Titans - Revision history

Irlandos: /* References */

2012-02-13T19:49:23Z

References

Irlandos: /* Titanomachy */

2012-02-13T19:48:54Z

Titanomachy

Irlandos: /* In Hesiod */

2012-02-13T19:47:07Z

In Hesiod

Irlandos at 11:33, July 3, 2006

2006-07-03T11:33:52Z

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In [[Greek mythology]], the '''Titans''' ([[Greek language|Greek]] Τιτάν, plural Τιτάνες) were a race of powerful deities that ruled during the legendary [[golden age|Golden Age]]. The Titans were twelve from their first appearance ([[Hesiod]], ''[[Theogony]]'') [[Apollodorus]] adds a thirteenth Titan [[Dione]], a double of [[Theia]] and were associated with various primal concepts, some of which are simply extrapolated from their names: ocean and fruitful earth, sun and moon, memory and natural law. The twelve first-generation Titans were led by the youngest, [[Cronus]]), who overthrew their father, [[Uranus]] ("Heaven"), at the urgings of their mother, [[Gaia]] ("Earth").

The Titans later gave birth to other Titans, notably the sons of Iapetus — [[Prometheus]], [[Epimetheus]], [[Atlas]], and [[Menoetius]].

The Titans preceded the [[Twelve Olympians]], but were eventually overthrown by them, led by [[Zeus]], in the [[Titanomachy]] ("War of the Titans"), and were imprisoned in [[Tartarus]], the depths of the underworld.

== In Hesiod ==

In [[Hesiod]]'s ''[[Theogony]]'' the twelve Titans follow the
[[Hecatonchires|Hundred-handers]] and [[Cyclops|Cyclopes]] as the youngest set of children of [[Uranus (mythology)|Uranus]], heaven, and [[Gaia]], the Earth:

:"Afterwards she lay with Heaven and bore deep-swirling [[Oceanus]], [[Coeus]] and [[Crius]] and [[Hyperion]] and [[Iapetus]], [[Theia]] and [[Rhea (mythology)|Rhea]], [[Themis]] and [[Mnemosyne]] and gold-crowned [[Phoebe]] and lovely [[Tethys]]. After them was born [[Cronus]] the wily, youngest and most terrible of her children, and he hated his lusty sire."

Uranus considered [[Cronos]] monstrous, and imprisoned him in the bowels of the Earth. Cronus, was aided by the [[Hecatonchires]] and [[Cyclops|Cyclopes]], who then set upon his father, castrated him, and set himself as king of the gods, with Rhea as his wife and queen.

Rhea gave birth to a new generation of gods to Cronos, but, in fear that they too would eventually overthrow him, he swallowed them all one by one. Only Zeus was saved: Rhea gave Cronus a stone in swaddling clothes in his place, and placed the infant Zeus in Crete to be guarded by the [[Kouretes]].

Once Zeus reached adulthood, he subdued Cronus by wile rather than force, using a potion concocted with the help of [[Gaia]], his grandmother, to forcibly cause Cronus to vomit up Zeus's siblings. A war between younger and older gods commences, in which Zeus is aided by the [[Hecatonchires]], [[Gigantes]], and [[Cyclops|Cyclopes]], who have once again been freed from [[Tartarus]]. Zeus wins after a long struggle, and casts many of the Titans down into [[Tartarus]].

And yet the older gods leave their mark on the world: Oceanus continues to encircle the world, and the name of "bright shining" Phoebe was attached as an epithet to effulgent [[Apollo]], "Phoebus Apollo". Some of them had not fought the Olympians and became key players in the new administration: [[Mnemosyne]] as a [[Muse]], [[Rhea]], [[Hyperion]], [[Themis]], or the "right ordering" of things and [[Metis]].

== Titanomachy ==
:''Main article: [[Titanomachy]]''.
Greeks of the Classical age knew of several [[poem]]s about the war between the gods and many of the Titans, the [[Titanomachy]] ("War of the Titans"). The dominant one, and the only one that has survived, was in the ''[[Theogony]]'' attributed to [[Hesiod]]. A lost epic ''Titanomachy'' attributed to the blind Thracian bard [[Thamyris]], himself a legendary figure, was mentioned in passing in an essay ''On Music'' that was once attributed to [[Plutarch]]. And the Titans played a prominent role in the poems attributed to [[Orpheus]]. Although only scraps of the [[Orphic]] narratives survive, they show interesting differences with the Hesiodic tradition.

These Greek myths of the Titanomachy fall into a class of similar myths of a War in Heaven throughout Europe and the Near East, where one generation or group of gods by and large opposes the dominant one.

== In Orphic sources ==
Hesiod is not, however, the last word on the Titans. Surviving fragments of [[Orpheus|Orphic]] poetry in particular preserve some variations on the myth.

In one Orphic text, Zeus does not simply set upon his father violently. Instead, Rhea spreads out a banquet for Kronos, so that he becomes drunk upon fermented honey. Zeus chains him and castrates him. Rather than being consigned to [[Tartarus]], [[Cronus]] is dragged – still drunk – to the cave of [[Nyx|Night]], where he continues to dream and prophesy throughout eternity.

