Learn the history of the Titanomachy, the most spectacular Epic Battle of all time. Discover its losers, winners, and repercussions.
Titanomachy
The Titanomachy, in Greek mythology, was the great war that occurred between the Titans, the ancient generation of Greek gods, and the Olympian gods, led by Zeus. The war lasted a total of ten years, ending with the defeat of the old pantheon, which was based on Mount Otris, and the establishment of the new one, based on Mount Olympus.
what is the Titanomachy?
In Greek mythology, the Titanomachy was a 10-year battle between the oldest Titan and the younger Olympian gods. The prosaic gap between the older generations seemed to be the source of the conflict of this battle, and the Titans did not want to give up their unlimited power to the young.
Source
A poem entitled Titanomachy, possibly written by a famous bard, Eumelus of Corinth, detailed the battle of Titanomachy between the Titans and the Olympians, but the work was lost! Hesiod’s Theogony, composed in 700 BC, depicts the god’s succession battle, as does another account of the Titanomachy clash by Apollodorus, a mythographer, in the 1st or 2nd century AD.
Chronology of the epic battle
The story of the battle begins at the moment when Uranus (god of the sky) ruled the universe with Gaia (goddess of the Earth). They were primordial gods: the first gods and goddesses born out of the primordial Chaos. Uranus and Gaia had 12 children. However, their descendants became towering giants, and soon Uranus became afraid of his own children.
He feared that his giant children, the Titans, might dominate him. Uranus could not bear the thought of losing his supreme power, and there began the tyranny that eventually led to the epic battle of Titanomachy. Uranus cast all his children into the dark depths of Tartarus, a torturous dungeon beneath Hades! Gaia was enraged by her husband’s harsh actions towards her children, resulting in a dangerous rift between husband and wife. Gaia was determined to take revenge on her tyrannical husband.
And she certainly did, and with equal malice, aided by a giant sickle. Gaea persuaded her youngest son, Cronus, to castrate his father the next time he had sex with her. The brave Cronus successfully ambushed his father, cut off his genitals and threw them into the sea. Uranus’ blood dripped on the ground where she gave birth to three children: Giants, Erinias and Meliade; and from the sea was born the goddess Aphrodite.
Tyranny continues
Uranus cursed his son and prophesied that Cronus’ own sons would also overthrow him. And so the cycle of fear, greed and tyranny continued. Each male Titan, including Cronus, united with his sister to produce offspring. When Cronus and his wife, Rhea, began to procreate, Cronus’ fear of his father’s prophecy was unleashed, making him paranoid of losing his own power and essentially turning him into his father, a tyrant. He banished his brothers to Tartarus and then ate his own children. However, since the children were immortal, they were not killed.
When Rhea gave birth to her last son, Zeus, she did not want him to suffer the same fate as her other children and managed to save him by trickery. Cronus wanted to eat Zeus too when he was born, but Rhea quickly replaced the child with a stone wrapped in a blanket.
The trick
Cronus fell for the trick and ate the stone he thought was his son. Meanwhile, Rhea hid Zeus in a cave where, it was said, he was raised by a goat, Amalthea. There, Zeus supposedly grew from a child to adulthood in the period of only one year! Zeus later became his father’s cupbearer, unbeknownst to Cronus.
Like Gaea, Rhea would not accept the miserable fate that had been imposed on her children and convinced Zeus to overthrow her father. Zeus and his first wife, Metis, prepared a mixture of mustard and wine for Cronus to drink. The concoction caused Cronus to vomit up the other children of Rhea. Zeus gathered all his siblings and convinced them to start a rebellion against their father. Thus the epic battle was set in motion!
In the first initial clashes of the Titanomachy, Zeus and the younger Olympian gods were defeated by the older gods. Zeus knew he needed reinforcements if he was to win the war. He then released the Cyclopes and Hecatoncimos from Tartarus in exchange for their help in the fight against Cronus. As the battle continued, Hecatonchires hurled giant boulders at the Titans, and the Cyclops forged Zeus’ iconic thunderbolts.
will the fighting ever end?
The battle continued for 10 years, with the gods on Mount Olympus and the Titans on Mount Othrys. The repercussions of the battle could even be felt on Earth, manifesting as numerous earthquakes and other natural disasters. The Olympians finally rose as the victors of the Titanomachracy and imprisoned all the Titans in Tartarus, except for Themis and Prometheus. There they were guarded by Hecatonchires. This battle was put to rest when Zeus divided the world into three parts. He became king of heaven and ruler of mortals and gods; Poseidon, ruler of the sea; and Hades, ruler of the underworld.
The Titanomachy may have come to an end, but peace did not last long in the realm of narcissistic despots. Gaea was irritated by the defeat of her sons, the Titans. She created a vicious monster, Typhon, a fire-breathing giant with 100 dragon heads, to punish Zeus! And so the cycle of self-righteous retribution persisted in the land of the god. The calm that had descended after the Titanomachy was gone, and Rhea once again had to take revenge!
The Greek gods may have ruled over heaven, sea, earth and underworld, but was their tendency to be guided by their fear and egos, as the story of the battle of gods shows, not a weakness? A weakness that made them fallible, a character trait they shared with far lesser creatures they referred to as mere mortals.