BRIAREUS, or AEGAEON  , in Greek mythology, one of the three hundred-armed, fifty-headed Hecatoncheires, brother of Cottus and Gyges (or Gyes) . According to Homer (Iliad i . 403) he was called Aegaeon by men, and Briareus by the gods . He was the son of Poseidon (or Uranus) and Gaea . The legends regarding him and his brothers' are various and somewhat contradictory . According to the most widely spread myth, Briareus and his brothers were called by Zeus to his assistance when the Titans were making war upon Olympus . The gigantic enemies were defeated and consigned to Tartarus, at the gates of which the three brothers were placed (Hesiod, Theog . 624, 639, 714) . Other accounts make Briareus one of the assailants of Olympus, who, after his defeat, was buried under Mount Aetna (Callimachus, Hymn to Delos, 141) . Homer mentions him as assisting Zeus when the other Olympian deities were plotting against the king of gods and men (Iliad i . 398) . Another tradition makes him a giant of the sea, ruler of the fabulous Aegaea in Euboea, an enemy of Poseidon and the inventor of warships (Schol. on Apoll .

Rhod . 1165) . It would be difficult to determine exactly what natural phenomena are symbolized by the Hecatoncheires . They may represent the gigantic forces of nature which appear in earthquakes and other

convulsions, or the multitudinous motion of the sea waves (Mayer, Die Giganten and Titanen, 1887) .