Titans
-----------------------------------------In Greek mythology, the sons and daughters of Uranus and Gaia and a race of godlike giants who were considered to be the personifications of the forces of nature.
These Titans are Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Japetus, Cronus, Theia, Rheia, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, and Tethys, to whom Apollodorus adds Dione. (Theogony of Hesiod 133)
Some writers also add Phorcys and Demeter.
Stephanus of Byzantium has the following as the names of the children of Uranus and Ge: Adanus, Ostasus, Andes, Cronus, Rhea, Iapetus, Olymbrus and Pausanias mentions a Titan Anytus, who was believed to have brought up the Arcadian Despoena.
Uranus, the first ruler of the world, threw his sons, the Hecatoncheires, Briareus, Cottys, Gyes (Theogony of Hesiod 617), and the Cyclopes, Arges, Steropes, and Brontes, into Tartarus. Gaea, indignant at this, persuaded the Titans to rise against their father, and gave to Cronus an adamantine sickle.
They did as their mother bade them, with the exception of Oceanus. Cronus, with his sickle, unmanned his father, and threw the part into the sea, and out of the drops of his blood there arose the Erinnyes, Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megaera. The Titans then deposed Uranus, liberated their brothers who had been cast into Tartarus, and raised Cronus to the throne. But he again threw the Cyclopes into Tartarus, and married his sister Rhea (Metamorphoses by Ovid ix. calls her Ops).
As, however, he had been foretold by Gaea and Uranus, that he should be dethroned by one of his own children, he, after their birth, swallowed successively his children Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Pluto and Poseidon.
Rhea therefore, when she was pregnant with Zeus, went to Crete, gave birth to the child in the Dictaean Cave, and entrusted him to be brought up to the Curetes, and the daughters of Melissus, the nymphs Adrasteia and Ida.
The armed Curetes guarded the infant in the cave, and struck their shields with their spears, that Cronus might not hear the voice of the child.
Rhea, moreover, deceived Cronus by giving him a stone wrapped up in cloth, which he swallowed, believing it to be his newly-born son.
Relief of Rhea
and Cronus c. 400 bce
Rhea deceived Cronus by giving him a stone wrapped up in cloth, which he swallowed, believing it to be his newly-born son.
When Zeus had grown up he availed himself of the assistance of Thetis, the daughter of Oceanus, who gave to Cronus a potion which caused him to bring up the stone and the children he had swallowed. United with his brothers and sisters, Zeus now began the contest against Cronus and the ruling Titans.
This contest, usually called the Titanomachia, which was carried on in Thessaly, the Titans occupying Mount Othrys, and the sons of Cronus Mount Olympus, lasted for ten years, when at length Gaea promised victory to Zeus, if he would deliver the Cyclopes and Hecatoncheires from Tartarus.
Zeus accordingly slew Campe, who guarded the Cyclopes, and the latter furnished him with thunder and lightning, Pluto gave him a helmet, and Poseidon a trident.
The Titans then were overcome, and hurled down into a cavity below Tartarus (Theogony of Hesiod 697, 851), and the Hecatoncheiros were set to guard them. (Theogony of Hesiod 617) It must be observed that the fight of the Titans is sometimes confounded by ancient writers with the fight of the Gigantes.
2. The name Titans is also given to those divine or semi-divine beings who were descended from the Titans, such as Prometheus, Hecate (Hes. Theog. 424; Serv. ad Aen. iv. 511), Latona (Ov. Met. vi. 346), Pyrrha (i. 395), and especially Helios and Selene (Mene), as the children of Hyperion and Theia, and even the descendants of Helios, such as Circe.
3. The name Titans, lastly, is given to certain tribes of men from whom all mankind is descended. Thus the ancient city of Cnosos in Crete is said to have originally been inhabited by Titans, who were hostile to Zeus, but were driven away by Pan with the fearful sounds of his shell-trumpet.
Giants
In the Greek mythology often confounded with, but distinct from, the Titans, being a mere earthly brood of great stature and strength, who thought by their violence to dethrone Zeus, and were with the assistance of Hercules overpowered and buried under Etna and other volcanoes, doomed to continue their impotent grumbling there.
AEGAEON or BRIAREUS
A son of Uranus by Gaea. Aegaeon and Ids brothers Gyges and Cottus are known under the name of the Uranids (Hes. Theog. 502, &c.), and are described as huge monsters with a hundred arms and fifty heads.
