User:Paul August/Titans

Titans

To Do

• Look at West, "Hesiod's Titans" [in folder]
• Look at Diodorus Siculus
• Look at Orphic Hymn 37
• Read Bremmer [in folder]
• Look at Caldwell pp. 76 ff.
• Look at Brill
• Find Orph. fr. 114
• Find ancient sources for second generation called Titans, e.g. Prometheus in Aeschylus
• Look at Gantz, pp. 154 ff.
• Titans mentioned in Works and Days?
• Look at Parada, p. 179 s.v. Titans
• Add cite to Gantz, p. 2 to Hundred-Handers and Cyclopes
• Move article to "Titans"
• Look at Hard
• Look at Smith
• Look at The Derveni Papyrus: Cosmology, Theology and Interpretation By Gábor Betegh
• Look at West 1997

Get

• Beekes 2010 Etymological Dictionary of Greek, sv. τιτώ
• West 1997, pp. 281, 283-288

New text

Jane Ellen Harrison asserts that the word "Titan" comes from the Greek τίτανος, signifying white "earth, clay, or gypsum," and that the Titans were "white clay men", or men covered by white clay or gypsum dust in their rituals.

Modern interpretations

Some 19th- and 20th-century scholars, including Jane Ellen Harrison, have argued that an initiatory or shamanic ritual underlies the myth of the dismemberment and cannibalism of Dionysus by the Titans. She also asserts that the word "Titan" comes from the Greek τίτανος, signifying white "earth, clay, or gypsum," and that the Titans were "white clay men", or men covered by white clay or gypsum dust in their rituals. Martin Litchfield West also asserts this in relation to shamanistic initiatory rites of early Greek religious practices.

Orphic literature

An Orphic fragment has Oceanus debating whether or not to join Cronus and his brothers in their assault upon their father Uranus, with Proclus, our source for the fragment, saying that he did not.

Lede

• Add Near east origins, Orphic literature

Former gods

• Add cite to "confined underground in Tartarus" [Orph.] H. 37.2-3? per West 1966, p. 200)

Near East origins

• Add cite to: Connelly, p. 80 [ISBN 9780385350501]?

Etymology

• Woodard, p. 97

While the etymology of Greek Titēnes [Τιτῆνες] 'Titan' is uncertain, ⁴³ [p. 154 43 On Akkadian titu 'clay' as the possible source of Greek Titēnes, see Burkert (2004) 33-4; (1992) 38, 95.] the idea that they were originally in opposition to the "heavenly" Olympians is common; thus, West writes of the Titans:

There can be no certainty that they were ever worshipped ...⁴⁴ [p. 154 44. West ((1966) 201. ...]

• Caldwell, p. 40 on lines 207-210

Hesiod derives the name Titanes from the verb titaino [strian]; there is also a secondary connection with tisis [revenge]. In the late rationalizing account of Diodoros, who interpreted all myths as distorted versions of actual human history, the Titans got their name from their human mother Titaia, later called Gaia.

• Bremmer

References

• Harrison, Jane Ellen, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, second edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1908. Internet Archive

Sources

Ancient

Aeschylus (?)

Prometheus Bound

148

For there are new rulers in heaven [Olympus]

201–223

When first the heavenly powers were moved to wrath, and mutual dissension was stirred up among them—some bent on casting Cronus from his seat so Zeus, in truth, might reign; others, eager for [205] the contrary end, that Zeus might never win mastery over the gods—it was then that I, although advising them for the best, was unable to persuade the Titans, children of Heaven and Earth; but they, disdaining counsels of craft, in the pride of their strength [210] thought to gain the mastery without a struggle and by force. Often my mother Themis, or Earth （though one form, she had many names）, had foretold to me the way in which the future was fated to come to pass. That it was not by brute strength nor through violence, [215] but by guile that those who should gain the upper hand were destined to prevail. And though I argued all this to them, they did not pay any attention to my words. With all that before me, it seemed best that, joining with my mother, I should place myself, [220] a welcome volunteer, on the side of Zeus; and it is by reason of my counsel that the cavernous gloom of Tartarus now hides ancient Cronus and his allies within it.

286–289

Enter Oceanus on a winged steed

Oceanus

I have come to the end of a long journey in my passage to you, Prometheus, guiding by my own will, without a bridle, this swift-winged bird.