Another myth concerning the Titans that is not in [[Hesiod]] revolves around [[Dionysus]]. At some point in his reign, [[Zeus]] decides to give up the throne in favor of the infant [[Dionysus]], who like the infant [[Zeus]] is guarded by the [[Kouretes]]. The Titans decide to slay the child and claim the throne for themselves; they paint their faces white with gypsum, distract Dionysus with toys, then dismember him and boil and roast his limbs. [[Zeus]], enraged, slays the Titans with his thunderbolt; [[Athena]] preserves the heart in a gypsum doll, out of which a new Dionysus is made. This story is told by the poets [[Callimachus]] and [[Nonnus]], who call this [[Dionysus]] "[[Zagreus]]", and also in a number of [[Orphic]] texts, which do not.

One iteration of this story, reported by the Neoplatonist philosopher [[Olympiodorus the Younger|Olympiodorus]], writing in the Christian era, says that humanity sprung up out of the fatty smoke of the burning Titan corpses. Other earlier writers imply that humanity was born out of the blood shed by the Titans in their war against Zeus.

[[Pindar]], [[Plato]] and [[Oppian]] refer offhandedly to man's "Titanic
nature". Whether this refers to a sort of "original sin" rooted in the murder of Dionysus is hotly debated by scholars.

==References==
* Jane Ellen Harrison, ''Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion'', 1912. [http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/eos/eos_title.pl?callnum=BL781.H32]
* William Smith, ''[[Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology]]'', 1870, [http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/3489.html article on "Titan"]
* Martin Litchfield West, ''The Orphic Poems'', 1983.

{{Credit wikipedia}}

[[Category:Giants]]
[[Category:Titans|Titans]]
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@@ Line 43: / Line 43: @@
 ==References==
 * Jane Ellen Harrison, ''Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion'', 1912. [http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/eos/eos_title.pl?callnum=BL781.H32]
-* William Smith, ''[[Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology]]'', 1870, [http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/3489.html article on "Titan"]
+* William Smith, ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'', 1870, [http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/3489.html article on "Titan"]
 * Martin Litchfield West, ''The Orphic Poems'', 1983.

@@ Line 23: / Line 23: @@
 == Titanomachy ==
 :''Main article: [[Titanomachy]]''.
-Greeks of the Classical age knew of several [[poem]]s about the war between the gods and many of the Titans, the [[Titanomachy]] ("War of the Titans"). The dominant one, and the only one that has survived, was in the ''[[Theogony]]'' attributed to [[Hesiod]]. A lost epic ''Titanomachy'' attributed to the blind Thracian bard [[Thamyris]], himself a legendary figure, was mentioned in passing in an essay ''On Music'' that was once attributed to [[Plutarch]]. And the Titans played a prominent role in the poems attributed to [[Orpheus]]. Although only scraps of the [[Orphic]] narratives survive, they show interesting differences with the Hesiodic tradition.
+Greeks of the Classical age knew of several poems about the war between the gods and many of the Titans, the [[Titanomachy]] ("War of the Titans"). The dominant one, and the only one that has survived, was in the ''[[Theogony]]'' attributed to [[Hesiod]]. A lost epic ''Titanomachy'' attributed to the blind Thracian bard [[Thamyris]], himself a legendary figure, was mentioned in passing in an essay ''On Music'' that was once attributed to [[Plutarch]]. And the Titans played a prominent role in the poems attributed to [[Orpheus]]. Although only scraps of the [[Orphic]] narratives survive, they show interesting differences with the Hesiodic tradition.
 These Greek myths of the Titanomachy fall into a class of similar myths of a War in Heaven throughout Europe and the Near East, where one generation or group of gods by and large opposes the dominant one.
-−
 == In Orphic sources ==
 Hesiod is not, however, the last word on the Titans. Surviving fragments of [[Orpheus|Orphic]] poetry in particular preserve some variations on the myth.

@@ Line 8: / Line 8: @@
 In [[Hesiod]]'s ''[[Theogony]]'' the twelve Titans follow the
-[[Hecatonchires|Hundred-handers]] and [[Cyclops|Cyclopes]] as the youngest set of children of [[Uranus (mythology)|Uranus]], heaven, and [[Gaia]], the Earth:
+[[Hecatonchires|Hundred-handers]] and [[Cyclops|Cyclopes]] as the youngest set of children of [[Uranus]], heaven, and [[Gaia]], the Earth:
-:"Afterwards she lay with Heaven and bore deep-swirling [[Oceanus]], [[Coeus]] and [[Crius]] and [[Hyperion]] and [[Iapetus]], [[Theia]] and [[Rhea (mythology)|Rhea]], [[Themis]] and [[Mnemosyne]] and gold-crowned [[Phoebe]] and lovely [[Tethys]]. After them was born [[Cronus]] the wily, youngest and most terrible of her children, and he hated his lusty sire."
+:"Afterwards she lay with Heaven and bore deep-swirling [[Oceanus]], [[Coeus]] and [[Crius]] and [[Hyperion]] and [[Iapetus]], [[Theia]] and [[Rhea]], [[Themis]] and [[Mnemosyne]] and gold-crowned [[Phoebe]] and lovely [[Tethys]]. After them was born [[Cronus]] the wily, youngest and most terrible of her children, and he hated his lusty sire."