The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1906-11-13
SOME GIANTS OF OLD
NOTEWORTHY SPECIMENS THAT ARE
TOLD OF IN HISTORY.

The ProdiRfOus Strength of POlyda- |
mus, Who RivaIed Hercules-Feats
of Maximinus, the Imperial Giant
of the Third Century.
If there is one thing in the show
business which can be depended on to
draw it is giant. provided always
that he be big enough.
But giants existed long before this
profitable business was invented, and
handed down to posterity simply be-
cause they were of huge proportions
and combined with their abnormal de
velopment proportional amount of
strength. Thus 1t is probable that had
Goliath of Gath, whose height the
ologians place at over 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
half feet high, according to the Grecian
legends, and he, together with Ajax
the Greater, had they not been gifted
with strength in proportion to 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
writa q hnr.f tho ffnoc fhoxr livod n, L.,
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 over ten
feet high. Their names were Idusis
and Secundilia, and they were keepers
of the gates Of the gardens of Sallust.
Then again we have a record in
Pliny of one Polydamus, the son of
Meas, who was over nine feet high
and whose strength rivaled that of
Hercules himself Polydamus used, in
fact, to boast his superiority to that
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 to
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
stayed and was finally crushed tt
| death.
J The Emperor Vitellius sent to Darius
| by way Of a present Jew named
EleaZer, who was seven cubits high
that is, reckoning the cubits at eight
giant who is mentioned by the his
torian Tacitus was over nine feet. Hi
name was Corbulo and he lived IL
| Nero's time and was more than uSu
ally skillful general and soldier, be
sides being an enormously strong man
An account Of the ancient giant
would be incomplete without mention
ing Maximinus the imperial giant o
the third century. The most extraor
binary stories are told Of this empero
of Rome. His height was eight fee
ten inches, he could draw unaided
loaded wagon which six oxen cOult
not move, while his appetite was s.
great that his usual rations for tn
day consisted of forty pounds of mea
and whole amphora of wine, beside
bread and dried and fresh fruits
Medieval giants are plentiful but
strange to say, the records of them ar
not so authentic as those Of the time
of the emperors. FuImian, Scottis
giant who fourished in 1927, seems t
be the most authentic of these, but A
he Is put down as being over eleve
feet high the statement should not b
criticised too closely. Still more stal
ting, however, is the following, whic
is vouched for by a monastery full Q
monks: In 1909 some workmen, dig
ging near Rouen, came across a cav
in which were some human bones an
copper plate, bearing the word;
Here lie the remains of the great an
mighty Chevaler Ricon de Vallemont.
The skull was large enough to hay
held a bushel OF wheat and the shil
bone was over four feet long. 1t 9th
bone) was preserved by the above mel
toned monks, and 1t was estimate
that the height of the defunct knigf
must have exceeded eighteen feet.
stranger though somewhat simila
legend comes from Ireland, but In thl
case the discoveries thought that the
would, to use an expression popula
some years ago, go "the whole hog c
none" 1t happened in 1908. Some me
we're digging in Ireland when the
came across brick tomb which col
tanned a human skeleton no less tina
120 feet long. But there is ''raiso
d'etre" for all these legends. ACCORD
ing to German professor, these bone
which were supposed by ignorant pc
sons to be those of human beings, wer
probably those Of mastodons or som
other fossilized remains which to til
uninitiated would look exactly lik
those Of a man.-London Standard.