Antaeus in Greek and Berber mythology was a giant of Libya, the son of Poseidon and Gaia, and his wife was Tinjis. He was extremely strong as long as he remained in contact with the ground (his mother earth), but once lifted into the air he became as weak as water.
Biography
He would challenge all passers-by to wrestling matches, kill them, and collect their skulls, so that he might one day build out of them a temple to his father Poseidon. Heracles, finding that he could not beat Antaeus by throwing him to the ground, as he would regain his strength and be fortified, discovered the secret of his power (touching the ground) and held Antaeus aloft and crushed him in a bearhug (Apollodorus ii. 5; Hyginus, Fab. 31). The myth of Antaeus has been used as a symbol of the spiritual strength which accrues when one rests one's faith on the immediate fact of things. The struggle between Antaeus and Heracles is a favorite subject in ancient sculpture.
In Dante's The Divine Comedy, Antaeus is a giant who guards the ninth circle of Hell, and lowers Dante and Virgil down to the iced-over Cocytus.
One of the stories of the Tanglewood Tales features Antaeus and the Pygmies (Chapter: "The Pygmies").
From Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antaeus
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