Titanomachy
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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 attributed to Hesiod. The Titans also played a prominent role in the poems attributed to Orpheus. Although only scraps of the Orphic narratives survive, they show differences from the Hesiodic tradition.
Conflict among the first gods
The stage for the Titanomachy was set after the youngest Titan Cronus overthrew his own father, Uranus (Ουρανός, the sky and ruler of the cosmos), with the help of his mother, Gaia (Γαία, the earth).
Uranus drew the enmity of Gaia when he imprisoned six of her children — the three
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
...so soon as he had cut off the members with flint and cast them from the land into the surging sea, they were swept away over the main a long time: and a white foam spread around them from the immortal flesh, and in it there grew a maiden..."[2]
Cronus took his father's title of ruler of land, sky, and sea. He then secured his power by forcing his siblings to bow down to his will.
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, 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, where he was raised by Amalthea and the Meliae.
Upon reaching adulthood, Zeus masqueraded as Cronus' cupbearer. Once he had been established as a servant of Cronus, the Oceanid Metis gave Zeus a mixture of mustard and wine which would cause Cronus to vomit out his swallowed children, now grown. After freeing his siblings as well as the Hecatonchires and Cyclopes, Zeus led them in rebellion against the Titans.
Zeus and his siblings take over Creation
Zeus then waged a war against his father with his disgorged brothers and sisters as allies: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon. Zeus released the Hecatonchires and the Cyclopes from the earth (where they had been imprisoned by Cronus) and they allied with him as well. The Hecatonchires hurled stones. The Cyclopes forged for Zeus his iconic thunder and lightning, for Poseidon his trident and for Hades a Helmet of darkness. Fighting on the other side allied with Cronus were the other Titans with the important exception of Themis and her son Prometheus who allied with Zeus (NB. for Hesiod, Clymene is the mother of Prometheus). Atlas was second in command after Cronus. The war lasted ten years, but eventually Zeus and the other Olympians won. Zeus had the important Titans imprisoned in Tartarus 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. In some accounts, when Zeus became secure in his power he relented and gave the Titans their freedom.[3]
The Iliad 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 ruler (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.[5] 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.
Titanomachy, the lost poem
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 ruling family in archaic Corinth,[6] who was treasured as the traditional composer of the Prosodion, the processional anthem of Messenian independence that was performed on Delos.
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.[7] 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.[7]
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
See also
References
- ^ Hesiod, Theogony, 635–7: "So they, with bitter wrath, were fighting continually with one another at that time for ten full years, and the hard strife had no close or end for either side..."
- ^ Hesiod, Theogony; see also Nonnus, Dionysiaca 13.435 ff.
- ISBN 9780195397703.
- ^ Hyginus, Fabulae 150.
- ^ Homer, Iliad 15.185-195.
- ^ The Bacchiadae were exiled by the tyrant Cypselus about 657 BC.
- ^ JSTOR 3246207.
- ^ Lydus, De mensibus 4.71.
General sources
- Fabulae, in The Myths of Hyginus, edited and translated by Mary A. Grant, Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1960. Online version at ToposText.
- .