Part IV
SOME REAL GIANTS, and WHAT SCIENCE HAS LEARNED ABOUT THEM
Giant gods and demigods loom large in the myths of every land—in India, China and Arabia, as well as Greece and Scandinavaia. Many records follow of "real" giants, during the seven or eight thousand years since the first flashes of history. But it needs to be stated at once that here, as in many other matters, exactness of facts is a very modern quality.
Thus, when Pliny tells us that Gabbara, whom the Emperor Claudius brought from Arabia, was nine feet, nine inches tall, we can only be sure that he was probably the largest human being in Rome at that time. And a suspicious number of these early tall men were seen through the mist of reverence due to kingly station and power.
A notable company these king-giants would make: Sesochris of Egypt, perhaps 4000 B. C., who "passed for a giant"; King Saul, the gigantic youth of the tribe of Benjamin chosen by lot to reign over Israel; Maximinus, Thracian shepherd, fierce gladiator, and then savage Emperor of Rome, who, Capitolinus declares, was over eight feet tall, wore his wife's bracelet for a finger-ring, could break a horse's jaw with his fist or outpull a chariot team, and was in the habit of draining a six gallon amphora of wine and consuming forty pounds of meat a day; Harold Hardrada, Viking rover, Mediterranean conqueror, and King of Norway, whose height was "five ells" (ten feet!); Emperor Maximilian of Germany, and many another.
A regiment of formidable warriors would follow these rulers, such as the huge grenadiers of King Frederick William of Prussia and of Peter the Great. The Elector of Brandenburg, too, had in the 16th Century a famous soldier named Michel, reputed to be eight feet tall—a worthy descendant of that giant Swabian, Ænother, renowned in the army of Charlemagne, who swam rushing rivers dragging his horse after him, looked down upon his enemies as "little frogs," and would spit several at once like birds on his weapon.
Frederick William developed a theory that he could establish a new race of physical marvels by intermarrying his huge guards with women of phenomenal size, and he used to busy himself greatly over such matches.
He had little success. The giant as a fighter passed swiftly away before cannon, muskets and pistols. It was not long before he was merely a prodigy to draw the curious crowd.