Apollodorus

1.1.1

Sky was the first who ruled over the whole world. And having wedded Earth, he begat first the Hundred-handed, as they are named: Briareus, Gyes, Cottus, who were unsurpassed in size and might, each of them having a hundred hands and fifty heads.

1.1.2

After these, Earth bore him the Cyclopes, to wit, Arges, Steropes, Brontes, of whom each had one eye on his forehead. But them Sky bound and cast into Tartarus, a gloomy place in Hades as far distant from earth as earth is distant from the sky.

1.1.3

And again he begat children by Earth, to wit, the Titans as they are named: Ocean, Coeus, Hyperion, Crius, Iapetus, and, youngest of all, Cronus; also daughters, the Titanides as they are called: Tethys, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Dione, Thia.¹

¹ Compare Hes. Th. 132ff. who agrees in describing Cronus as the youngest of the brood. As Zeus, who succeeded his father Cronus on the heavenly throne, was likewise the youngest of his family （Hes. Th. 453ff.）, we may conjecture that among the ancient Greeks or their ancestors inheritance was at one time regulated by the custom of ultimogeniture or the succession of the youngest, as to which see Folk-Lore in the Old Testament, i.429ff. In the secluded highlands of Arcadia, where ancient customs and traditions lingered long, King Lycaon is said to have been succeeded by his youngest son. See Apollod. 3.8.1.

1.1.4

But Earth, grieved at the destruction of her children, who had been cast into Tartarus, persuaded the Titans to attack their father and gave Cronus an adamantine sickle. And they, all but Ocean, attacked him, and Cronus cut off his father's genitals and threw them into the sea; and from the drops of the flowing blood were born Furies, to wit, Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megaera.¹ And, having dethroned their father, they brought up their brethren who had been hurled down to Tartarus, and committed the sovereignty to Cronus.

¹ Compare Hes. Th. 156-190. Here Apollodorus follows Hesiod, according to whom the Furies sprang, not from the genitals of Sky which were thrown into the sea, but from the drops of his blood which fell on Earth and impregnated her. The sickle with which Cronus did the deed is said to have been flung by him into the sea at Cape Drepanum in Achaia （Paus. 7.23.4）. The barbarous story of the mutilation of the divine father by his divine son shocked the moral sense of later ages. See Plat. Rep. 2, 377e-378a; Plat. Euthyph. 5e-6a; Cicero, De natura deorum ii.24.63ff. Andrew Lang interpreted the story with some probability as one of a worldwide class of myths intended to explain the separation of Earth and Sky. See Andrew Lang, Custom and Myth （London, 1884）, pp. 45ff., and as to myths of the forcible separation of Sky and Earth, see E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, i.322ff.

1.1.5

But he again bound and shut them up in Tartarus, and wedded his sister Rhea; and since both Earth and Sky foretold him that he would be dethroned by his own son, he used to swallow his offspring at birth. His firstborn Hestia he swallowed, then Demeter and Hera, and after them Pluto and Poseidon.¹

¹Compare Hes. Th. 453-467ff.

1.1.6

Enraged at this, Rhea repaired to Crete, when she was big with Zeus, and brought him forth in a cave of Dicte. She gave him to the Curetes and to the nymphs Adrastia and Ida, daughters of Melisseus, to nurse.

1.1.7

So these nymphs fed the child on the milk of Amalthea; and the Curetes in arms guarded the babe in the cave, clashing their spears on their shields in order that Cronus might not hear the child's voice. But Rhea wrapped a stone in swaddling clothes and gave it to Cronus to swallow, as if it were the newborn child.

1.2.1

But when Zeus was full-grown, he took Metis, daughter of Ocean, to help him, and she gave Cronus a drug to swallow, which forced him to disgorge first the stone and then the children whom he had swallowed, and with their aid Zeus waged the war against Cronus and the Titans.² They fought for ten years, and Earth prophesied victory3 to Zeus if he should have as allies those who had been hurled down to Tartarus. So he slew their jailoress Campe, and loosed their bonds. And the Cyclopes then gave Zeus thunder and lightning and a thunderbolt, and on Pluto they bestowed a helmet and on Poseidon a trident. Armed with these weapons the gods overcame the Titans, shut them up in Tartarus, and appointed the Hundred-handers their guards; but they themselves cast lots for the sovereignty, and to Zeus was allotted the dominion of the sky, to Poseidon the dominion of the sea, and to Pluto the dominion in Hades.

