Greek mythology Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories conc ...

, the Titanomachy (; ) was a ten-year war fought in

ancient Thessaly Thessaly or Thessalia (Attic Greek: , ''Thessalía'' or , ''Thettalía'') was one of the traditional regions of Ancient Greece. During the Mycenaean Greece, Mycenaean period, Thessaly was known as Aeolia, a name that continued to be used for one of ...

, consisting of most of the

Titans In Greek mythology, the Titans ( ; ) were the pre-Twelve Olympians, Olympian gods. According to the ''Theogony'' of Hesiod, they were the twelve children of the primordial parents Uranus (mythology), Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth). The six male ...

(the older generation of gods, based on Mount Othrys) fighting against the Olympians (the younger generations, who would come to reign on

Mount Olympus Mount Olympus (, , ) is an extensive massif near the Thermaic Gulf of the Aegean Sea, located on the border between Thessaly and Macedonia (Greece), Macedonia, between the regional units of Larissa (regional unit), Larissa and Pieria (regional ...

) and their allies. This event is also known as the War of the Titans, Battle of the Titans, Battle of the Gods, or just the Titan War. The war was fought to decide which generation of gods would have dominion over the universe; it ended in victory for the Olympian gods. Greeks of the classical age knew of several poems about the war between the gods and many of the Titans. The dominant one, and the only one that has survived, is the ''

Theogony The ''Theogony'' () is a poem by Hesiod (8th–7th century BC) describing the origins and genealogy, genealogies of the Greek gods, composed . It is written in the Homeric Greek, epic dialect of Ancient Greek and contains 1,022 lines. It is one ...

'' attributed to

Hesiod Hesiod ( or ; ''Hēsíodos''; ) was an ancient Greece, Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer.M. L. West, ''Hesiod: Theogony'', Oxford University Press (1966), p. 40.Jasper Gr ...

. The Titans also played a prominent role in the poems attributed to

Orpheus In Greek mythology, Orpheus (; , classical pronunciation: ) was a Thracians, Thracian bard, legendary musician and prophet. He was also a renowned Ancient Greek poetry, poet and, according to legend, travelled with Jason and the Argonauts in se ...

. Although only scraps of the Orphic narratives survive, they show differences from the Hesiodic tradition.

Conflict among the first gods

Cronos and Rhea by Karl Friedrich Schinkel

The stage for the Titanomachy was set after the youngest Titan

Cronus In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, Cronus, Cronos, or Kronos ( or ; ) was the leader and youngest of the Titans, the children of Gaia (Earth) and Uranus (mythology), Uranus (Sky). He overthrew his father and ruled dur ...

overthrew his own father,

Uranus Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. It is a gaseous cyan-coloured ice giant. Most of the planet is made of water, ammonia, and methane in a Supercritical fluid, supercritical phase of matter, which astronomy calls "ice" or Volatile ( ...

(Ουρανός, the sky and ruler of the cosmos), with the help of his mother,

Gaia In Greek mythology, Gaia (; , a poetic form of ('), meaning 'land' or 'earth'),, , . also spelled Gaea (), is the personification of Earth. Gaia is the ancestral mother—sometimes parthenogenic—of all life. She is the mother of Uranus (S ...

(Γαία, the earth). Uranus drew the enmity of Gaia when he imprisoned six of her children — the three Hecatonchires (giants with 50 heads and 100 arms) and the three

Cyclopes In Greek mythology and later Roman mythology, the Cyclopes ( ; , ''Kýklōpes'', "Circle-eyes" or "Round-eyes"; singular Cyclops ; , ''Kýklōps'') are giant one-eyed creatures. Three groups of Cyclopes can be distinguished. In Hesiod's ''The ...

(also giants, each with a single eye in the middle of its forehead) — within her womb. Gaia created a great

sickle A sickle, bagging hook, reaping-hook or grasshook is a single-handed agricultural tool designed with variously curved blades and typically used for harvesting or reaping grain crops, or cutting Succulent plant, succulent forage chiefly for feedi ...

