Details
Region Additional (if applicable)
Greek
Region
Category
Titan
Gender
Mixed (6 male, 6 female)
Time Period
Archaic Greek period (c. 8th century BCE in Hesiod's Theogony)
Symbol
Flame with 12 Dots
Tags
greek, group, chaos
Introduction
The Twelve Titans are the first generation of gods born from the union of Uranus, the primordial sky, and Gaia, the broad-bosomed Earth. They are the elder gods who ruled the cosmos before the Olympians existed, a family of twelve siblings who divided the world among themselves and governed its fundamental forces. They are the parents of the second generation of gods and the ancestors of almost every deity in the Greek pantheon. They are the defeated army who fought the ten-year Titanomachy against Zeus and the young Olympian gods, a war that shook the cosmos to its foundations. They are the prisoners cast into the dark pit of Tartarus after their defeat, where some remain in chains while others were later freed. And they are the namesakes of the planet Saturn's largest moon, the chemical element titanium, and the word "titanic" itself, a legacy that has made their name synonymous with immense size and power for three thousand years.
Gallery
Who or What was...
Titans
The Twelve Titans were born in the earliest days of the cosmos, the first children of Uranus and Gaia. Uranus was the primordial god of the sky, the vast brass dome of heaven that stretched over the earth, and Gaia was the Earth herself, the first solid thing to emerge from the yawning abyss of Chaos. The Titans were six brothers and six sisters.
The six male Titans were Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus, and Cronus, and the six female Titans (called the Titanesses; Ancient Greek: Τιτανίδες, Tītānídes; singular: Τιτανίς, Tītānís) were Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, and Tethys.
The males were:
1. Oceanus, the eldest, who ruled the great river that encircled the world;
2. Coeus, the Titan of the north and the axis of the heavens;
3. Crius, the Titan of the constellations and the measuring of the seasons;
4. Hyperion, the Titan of light and the father of the sun, moon, and dawn;
5. Iapetus, the Titan of the west and the father of Prometheus, Epimetheus, and Atlas;
6. Cronus, the youngest and most cunning, who seized power from his father Uranus and became the first ruler of the gods.
The females were:
7. Theia, the Titaness of sight and the shining light of the sky;
8. Rhea, the Titaness of fertility and the mother of the Olympian gods;
9. Themis, the Titaness of divine law and order;
10. Mnemosyne, the Titaness of memory and the mother of the Muses;
11. Phoebe, the Titaness of the moon and prophecy;
12. Tethys, the Titaness of the sea and the wife of Oceanus.
They were the first generation of divine beings to possess human form, and they established the first divine order upon the earth.
When Uranus, their father, hid away the Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires inside the body of Gaia, causing her immense pain, Gaia turned against him. She fashioned a great sickle and asked her sons to punish Uranus for his cruelty. Only Cronus, the youngest, had the courage to act. He ambushed Uranus in the bedchamber and castrated him with the sickle, overthrowing the first ruler of the cosmos. After this deed, Cronus became the king of the gods, and the Titans divided the world among themselves. Oceanus and Tethys ruled the waters that encircled the earth. Hyperion and Theia governed the light and the celestial bodies. Coeus and Phoebe controlled the axis of the heavens and the oracles. Crius and his wife Eurybia presided over the constellations. Themis maintained divine law. Mnemosyne gave birth to the Muses, the nine goddesses of the arts. Iapetus and his sons Prometheus and Epimetheus were given dominion over the west. And Cronus, with his sister-wife Rhea, ruled from Mount Othrys as the supreme king of the gods. For a time, the Titan order was stable and the cosmos was at peace.
But Cronus was haunted by a prophecy uttered by his wounded father Uranus: that one of Cronus's own children would one day overthrow him, just as Cronus had overthrown Uranus. To prevent this, Cronus swallowed each child as soon as Rhea gave birth: first Hestia, then Demeter, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon. When Rhea became pregnant with Zeus, she sought help from Gaia and Uranus. Following their plan, she traveled to Crete and gave birth to Zeus in a cave on Mount Ida, leaving him to be nursed by the goat Amalthea and guarded by the Curetes. She then presented Cronus with a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes, which he swallowed without examining it. When Zeus grew to manhood, he returned to confront his father. With the help of the Oceanid Metis, he gave Cronus a potion that forced him to vomit up all the children he had devoured, now fully grown. Zeus then freed the Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires from Tartarus, and the Cyclopes forged weapons for the young gods: a thunderbolt for Zeus, a trident for Poseidon, and a helmet of darkness for Hades. The Hecatoncheires, with their hundred arms and fifty heads, joined the army of the Olympians.