² As to the war of Zeus on the Titans, see Hes. Th. 617ff.; Hor. Carm. 3.4.42ff.; Hyginus, Fab. 118.

1.2.2

Now to the Titans were born offspring: to Ocean and Tethys were born Oceanids, to wit, Asia, Styx, Electra, Doris, Eurynome, Amphitrite, and Metis;1 to Coeus and Phoebe were born Asteria and Latona;2 to Hyperion and Thia were born Dawn, Sun, and Moon;3 to Crius and Eurybia, daughter of Sea （ Pontus）, were born Astraeus, Pallas, and Perses;4

1.2.3

to Iapetus and Asia was born Atlas, who has the sky on his shoulders, and Prometheus, and Epimetheus, and Menoetius, he whom Zeus in the battle with the Titans smote with a thunderbolt and hurled down to Tartarus.

1.2.4

And to Cronus and Philyra was born Chiron, a centaur of double form;1 and to Dawn and Astraeus were born winds and stars;2 to Perses and Asteria was born Hecate;3 and to Pallas and Styx were born Victory, Dominion, Emulation, and Violence.4

1.3.1

by Dione [Zeus] had Aphrodite;³

³ As to Dione, mother of Aphrodite, see Hom. Il. 5.370ff.; Eur. Hel. 1098; Hyginus, Fab. p. 30, ed. Bunte. Hesiod represents Aphrodite as born of the sea-foam which gathered round the severed genitals of Sky （Uranus）. See Hes. Th. 188ff.

Apollonius Rhodius

Argonautica

1.503–508

He sang of how, in the beginning, Ophion and Ocean’s daughter Eurynome held sway over snowy Olympus, and of how, through force of hand, he ceded rule to Cronus and she to Rhea, and they fell into the waves of the Ocean. These two in the meantime ruled over the blessed Titan gods,

2.1232–1233

It was there that Uranus’ son Cronus—when he ruled over the Titans on Olympus

Bacchylides

fr. 42

fr. 42 Schol. Pind. Ol. 1. 40a (i 30 Drachmann)

fr. 42 Scholiast on Pindar, Ol. 1. 26 (‘when Clotho took Pelops from the pure cauldron’)

Bacchylides says that it was Rhea who restored Pelops,¹ by lowering him (again?) into the cauldron.

Diodorus Siculus

3.57

1 To Uranus, the myth continues, were born forty-five sons from a number of wives, and, of these, eighteen, it is said, were by Titaea, each of them bearing a distinct name, but all of them as a group were called, after their mother, Titans. 2 Titaea, because she was prudent and had brought about many good deeds for the peoples, was deified after her death by those whom she had helped and her name was changed to Gê. To Uranus were also born daughters, the two eldest of whom were by far the most renowned above all the others and were called Basileia and Rhea, whom some also named Pandora. 3 Of these daughters Basileia, who was the eldest and far excelled the others in both prudence and understanding, reared all her brothers, showing them collectively a mother's kindness; consequently she was [p267] given the appellation of "Great Mother"; and after her father had been translated from among men into the circle of the gods, with the approval of the masses and of her brothers she succeeded to the royal dignity, though she was still a maiden and because of her exceedingly great chastity had been unwilling to unite in marriage with any man. But later, because of her desire to leave sons who should succeed to the throne, she united in marriage with Hyperion, one of her brothers, for whom she had the greatest affection. 4 And when there were born to her two children, Helius and Selenê,²¹ who were greatly admired for both their beauty and their chastity, the brothers of Basileia, they say, being envious of her because of her happy issue of children and fearing that Hyperion would divert the royal power to himself, committed an utterly impious deed; 5 for entering into a conspiracy among themselves they put Hyperion to the sword, and casting Helius, who was still in years a child, into the Eridanus²² river, drowned him. When this crime came to light, Selenê, who loved her brother very greatly, threw herself down from the roof, but as for his mother, while seeking his body along the river, her strength left her and falling into a swoon she beheld a vision in which she thought that Helius stood over her and urged her not to mourn the death of her children; for, he said, the Titans would meet the punishment which they deserve, while he and his sister would be transformed, by some divine providence, into immortal natures, since that which had formerly been called the "holy fire" in the heavens would be called by men Helius ("the sun") and that [p269] addressed as "menê" would be called Selenê ("the moon"). 6 When she was aroused from the swoon she recounted to the common crowd both the dream and the misfortunes which had befallen her, asking that they render to the dead honours like those accorded to the gods and asserting that no man should thereafter touch her body. 7 And after this she became frenzied, and seizing such of her daughter's playthings as could make a noise, she began to wander over the land, with her hair hanging free, inspired by the noise of the kettledrums and cymbals, so that those who saw her were struck with astonishment. 8 And all men were filled with pity at her misfortune and some were clinging to her body,²³ when there came a mighty storm and continuous crashes of thunder and lightning; and in the midst of this Basileia passed from sight, whereupon the crowds of people, amazed at this reversal of fortune, transferred the names and the honours of Helius and Selenê to the stars of the sky, and as for their mother, they considered her to be a goddess and erected altars to her, and imitating the incidents of her life by the pounding of the kettledrums and the clash of the cymbals they rendered unto her in this way sacrifices and all other honours.

