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References

To Do

Sources to incorporate?

Hansen, pp. 293–294
Sowa, pp. 145 ff. ( 146, 148)
Frazer, pp. 8–9
Graf, pp. 88–89
Penglase, pp. 2, 185, 240
Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, p. 935
Edmunds, p. 176
Stamatopoulou, p. 7
For others see Google Books search

Sources

Ancient

Modern

Caldwell

p. 9

When Zeus grows up he releases his uncles, the Kyklopes and Hundred-Handed, from their prison within the earth, and joins his brothers and sisters, whom Kronos has been forced to disgorge, to begin the great war between the gods and the Titans.

p. 37

on lines 154–160

All the children of Ouranos share Kronos' attribute of "most terrible," and the reason for this, as well as the reason Kronos hated his father, is now made clear; their father hates them and refuses to allow them to come out of the body of their mother, and he fears that his children will want to follow his example and replace him (In 16). The "dark hole" of Gaia in which the children are confined is presumably her womb, and this innermost place of the earth may also be Tartaros. The means by which Ouranos suppresses his children must be continuous sexual intercourse with Gaia; this would explain why their imprisonment will be ended immediately by castration.

p. 66

on lines 501–506

The "uncles" (501) must be the Kyklopes, who were imprisoned in Tartaros by Ouranos and who will give Zeus the lightning (504-505); the freeing of their brothers the Hundred-Handed, will be reported in 617-626.

p. 65

on line 636

We learn now that the war has already lasted for ten years when Zeus learns from Gaia of the need for the Hundred-Handed.

Gantz

p. 10

Last come three more brothers, the Hundred-Handers, the most monstrous of all with their fifty heads and hundred hands, Kottos, Briareos (or Obriareos), and Gyges (Th 147-53). What follows in Hesiod is not entirely clear—Ouranos hates his children, perhaps just the last six but more likely all eighteen, and as soon as they are born imprisons them deep within earth, that is both underground and in the womb of their mother. The reason for his hatred may be their horrible appearance, though Hesiod does not quite say this (Th 155 comes close to implying it as the reason). In any event, he delights in the deed, and Gaia in her anger and distress fashions a sickle of adamant, after which she asks her children to take revenge on their father. Only Kronos has the courage to volunteer, and is placed by his mother in ambush (inside her body, we will understand, if he too is prisoner) to await Ouranos.

p. 44

In Hesiod, Zeus' first act after recovering the other Olympians is to release the Kyklopes; they remember the favor, and in return give him the thunderbolt, which Gaia had previously hidden (Th 501-6). Subsequently ... we find the same tale related at greater length of the Hunderd-Handers, with the addition that Gaia advised the release so that the Olympians might win victory (Th 617-23).

p. 45

Hesiod's account does not quite say whether the Hundred-Handers were freed before the conflict or only in the tenth year. Either way the gods appeal to these older powers for help, and Kottos promises their assistance.

... Eventually, if not at the beginning, the Hundred-Handers are fighting, but the battle is not turned until Zeus strikes forth from Olympos with his thunderbolt. The heat stuns the Titans, the glare blinds them, and the Hundred-Handers, after pelting them with stones, bind them up and cast them down into Tartaros, as far below earth as heaven is above. There the Hundred-Handers guard them (though Briareos is later married to Poseidon's daughter Kymopoleia: Th 817-19) by the will of Zeus. This Briareos is a more complex figure than one might expect, since in both the Iliad and the Titanomachia he has an alter ego, Aigaion, to whom we will be returining in discussin Zeus' rule (Il 400-406; Tit fr 3 PEG).

Hard

p. 67

Trouble arose within the newly generated family of Ouranos because he hated his offspring and prevented them from coming into the light. Although Hesiod is vague about the cause of his hatred, it would seem that he took a dislike to them because they were terrible to behold, especially the monsters who were born first of all. He hid them deep away inside the earth as each was born, apparently blocking their emergence by engaging in ceaseless intercourse with his consort (although Hesiod is vague on this matter as too); ... The Titans were now able to emerge into the light, and to assume power as the lords of the unierse under the sovereignty of Kronos. It would seem, however, that in Hesiod's version (unlike that of Apollodorus, see below) the Kyklopes and Hundred-Handers remain imprisoned beneath the earth until they were rescued by Zeus.

p. 68

Zeus also released the Kyklopes, who apparently had remained imprisoned beneath the earth since they had been confined there by Ouranos; and they showed their gratitude by arming Zeus with his all-powerful weapon, the thunderbolt.²³

p. 74

According to Hesiod, [Rhea] went to the Cretan town of Lyktos (to the west of Knossos) when she was due to give birth to Zeus, and entrusted him to Gaia to nourish and rear; so Gaia hid him deep inside herself in remote cave on Mt Aigaion (otherwise unknown, but presumably to be identified with one of the various mountains near Lyktos that contain Minoan [cont.]

p. 75

holy caves).⁵⁰ This account is peculiar to the Theogony, for in the subsequent tradition the cave is located either in Mt. Ida in the centre of Crete or, less commonly, on Mt Dicte to the east.⁵¹

Most

p. 15

(154) For all these, who came forth from Earth and Sky as the most terrible of their children,⁸ were hated by their own father from the beginning. And as soon as any of them was born, Sky put them all away out of sight in a hiding place in Earth and did not let them come up into the light, and he rejoiced in his evil deed. But huge Earth groaned within, for she was constricted, and she devised a tricky, evil stratagem. At once she created an offspring, of gray adamant, and she fashioned a big sickle and showed it to her own children.

⁸ The exact reference is unclear, but apparently only the last two sets of three children each, the Cyclopes and the Hundred-Handers, are meant, and not additionally the first set of twelve Titans.

West

1966

p. 19

[Uranus' castration] enables Uranos' children to be born;

...

Kronos now rallies the other Titans to war against the new gods. This war drags on until, on the advice of Gaia, Zeus fetches the three Hunderd-Handers up from the lower world. With their aid the Titans are at last overwhelmed and consigned to Tartarus (617-720.)

p. 206

on lines 139–153

To the Titan children are now appended two further sets of children of Earth and Heaven, the Cyclopes and the Hundred-Handers. There appearance here is hard to reconcile ...

... Zeus releases both the Cyclopes (501) and the Hundred-Handers (617) from bondage, and this is why they assist him. In each place it is mentioned, as if the story had already been told, that they were imprisoned by their father. This can only be understood from the text of the poem if we assume that they were shut up together with the Titans, but that only the Titans were released by the castration of Uranos.

p. 213

on line 155

It was because of the children's fearsome nature that Uranos hated them and tried to surppress them.

p. 214

on line 158

The story must have been that the Titans were kept in Gaia's womb by Uranos' unremitting embrace: that is why she is so distressed (159-60), and why castration solves the problem. But if this is what Hesiod means, it is a shy way of saying it. He seems deliberately to have employed less explicitly personified terms at this point, mindful perhaps that Zeus has to release the Cyclopes and Hundred-Handers from the same confinement, and in their case it must merely be an infernal prison and not the womb of a personified Gaia.

p. 338

on line 618

On the binding of the Hundred-Handers see notes on 139-53 and 158. What Hesiod tells us of the place where they were bound indicates that it was Tartarus, but he avoids saying so outright (620-2, 652-3, 658-60, 669): Tartarus is reserved for Zeus' enemies.

1988

p. 7

For all those that were born of Earth and Heaven were the most fearsome of children, and their own father loathed them from the beginning. As soon as each of them was born, he hid them away in a cavern of Earth, and would not let them come into the light;