
Their parentage differs Poseidon and Iphimedeia Aloeus and Iphimedeia being the two most prominent examples. In the lost hesiodic catalogue of women we seem to see Iphimedeia being their mother but even if the name of the official father is Aloeus the real biological father is Poseidon, which is also the line of other sources even like Homer's Odyssey.
Their names are interesting. I mean "Ephialtes" (Ἐφιάλτης) is easy it means "nightmare" but for "Otos" (Ὦτος) I find some interesting meanings. I know the english wikipedia says it means "insatiable" but that seems closer to the word ἄατος than that What I find is that the name is used for a type of night bird "eagle owl" or "eared owl" which in modern greek we use an italian loan word μπούφος (buffo -> bufos) which as you notice means "idiot" and ironically this is both the essence of ancient Greek and modern Greek for that bird; someone that is easily persuaded, silly, stupid. So yeah hehe things associated with night but also with something bad I suppose
Anyways this is a very quick response to that (oh come on they are nothing as you see hehehe (Yeah doing okay given the circumstances at work hehe)
