The monstrous figures of Briareos and Aigaion, synthetized as one person in this context, conjure up the theme of the-Achilles-who-would-have-been if his father had been the god Zeus instead of the hero Peleus. This Achilles-who-would-have been is connected with the primal themes of biē ‘force, violence, strength’. (Here and everywhere, I transcribe this word by way of its Homeric form, biē, instead of its later form, biā.)