, forged from adamantine, and hid it in a crevice on Mount Othrys. Gaia then proceeded to attempt to convince 12 of her other children from Uranus, who were known as the Titans, to castrate Uranus. Only Cronus was willing to do the deed, so Gaia gave him the adamantine sickle and positioned him in the same crevice that previously held his sickle. When Uranus met to consort with Gaia on Mount Othrys, Cronus ambushed Uranus, and with the adamantine sickle, sliced off his genitals, casting them across the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...

. After doing so, Cronus freed the imprisoned Hecatonchires and Cyclopes, by slicing open Gaia's womb and promptly imprisoned them in

Tartarus In Greek mythology, Tartarus (; ) is the deep abyss that is used as a dungeon of torment and suffering for the wicked and as the prison for the Titans. Tartarus is the place where, according to Plato's '' Gorgias'' (), souls are judged after ...

. Cronus also quickly imprisoned Uranus deep below Tartarus. In doing this, he took his father's title of ruler of the cosmos and then secured his power by forcing his siblings to bow down to his will. But Uranus cursed Cronus so that Cronus's own children would rebel against his rule, just as Cronus had rebelled against his own father. Uranus' blood that had spilled upon the earth gave rise to the

Gigantes In Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology, the Giants, also called Gigantes (Ancient Greek, Greek: Γίγαντες, ''wiktionary:gigantes, Gígantes'', Γίγας, ''wiktionary:gigas, Gígas''), were a race of great strength and aggression, ...

Erinyes The Erinyes ( ; , ), also known as the Eumenides (, the "Gracious ones"), are chthonic goddesses of vengeance in ancient Greek religion and mythology. A formulaic oath in the ''Iliad'' invokes them as "the Erinyes, that under earth tak ...

, and

Meliae In Greek mythology, the Meliae (also called Meliads) (; or ) were usually considered to be the nymphs of the ash tree, whose name they shared. Mythology According to Hesiod, the Meliae (probably meaning all tree-nymphs) were born from the dr ...

. From the mixture of blood and semen from his mutilated genitalia,

Aphrodite Aphrodite (, ) is an Greek mythology, ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, procreation, and as her syncretism, syncretised Roman counterpart , desire, Sexual intercourse, sex, fertility, prosperity, and ...

arose from the sea where they landed in Cyprus. Cronus, paranoid of Uranus's curse and fearing the end of his rule, now turned into the tyrant his father Uranus had once been, swallowing each of his children whole as they were born from his sister-wife Rhea. Rhea, who began to resent Cronus, managed to hide her youngest newborn child

Zeus Zeus (, ) is the chief deity of the List of Greek deities, Greek pantheon. He is a sky father, sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus. Zeus is the child ...

, by tricking Cronus into swallowing a magnetite rock, given to her by her mother Gaia, wrapped in a blanket instead. Rhea brought Zeus to a cave in

Crete Crete ( ; , Modern Greek, Modern: , Ancient Greek, Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the List of islands by area, 88th largest island in the world and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fifth la ...

, where he was raised by Amalthea and the Meliae. Rhea's attendants, the warrior-like Kouretes and Dactyls, acted as bodyguards for Zeus, helping to conceal his whereabouts from his father. Once Zeus reached adulthood, the Oceanid Metis gave Cronus an emetic, which caused him to vomit out his swallowed children, now fully grown. After freeing his siblings, as well as the Hecatonchires and Cyclopes, Zeus led them in a war against the Titans.

Zeus and his siblings take over Creation

Joachim Wtewael - The Battle Between the Gods and the Titans - WGA25902

Zeus then waged a war against his father with his disgorged brothers and sisters as allies:

Hestia In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Hestia (; ) is the virgin goddess of the hearth and the home. In myth, she is the firstborn child of the Titans Cronus and Rhea, and one of the Twelve Olympians. In Greek mythology, newborn Hestia, alo ...

Demeter In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, Demeter (; Attic Greek, Attic: ''Dēmḗtēr'' ; Doric Greek, Doric: ''Dāmā́tēr'') is the Twelve Olympians, Olympian goddess of the harvest and agriculture, presiding over cro ...

Hera In ancient Greek religion, Hera (; ; in Ionic Greek, Ionic and Homeric Greek) is the goddess of marriage, women, and family, and the protector of women during childbirth. In Greek mythology, she is queen of the twelve Olympians and Mount Oly ...

