The McCook tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 1886-1936, 1906-11-09
GIANTS OF OLD
NOTEWORTHY SPECIMENS THAT ARE
TOLD OF IN HISTORY.

OF Maxin1nus, the Imperial Giant
OF the Third Century.
If there is one thing in the show
business which can be depended Oh to
draw it is Il giant. provided always
that he be big enough.
But giants existed long before this
profitable business was invented, and
the m of many of them have been
handed down to posterity simply be-
cause they were of huge proportions
and combined with their abnormal de-
velOpment Il proportional AMOUNT of
strength. Thus it is probable that had
Goliath of Gath, whose height the
ol0gians place at owe ten feet, not
been the strongest as well as the big
gest warrior among the Philistines we
should never have heard of him. The
same argument applies to Moab, king
OF the Amorites, and Og, king of Ba-
shan. Orestes, too, was eleven and a
half feet high, according to the Grecsn
legends, and he, together with Ajax
the Greater, had they not bee2 gifted
with strength in proportion =, their
bulk would have been only ordinary
soldiers of the Grecian army before
Troy.
When history begins, however-that
is, when Rome began to reach its high
est point of civilization in the time of
Augustus and learned men began to
write about the times they lived in in
stead of the times that had gone by
long before they were bOrn-we get
authentic records of giants. In Au-
gustus' time, for instance, there were,
according to the authority of Valerius,
two giants in Rome who were we ten
feet high. Their names were Idusis
and S~ecundiifa. and they were keepers
of the gates OF the gardens Of Sallust.
Then again We have d record in
Pliny Of n Polydamus, the son of
Meas, who was owe nine feet high
and whose strength rivaIed that of
Hercules himself. Poiydamus used, in
fact, to boast his superiority to that
Roman deity and perform his special
tricks. For example, he once slew a
lion with a blow of his fist and scat
tered its brains about the arena. He
could with his hand stop the swiftest
chariot dead and on one occasion
seized a bull by the hoof in order tC
carry it away, but the animal strug-
gled SO violently that the hoof was left
in his hand. In the end he was killed
by the falling in of a cave. When his
companions noticed that the roof was
falling they left, but Polydamus was
so vain about his strength that he
thought he could not be killed. So he
stayed and was finally crushed tc
death.
The Emperor Viteliius sent to Darius
by way of a present a Jew named
Eleazer, who was seven cubits high
that is, reckoning the cubits at eight
cen inches, ten feet six Understand a
giant who is mentioned by the his
torian Tacitus was over nine feet. His
name was Corbulo, and he lived in
Nero's time and was a more than uSu-
ally skillful general and soldier, be-
sides being an enormously strong man.
An account Of the ancient giants
would be incomplete without mention
ing MaXiminus, the imperial giant of
the third century. The most extraOr-
binary stories are told of this emperor
of Rome. His height was eight feet
ten inches, he could draw unaided a
loaded wagon which six oxen could
not move. while his appetite was so
great that his usual ratiOns for the
day consisted of forty pounds of meat
and a whole amphora of wine, besides
bread and dried and fresh fruits.
Medieval giants are plentiful, but,
strange to say, the records of them are
not so authentic as those of the times
of the emperors. Funnian, q Scottish
giant who fourished in 1927, seems to
be the most authentic of these, but rs
he is put down as being over eleven
feet high the statement should not be
criticised too closely. Still more star
Ting, however, is the following, which
is vouched for by q monastery full OF
monks: IN 1909 some wOrkmen, dig |
ging neal Rouen, came across a cave
in which were some human bones and
Il copper DlGlc, DcOIILS JHC "OLNoI I
Here lie the remains of the great and
mighty Chevalier Ricon de Vallemont."
The skull was large enough to have
held a buSheI Of wheat and the shin
bone was over four feet long. 1t (the
bone) was preserved by the above men
toned monks, and it was estimated
that the height Of the defunct knight
must have exceeded eighteen feet. i
stranger though somewhat similar
comes from Ireland, but in this
case the discoveries thought that they
would, to use an expression popular
some years ago, go "the whole hog or
none" 1t happened in 1908. Some men
were digging in Ireland when they
came across a brick tomb which con
tanned a human skeleton no less than
100 feet long. But there is a ''raison
for all these legends. Accord
ing to a German professor, these bones,
which were supposed by ignorant per.
sons to be those of human beings, were
probably those of maStOdOnS or some