Most writers mention the third Uranid under the name of Briareus instead of Aegaeon, which is explained in a passage of Homer, who says that men called him Aegaeon, but the gods Briareus.
On one occasion when the Olympian gods were about to put Zeus in chains, Thetis called in the assistance of Aegaeon, who compelled the gods to desist from their intention. (Horn. II. i. 398, &c.) According to Hesiod (Theog. 154, &c. 617, &c.), Aegaeon and his brothers were hated by Uranus from the time of their birth, in consequence of which they were concealed in the depth of the earth, where they remained until the Titans began their war against Zeus.
On the advice of Gaea Zeus delivered the Uranids from their prison, that they might assist him. The hundred-armed giants conquered the Titans bv hurling at them three hundred rocks at once, and secured the victory to Zeus, who thrust the Titans into Tartarus and placed the Hecaton-cheires at its gates, or, according to others, in the depth of the ocean to guard them. (Hes. Theog. 617, &c. 815, &c.) According to a legend in Pausanias, Briareus was chosen as arbitrator in the dispute between Poseidon and Helios, and adjudged the Isthmus to the former and the Acrocorinthus to the latter. The Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius (i. 1165) represents Aegaeon as a son of Gfaea and Pontus and as living as a marine god in the Aegean sea. Ovid (Met. ii. 10) and Philostratus (Vit. ApolLon. iv. 6) likewise regard him as a marine god, while Virgil (Aen. x. 565) reckons him among the giants who stormed Olympus, and Callimachus, regarding him in the same light, places him under mount Aetna. The Scholiast Theocritus (Idyll, i. 65) calls Briareus one of the Cyclops. The opinion which regards Aegaeon and his brothers as only personifications of the extraordinary powers of nature, such as are manifested in the violent commotions of the earth, as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and the like, seems to explain best the various accounts about them.
TYPHON or TYPHOEUS
A monster of the primitive world, is described sometimes as a destructive hurricane, and sometimes as a fire-breathing giant. According to Homer (II. ii. 782 ; comp. Strab. xiii. p. 929) he was concealed in the country of the Arimi in the earth, which was lashed by Zeus with flashes of lightning.
In Hesiod Typhaon and Typhoeus are two distinct beings. Typhaon there is a son of Typhoeus (Theog. '869), and a fearful hurricane, who by Echidna became the father of the dog Orthus, Cerberus, the Lernaean hydra, Chimaera, and the Sphynx. Notwithstanding the confusion of the two beings in later writers, the original meaning of Typhaon was preserved in ordinary life. (Aristoph. Ran. 845 ; Plin. H. N. ii. 48.) Typhoeus, on the other hand, is described as the youngest son of Tartarus and Gaea, or of Hera alone, because she was indignant at Zeus having given birth to Athena.
Typhoeus is described as a monster with a hundred heads, fearful eyes, and terrible voices (Find. Pyth. i. 31, viii. 21, Ol.iv. 12) ; he wanted to acquire the sovereignty of gods and men, but was subdued, after a fearful struggle, by Zeus, with a thunderbolt. He begot the winds, whence he is also called the father of the Harpies, but the beneficent winds Notus, Boreas, Argestes, and Ze- phyrus, were not his sons.
Aeschylus and Pindar describe him as living in a Cilician cave. (Pind. Pyth. viii. 21 ; comp. the different ideas in Apollon. Rhod. ii. 1210, &c., and Herod, iii. 5.) He is further said to have at one time been engaged in a struggle with all the im mortals, and to have been killed by Zeus with a flash of lightning ; he was buried in Tartarus under Mount Aetna, the workshop of Hephaestus.
The later poets frequently connect Typhoeus with Egypt, and the gods, it is said, when unable to hold out against him, fled to Egypt, where, from fear, they metamorphosed themselves into animals, with the exception of Zeus and Athena.
ENCELADUS
A son of Tartarus and Ge, and one of the hundred-armed giants who made war upon the gods.
He was killed, according to some, by Zeus, by a flash of lightning, and buried under mount Aetna (Virg. AenAii. 578); and according to others, he was killed by the chariot of Athena (Paus. viii. 47. § 1), or by the spear of Seilenus. ( Eurip. Cyclops, 7.) In his flight Athena threw upon him the island of Sicily. There are two other fabulous beings of this name.
