Antaeus was the giant Hercules defeated on the way to the Garden of the Hesperides.
Antaeus was the son of Gaia, the Earth, and Poseidon, the sea god. His extraordinary strength returned whenever he touched the ground, because contact with his mother renewed him. He challenged travelers and forced them into wrestling contests, killing those he defeated and using their skulls to build a temple to Poseidon.
Hercules recognized that ordinary wrestling would not work. He lifted Antaeus off the ground and held him aloft, preventing Gaia from restoring his strength. Hercules then crushed or strangled him, depending on the version. The episode is usually treated as an encounter on the journey to the eleventh labor, not as one of the twelve labors itself. Antaeus is therefore different from Atlas, who appears later in the same broad quest.