The war that followed was called the Titanomachy, the war between the old Titans and the young Olympian gods, and it lasted ten full years. The Titans, led by Cronus and with Atlas as their battlefield commander, made their stronghold on Mount Othrys while Zeus and his allies based themselves on Mount Olympus. The earth shook and the heavens thundered as the two sides clashed. Several Titans chose not to fight against Zeus. Oceanus, the eldest, refused to take part in the war and remained neutral, though his daughter Styx and her children Bia, Cratos, Nike, and Zelus sided with Zeus. Themis and her son Prometheus also sided with the Olympians, as did Mnemosyne. Phoebe and her daughter Leto, though not directly involved in the battle, were later honored by the Olympians. The war was brutal and unrelenting, but eventually the Olympians and their allies overpowered the Titans. Cronus and most of his supporters were cast into the dark pit of Tartarus, imprisoned behind bronze gates and guarded by the Hecatoncheires. Atlas was given a unique punishment: he was condemned to stand at the western edge of the world and hold up the heavens upon his shoulders for eternity. Prometheus, who had sided with Zeus, was spared, though he would later be punished for stealing fire for mankind. The Titanomachy ended with the complete victory of the Olympians and the establishment of a new divine order under Zeus.
After the war, the fate of the Titans varied. Cronus, the defeated king, was imprisoned in Tartarus alongside the other rebel Titans. Some say he was later released and given a place in the Isles of the Blessed, the paradise reserved for the greatest heroes. Oceanus, who had remained neutral, continued to rule the waters around the earth and was never punished. Mnemosyne became the mother of the Muses by Zeus and was honored in the new order. Themis, the goddess of divine law, also coupled with Zeus and bore the Horae, the goddesses of the seasons, and the Moirai, the Fates who control destiny. Phoebe ceded her oracle at Delphi to her grandson Apollo, who had slain the Python that guarded it. Rhea, the mother of Zeus, was honored as the Great Mother and continued to be worshipped across the Greek world. Hyperion and Theia faded from active myth, though their children Helios, Selene, and Eos continued to drive the sun, moon, and dawn across the sky. Crius and Iapetus were imprisoned in Tartarus, though Iapetus's sons Prometheus and Epimetheus played major roles in the age of mortals. Tethys remained with Oceanus, and together they were said to have produced three thousand Oceanids and three thousand river gods. The name "Titan" itself became a byword for immense size and power, and in the modern era the largest moon of Saturn was named Titan, the chemical element titanium was named for their strength, and the word "titanic" entered every language as a description of something of gigantic proportions.
Summary
The Twelve Titans stand as the first generation of Greek gods, the elder powers who ruled the cosmos before the Olympians and whose defeat established the divine order that would govern Greek mythology for millennia. From their birth from Uranus and Gaia to their division of the world, from the Titanomachy that shook the earth to their varied fates after the war, their story is the story of cosmic succession itself: how one generation of gods gives way to the next, and how the old order is both overthrown and absorbed into the new. Every titanic thing that humans have ever built carries their name, and every story of divine rebellion traces its lineage back to Mount Othrys.
References
Validation References:
- Hesiod, Theogony (c. 700 BCE) - Lines 133-138 (birth of the Titans from Uranus and Gaia), Lines 617-735 (Titanomachy, division of sides, defeat and imprisonment)
- Homer, Iliad (c. 750 BCE) - Book 14, Lines 200-210 (Oceanus and Tethys as parents of gods, Titan genealogy)
- Homer, Odyssey (c. 700 BCE) - Book 11, Lines 315-320 (reference to Titans in the underworld)
- Apollodorus, Bibliotheca (1st-2nd century CE) - Book 1, Chapters 1-2 (birth of Titans, Cronus's overthrow of Uranus, Titanomachy)
- Pindar, Olympian Ode 2 (c. 476 BCE) - Lines 61-80 (Isles of the Blessed, possible fate of Cronus after Tartarus)
- Pausanias, Description of Greece (2nd century CE) - Book 8, Chapter 37 (Rhea worshipped as Great Mother at Olympia)
- Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound (c. 430 BCE) - Lines 218-220 (Prometheus as Titan who sided with Zeus, later punished)
- West, M. L., Hesiod: Theogony (Oxford University Press, 1966) - Commentary on the Titan genealogy and the Succession Myth
- Burkert, Walter, Greek Religion (Harvard University Press, 1985) - Chapter 3 (Titan cults and the transition to Olympian religion)
- Clay, Jenny Strauss, Hesiod's Cosmos (Cambridge University Press, 2003) - Chapter 2 (the Twelve Titans and the structure of divine power)