Antaios

As part of his Eleventh Labor, (Retrieving the Golden Apples of the Hesperides) Herakles came to Libya searching for the Garden of the Hesperides where he was challenged to a wrestling match by Antaios, a King of Libya and son of Poseidon and Gaia who hallenged all comers to wrestling matches, beat them and killed them (Antaeus was collecting the skulls of passing travellers, so that he might one day build a temple of skulls for his father Poseidon). Herakles found he could not beat Antaeus by throwing him to the ground, and Antaeus found he could not beat Herakles by crushing his skull. Every time Herakles threw Antaios to the earth, he arose stronger than ever (as a child of the earth goddess Gaia, every time he was hurled to the ground he drew strength from it); finally Heracles realised the ground was the source of his power and held him up in the air and killed him by breaking his back.

Antaeus and Herakles wrestling

Antaeus was later employed in Dante's Inferno, where he lifts souls into the ninth pit. According to the Berber mythology Tangier was built by the son of Tinjis wife of Antaios, named Sufax.