Titan

Titan, in Greek mythology, any of the 12 children of Uranus (Heaven) and Gaea (Earth) and some of their descendants. Helped by Gaea, the Titans overthrew the tyrannical Uranus and became the ruling deities. They were progenitors of the Olympian gods, led by Zeus, who subsequently deposed the Titans after a celestial war and established a new divine order. Legends surrounding the Titans formed part of the foundational body of Greek mythology and helped to shape later Greek religious traditions, literature, and cultural identity.

The original Titans

According to Hesiod’s Theogony, the original Titans were the brothers Oceanus (god of the sea), Coeus (god of intellect), Crius (god of constellations), Hyperion (god of light and observation), Iapetus (god of mortality and craftsmanship), and Cronus (god of time) and the sisters Thea (goddess of light and radiance), Rhea (goddess of fertility), Themis (goddess of law and justice), Mnemosyne (goddess of memory), Phoebe (goddess of prophecy), and Tethys (goddess of fresh water). Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, and Iapetus represented the four cosmic pillars believed to separate heaven and earth.

The siblings of the Titans included the three Cyclopes—Arges, Brontes, and Steropes—and the three Hecatoncheires—Cottus, Briareus, and Gyges—who had 100 hands and 50 heads. Disgusted by the monstrosity of his offspring, Uranus imprisoned the Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires in Tartarus (the underworld), angering Gaea. At the instigation of Gaea the Titans rebelled against their father, castrating him with a sickle or a scimitar. Aphrodite was born from the white foam produced when Cronus threw Uranus’s severed genitals into the sea. The Furies, the Giants, and the Meliai (ash-tree nymphs) were born from drops of Uranus’s blood. The Titans set up Cronus as their ruler.

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From Athena to Zeus: Basics of Greek Mythology

The descendants of the Titans

Some of the Titans married each other and produced various children:

• Cronus and Rhea had six children: Zeus, Hades, Poseidon, Hera, Demeter, and Hestia.
• Oceanus and Tethys produced the Oceanids, who were spirits of the sea and streams and numbered 6,000.
• Hyperion and Thea’s offspring were the sun god Helios, the moon goddess Selene, and the goddess of dawn, Eos.
• Coeus and Phoebe were the parents of Asteria, who was pursued by Zeus and drowned herself after turning into a quail to escape him, and Leto, who bore Zeus the twin deities Apollo and Artemis.
• Iapetus and the Oceanid Clymene had four sons—Atlas, Prometheus, Epimetheus, and Menoetius—who were the ancestors of humans.
• Themis bore Zeus the Horae or Hours, who were personifications of the seasons and goddesses of natural order. In some versions Themis was also the mother of the Fates.
• Mnemosyne gave birth to the nine Muses, fathered by Zeus: Calliope (muse of epic poetry), Clio (muse of history), Euterpe (muse of music and flute playing), Thalia (muse of comedy), Melpomene (muse of tragedy and lyre playing), Terpsichore (muse of lyric poetry and dancing), Erato (muse of lyric and erotic poetry or hymns), Polymnia (muse of dancing or geometry), and Urania (muse of astronomy).
• Crius and Eurybia, a daughter of Gaea and Pontus, were the parents of Astraios (god of dusk), Pallas (god of warcraft), and Perses (god of destruction).

The Titanomachia and aftermath

Cronus’s reign was no less tyrannical than that of his father, and he failed to release the Cyclopes and Hecatoncheires from Tartarus. Warned by Uranus that he, too, would be overthrown by one of his progeny, Cronus swallowed five of his six children at birth. However, when Zeus, the youngest child, was born, Rhea hid the infant and gave Cronus a stone to swallow instead. With the help of Rhea and Gaea, Zeus rebelled against his father and helped to liberate his siblings. A struggle then ensued between Cronus and the Olympians, in which many of the Titans sided with Cronus. However, Zeus released the Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires from their imprisonment, gaining valuable allies. With the help of weapons created by the Cyclopes—Zeus’s thunderbolt, Poseidon’s trident, and Hades’s cap or helmet of invisibility—and with the Hecatoncheires fighting for them, the Olympians finally defeated the Titans after 10 years of fierce battles (the Titanomachia or Titanomachy). Zeus became lord of the sky, Poseidon of the oceans, and Hades of the underworld. The Titans were hurled down by Zeus and imprisoned in a cavity beneath Tartarus. Atlas, who commanded the Titan army, was condemned to eternally hold the heavens aloft.

Not all the Titans sided with Cronus—most famously Prometheus, who, as the god of foresight, had predicted the outcome of the war and took Zeus’s part. He was joined by his brother Epimetheus, Themis, the Oceanid Metis (often regarded as the mother of Athena), and the Oceanid Styx along with her children Nike (goddess of victory), Kratos (personification of strength), Zelus (personification of dedication), and Bia (personification of force). Oceanus and the Titanesses remained neutral and were placed within the new divine order after the war. Some of the other second-generation Titans, such as Helios, also retained their positions.

Hesiod’s Works and Days preserves the idea of life under the Titans as the golden race, happy and long-lived. The notion developed further under the Romans—who identified Cronus with Saturn—into a golden age of peace and prosperity.

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