Caldwell, p. 40 on lines 207-210

In the late rationalizing account of Diodoros, who interpreted all myths as distorted versions of actual human history, the Titans got their name from their human mother Titaia, later called Gaia. Diodoros' strange version goes on to say the eldest daughters of Ouranos and Titaia were Basileia and Rhea (or Pandora). Basileia succeeded to the throne after her father's death and married her brother Hyperion, by whom she had two children Helios and Selene. But her brothers, the Titans, murdered Hyperion and drowned Helios, at which Selene jumped to her death from a roof top. Helios then appeared to Basileia in a vision and told her the Titans would be punished and that he and his sister would give their names to the sun and moon (formerly called "holy fire" and "mene"). Basileia then vanished from mortal sight and was honored as the Great Mother, and all the Titans were killed in a battle with Dionysos and his followers.

5.66 [= Epimenides fr. 4 (see Fowler 2013, p. 8)]

1 The myth the Cretans relate runs like this: When the Curetes were young men, the Titans, as they are called, were still living. These Titans had [p275] their dwelling in the land about Cnosus, at the place where even to this day men point out foundations of a house of Rhea²⁵ and a cypress grove, which has been consecrated to her from ancient times. 2 The Titans numbered six men and five women, being born, as certain writers of myths relate, of Uranus and Gê, but according to others, of one of the Curetes and Titaea, from whom as their mother they derive the name they have. 3 The males were Cronus, Hyperion, Coeus, Iapetus, Crius, and Oceanus, and their sisters were Rhea, Themis, Mnemosynê, Phoebê, and Tethys. Each one of them was the discoverer of things of benefit to mankind, and because of the benefaction they conferred upon all men they were accorded honours and everlasting fame.

4 Cronus, since he was the eldest of the Titans, became king and caused all men who were his subjects to change from a rude way of living to a civilized life, and visited many regions of the inhabited earth. Among all he met he introduced justice and sincerity of soul, and this is why the tradition has come down to later generations that the men of Cronus' time were good-hearted, altogether guileless, and blest with felicity. 5 His kingdom was strongest in the western regions, where indeed he enjoyed his greatest honour; consequently, down even to comparatively recent times, among the Romans and the Carthaginians, while their city still stood, and other neighbouring peoples, notable festivals and sacrifices were celebrated in honour of this god and many places bore [p277] his name.²⁶ 6 And because of the exceptional obedience to laws no injustice was committed by any one at any time and all the subjects of the rule of Cronus lived a life of blessedness, in the unhindered enjoyment of every pleasure. To this the poet Hesiod also bears witness in the following words:²⁷

And they who were of Cronus' day, what time

He reigned in heav'n, lived like the gods, no care

In heart, remote and free from ills and toils

Severe, from grievous sicknesses and cares;

Old age lay not upon their limbs, but they,

Equal in strength of leg and arm, enjoyed

Endless delight of feasting far from ills,

And when death came, they sank in it as in

A sleep. And many other things were theirs:

Grain-giving earth, unploughed, bore for them fruit

Abundantly and without stint; and glad

Of heart they dwelt upon their tilth throughout

The earth, in midst of blessings manifold,

Rich in their flocks, loved by the blessed gods.

This, then, is what the myths have to say about Cronus.

²⁵ This "House of Rhea" has been found, in the opinion of Sir Arthur Evans (Palace of Minos, 2.6 ff.), in the remains of an Hellenic temple lying within the palace area.

²⁶ The Saturnalia of the Romans is well known; Diodorus elsewhere (13.86; 20.14) mentions the ancient practice of the Carthaginians of sacrificing children to Cronus.