Hades Hades (; , , later ), in the ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, is the god of the dead and the king of the Greek underworld, underworld, with which his name became synonymous. Hades was the eldest son of Cronus and Rhea ...

, and

Poseidon Poseidon (; ) is one of the twelve Olympians in ancient Greek religion and mythology, presiding over the sea, storms, earthquakes and horses.Burkert 1985pp. 136–139 He was the protector of seafarers and the guardian of many Hellenic cit ...

. He released the Hecatonchires and the Cyclopes from the earth (where they had been imprisoned by Cronus) by slaying their ward, the she-monster Campe, and they allied with him as well. The Hecatonchires offered to hurl stones to their enemies and the Cyclopes forged for Zeus his iconic thunderbolts, for Poseidon his trident and for Hades the helmet of darkness. When Zeus took

as his base and called all the remaining gods to determine their allegiance, he declared that any god that chose to align with him against Cronus would preserve their honors, or if they had none under, they would be received them under his rule. The first to do so was Styx, who brought her children: Nike, Zelus, Kratos, and Bia. As promised, Zeus appointed Styx as "the great oath of the gods". Fighting on the other side allied with Cronus were the other Titans with the important exceptions of

Themis In Greek mythology and religion, Themis (; ) is the goddess and personification of justice, divine order, law, and custom. She is one of the twelve Titan children of Gaia and Uranus, and the second wife of Zeus. She is associated with oracles a ...

and her son

Prometheus In Greek mythology, Prometheus (; , , possibly meaning "forethought")Smith"Prometheus". is a Titans, Titan. He is best known for defying the Olympian gods by taking theft of fire, fire from them and giving it to humanity in the form of technol ...

, who allied with the Olympians ( N.B. for

, Clymene is Prometheus' mother).

Atlas An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of world map, maps of Earth or of a continent or region of Earth. Advances in astronomy have also resulted in atlases of the celestial sphere or of other planets. Atlases have traditio ...

, son of

Iapetus In Greek mythology, Iapetus (; ; ), also Japetus, is a Titan, the son of Uranus and Gaia and father of Atlas, Prometheus, Epimetheus, and Menoetius. He was also called the father of Buphagus and Anchiale in other sources. Iapetus was linked ...

, was second in command after Cronus. The sisters Arke and Iris sided with the Olympians as their messenger goddesses, but while Iris remained loyal to her allies, soon Arke betrayed them for Cronus and flew to Mount Othrys to be its messenger-goddess instead. The war lasted ten years, but eventually Zeus and the other Olympians won. Zeus had the defeated Titans imprisoned in

much like Cronus did to his father, and the Hecatonchires were made their guards. Atlas was given the special punishment of holding up the sky. Zeus severely punished Arke for her defection; she was deprived of her wings and cast into Tartarus as well. In some accounts, when Zeus became secure in his power, he relented and gave the Titans their freedom. The ''

Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; , ; ) is one of two major Ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Odyssey'', the poem is divided into 24 books and ...

'' describes how following their victory, the three brothers divided the world amongst themselves: Zeus was given domain over the sky and the air and was recognized as the ruler of the gods (also known as the Sky Father). Poseidon was given the sea and all the waters, whereas Hades was given the Underworld, the realm of the dead. Each of the other gods were allotted duties according to the nature and proclivities of each. The earth was left common to all to do as they pleased, even to run counter to one another, unless the brothers (Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades) were called to intervene.

Hyginus Hyginus may refer to: People *Hyginus, the author of the '' Fabulae'', an important ancient Latin source for Greek mythology. *Hyginus, the author of the ''Astronomia'', a popular ancient Latin guide on astronomy, probably the same as the author ...

relates the Titanomachy differently: "After Hera saw that Epaphus, born of a concubine, ruled such a great kingdom (Egypt), she saw to it that he should be killed while hunting, and encouraged the Titans to drive Zeus from the kingdom and restore it to Cronus (

Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant, with an average radius of about 9 times that of Earth. It has an eighth the average density of Earth, but is over 95 tim ...

). When they tried to mount heaven,

with the help of

Athena Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretism, syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarde ...

Apollo Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, mu ...

