DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70303#0411
OBSERVATIONS ON GIANTS. 379
tallest man of that age, being nine feet nine inches in
height.
Vitellius sent Darius the son of Artabanus an hostage
to Rome, with various presents, which were accompa-
nied by a Jew named Eleazar, of the height of seven
cubits, or ten feet two inches.
Antonins, born in Syria during the reign of Theodo-
sius, was seven feet seven inches high, but his feet were
not proportionate to the magnitude of his body. We
are informed by Nicephoros that he died at the age of
twenty-five.
Aventine, an historian very deserving of credit, ae-
sures us in his work entitled Annals of Bavaria, that the
Emperor Charlemagne, had in his army a giant named
jEnotherus, a native of Turgau, near the lake of Con-
stance, who threw down whole battalions with the same
ease that he would have mowed a field; but he is silent
with respect to his dimensions.
Thuanus, in his account of the incursion made by the
Tartars into the Bolish territories, in the year 1575,
speaks of a Tartar of prodigious bulk, who was killed by
a Pole. “ His forehead/’ he says, was twenty-four
fingers broad, and his body of such magnitude, that the
carcase, as !t lay upon the ground, would reach to the
navel of any ordinary person who stood by it.”
In the year 1613, a young man named Jacobus Dam-
man, then twenty-two years old, was brought to Basil,
and exhibited as a shew on account of his extraordinary
stature. He had then no beard, his body and limbs
being strong built, but rather lean. He was eight feet
high complete, and his hand measured one foot four
inches.
About the middle of December 1671, one Thomas
Birtles, a native of Cheshire, living near Macclesfield,
arrived at Coventry. He had been at London, and.on
b b b 2 his
tallest man of that age, being nine feet nine inches in
height.
Vitellius sent Darius the son of Artabanus an hostage
to Rome, with various presents, which were accompa-
nied by a Jew named Eleazar, of the height of seven
cubits, or ten feet two inches.
Antonins, born in Syria during the reign of Theodo-
sius, was seven feet seven inches high, but his feet were
not proportionate to the magnitude of his body. We
are informed by Nicephoros that he died at the age of
twenty-five.
Aventine, an historian very deserving of credit, ae-
sures us in his work entitled Annals of Bavaria, that the
Emperor Charlemagne, had in his army a giant named
jEnotherus, a native of Turgau, near the lake of Con-
stance, who threw down whole battalions with the same
ease that he would have mowed a field; but he is silent
with respect to his dimensions.
Thuanus, in his account of the incursion made by the
Tartars into the Bolish territories, in the year 1575,
speaks of a Tartar of prodigious bulk, who was killed by
a Pole. “ His forehead/’ he says, was twenty-four
fingers broad, and his body of such magnitude, that the
carcase, as !t lay upon the ground, would reach to the
navel of any ordinary person who stood by it.”
In the year 1613, a young man named Jacobus Dam-
man, then twenty-two years old, was brought to Basil,
and exhibited as a shew on account of his extraordinary
stature. He had then no beard, his body and limbs
being strong built, but rather lean. He was eight feet
high complete, and his hand measured one foot four
inches.
About the middle of December 1671, one Thomas
Birtles, a native of Cheshire, living near Macclesfield,
arrived at Coventry. He had been at London, and.on
b b b 2 his