According to the mythographerApollodorus, he was killed during theGigantomachy, the cosmic battle of theGiants with theTwelve Olympians, byHephaestus with "missiles of red-hot metal" from his forge.[2] InEuripides'sIon (c. 410 BC), the chorus, describing the wonders of the late sixth centuryTemple of Apollo at Delphi, tell of seeing depicted there the Gigantomachy showing, among other things,Zeus burning Mimas "to ashes" with his thunderbolt.[3] In theArgonautica byApollonius of Rhodes, and theGigantomachia byClaudian, Mimas was killed byAres (or in Claudian's case by Ares's Roman counterpartMars).[4] Mimas is also mentioned in the company of other Giants, by the Latin writersHorace[5] andSeneca.[6]
A fragment of anAtticblack-figuredinos byLydos (Athens Akropolis 607) dating from the second quarter of the sixth century, which depicted the Gigantomachy, shows Aphrodite with shield and spear battling a Giant also with shield (displaying a large bee) and spear, whose name is inscribed (retrograde) as "Mimos", possibly in error for "Mimas".[7]
He was said to be buried underProchyte, one of thePhlegraean Islands off the coast ofNaples.[8] Claudian mentions Mimas as one of several vanquished Giants whose weapons, as spoils of war, hung on trees in a wood near the summit ofMount Etna.[9]
Mimas is possibly the same as the Giant namedMimon on the Gigantomachy depicted on the north frieze of theSiphnian Treasury atDelphi (c. 525 BC),[10] and a late fifth century BC cup fromVulci (Berlin F2531) shown fightingAres.[11]
Apollodorus,Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921.Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
Cook, Arthur Bernard,Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion, Volume III: Zeus God of the Dark Sky (Earthquakes, Clouds, Wind, Dew, Rain, Meteorites), Part I: Text and Notes, Cambridge University Press 1940.Internet Archive
Euripides,Ion, translated by Robert Potter inThe Complete Greek Drama, edited by Whitney J. Oates and Eugene O'Neill, Jr. Volume 1. New York. Random House. 1938.
Gantz, Timothy,Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, Two volumes:ISBN978-0-8018-5360-9 (Vol. 1),ISBN978-0-8018-5362-3 (Vol. 2).
Lyne, R. O. A. M.,Horace: Behind the Public Poetry, Yale University Press, 1995.ISBN9780300063226.
Seneca.Tragedies, Volume I: Hercules. Trojan Women. Phoenician Women. Medea. Phaedra. Edited and translated by John G. Fitch. Loeb Classical Library 62. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002.ISBN978-0-674-99602-1.
Silius Italicus,Punica with an English translation by J. D. Duff, Volume II, Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1934.Internet Archive