, and

Artemis In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, Artemis (; ) is the goddess of the hunting, hunt, the wilderness, wild animals, transitions, nature, vegetation, childbirth, Kourotrophos, care of children, and chastity. In later tim ...

, cast them headlong into Tartarus. On Atlas, who had been their leader, he put the vault of the sky; even now he is said to hold up the sky on his shoulders."

''Titanomachy'', the lost poem

Titanomachy at the Gorgon pediment at Artemis Temple in Corfu

A somewhat different account of the Titanomachy appeared in a poem that is now lost. The poem was traditionally ascribed to Eumelus of Corinth, a semi-legendary bard of the

Bacchiadae The Bacchiadae ( ''Bakkhiadai''), a tightly knit Doric clan, were the ruling family of ancient Corinth in the eighth and seventh centuries BCE, a period of Corinthian cultural power. History Corinth had been a backwater in eighth-century Greece ...

ruling family in archaic

Corinth Corinth ( ; , ) is a municipality in Corinthia in Greece. The successor to the ancient Corinth, ancient city of Corinth, it is a former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese (region), Peloponnese, which is located in south-central Greece. Sin ...

, who was treasured as the traditional composer of the ''Prosodion'', the processional anthem of Messenian independence that was performed on

Delos Delos (; ; ''Dêlos'', ''Dâlos''), is a small Greek island near Mykonos, close to the centre of the Cyclades archipelago. Though only in area, it is one of the most important mythological, historical, and archaeological sites in Greece. ...

. Even in Antiquity, many authors cited ''Titanomachia'' without an author's name. The name of Eumelos was attached to the poem as the only name available. From the very patchy evidence, it seems that "Eumelos"' account of the Titanomachy differed from the surviving account of Hesiod's ''Theogony'' at salient points. It was written in the late seventh-century BC at the earliest. The ''Titanomachy'' was divided into two books. The battle of Olympians and Titans was preceded by some sort of theogony, or genealogy of the Primeval Gods, in which, the

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

writer John the Lydian remarked,Lydus, ''De mensibus'' 4.71. the author of Titanomachy placed the birth of Zeus, not in

, but in

Lydia Lydia (; ) was an Iron Age Monarchy, kingdom situated in western Anatolia, in modern-day Turkey. Later, it became an important province of the Achaemenid Empire and then the Roman Empire. Its capital was Sardis. At some point before 800 BC, ...

, which should signify on

Mount Sipylus Mount Spil (), the ancient Mount Sipylus () (elevation ), is a mountain rich in legends and history in Manisa Province, Turkey, in what used to be the heartland of the Lydians and what is now Turkey's Aegean Region. Its summit towers over th ...

References

General sources

* Hyginus, Gaius Julius, ''

Fabulae The ''Fabulae'' is a Latin handbook of mythology, attributed to an author named Hyginus, who is generally believed to have been separate from Gaius Julius Hyginus. The work consists of some three hundred very brief and plainly, even crudely, told ...

'', in ''The Myths of Hyginus'', edited and translated by Mary A. Grant, Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1960
Online version at ToposText
*

Nonnus Nonnus of Panopolis (, ''Nónnos ho Panopolítēs'', 5th century AD) was the most notable Greek epic poet of the Imperial Roman era. He was a native of Panopolis (Akhmim) in the Egyptian Thebaid and probably lived in the 5th century AD. He i ...

, ''

Dionysiaca The ''Dionysiaca'' (, ''Dionysiaká'') is an ancient Greek epic poem and the principal work of Nonnus. It is an epic in 48 books, the longest surviving poem from Greco-Roman antiquity at 20,426 lines, composed in Homeric dialect and dactylic hex ...

, Volume I: Books 1–15'', translated by W. H. D. Rouse,

Loeb Classical Library The Loeb Classical Library (LCL; named after James Loeb; , ) is a monographic series of books originally published by Heinemann and since 1934 by Harvard University Press. It has bilingual editions of ancient Greek and Latin literature, ...

No. 344, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1940 (revised 1984).
Online version at Harvard University PressInternet Archive (1940)
{{Authority control War in mythology Titans (mythology) Deeds of Gaia Deeds of Zeus Deeds of Poseidon

Conflict among the first gods

Zeus and his siblings take over Creation

''Titanomachy'', the lost poem

See also

References

General sources