²⁷ Works and Days, 111‑120; but Diodorus' Greek differs radically in several places from the present text of Hesiod.

Epimenides

fr. 4 [= Diodorus Siculus 5.66 (see Fowler 2013 p. 8)]

fr. 6ab

• Fowler 2013 pp. 7–8

Hesiod

Theogony

133–138

But afterwards she lay with Heaven and bore deep-swirling Oceanus, Coeus and Crius and Hyperion and Iapetus, [135] Theia and Rhea, Themis and Mnemosyne and gold-crowned Phoebe and lovely Tethys. After them was born Cronos the wily, youngest and most terrible of her children, and he hated his lusty sire.

139–172

And again, she bore the Cyclopes, overbearing in spirit, [140] Brontes, and Steropes and stubborn-hearted Arges,1who gave Zeus the thunder and made the thunderbolt: in all else they were like the gods, [145] but one eye only was set in the midst of their foreheads. And they were surnamed Cyclopes （Orb-eyed） because one orbed eye was set in their foreheads. Strength and might and craft were in their works. And again, three other sons were born of Earth and Heaven, great and doughty beyond telling, Cottus and Briareos and Gyes, presumptuous children. [150] From their shoulders sprang a hundred arms, not to be approached, and fifty heads grew from the shoulders upon the strong limbs of each, and irresistible was the stubborn strength that was in their great forms. For of all the children that were born of Earth and Heaven, [155] these were the most terrible, and they were hated by their own father from the first. And he used to hide them all away in a secret place of Earth so soon as each was born, and would not suffer them to come up into the light: and Heaven rejoiced in his evil doing. But vast Earth [160] groaned within, being straitened, and she thought a crafty and an evil wile. Forthwith she made the element of grey flint and shaped a great sickle, and told her plan to her dear sons. And she spoke, cheering them, while she was vexed in her dear heart: [165] “My children, gotten of a sinful father, if you will obey me, we should punish the vile outrage of your father; for he first thought of doing shameful things.” So she said; but fear seized them all, and none of them uttered a word. But great Cronos the wily took courage and answered his dear mother: [170] “Mother, I will undertake to do this deed, for I reverence not our father of evil name, for he first thought of doing shameful things.”

173–181

So he said: and vast Earth rejoiced greatly in spirit, and set and hid him in an ambush, and put in his hands [175] a jagged sickle, and revealed to him the whole plot. And Heaven came, bringing on night and longing for love, and he lay about Earth spreading himself full upon her.1Then the son from his ambush stretched forth his left hand and in his right took the great long sickle [180] with jagged teeth, and swiftly lopped off his own father's members and cast them away to fall behind him.

207–210

But these sons whom he begot himself great Heaven used to call Titans （Strainers） in reproach, for he said that they strained and did presumptuously [210] a fearful deed, and that vengeance for it would come afterwards.

337–370.

And Tethys bore to Ocean eddying rivers, Nilus, and Alpheus, and deep-swirling Eridanus, Strymon, and Meander, and the fair stream of Ister, [340] and Phasis, and Rhesus, and the silver eddies of Achelous, Nessus, and Rhodius, Haliacmon, and Heptaporus, Granicus, and Aesepus, and holy Simois, and Peneus, and Hermus, and Caicus' fair stream, and great Sangarius, Ladon, Parthenius, [345] Euenus, Ardescus, and divine Scamander. Also she brought forth a holy company of daughters1who with the lord Apollo and the Rivers have youths in their keeping—to this charge Zeus appointed them—Peitho, and Admete, and Ianthe, and Electra, [350] and Doris, and Prymno, and Urania divine in form, Hippo, Clymene, Rhodea, and Callirrhoe, Zeuxo and Clytie, and Idyia, and Pasithoe, Plexaura, and Galaxaura, and lovely Dione, Melobosis and Thoe and handsome Polydora, [355] Cerceis lovely of form, and soft eyed Pluto, Perseis, Ianeira, Acaste, Xanthe, Petraea the fair, Menestho, and Europa, Metis, and Eurynome, and Telesto saffron-clad, Chryseis and Asia and charming Calypso, [360] Eudora, and Tyche, Amphirho, and Ocyrrhoe, and Styx who is the chiefest of them all. These are the eldest daughters that sprang from Ocean and Tethys; but there are many besides. For there are three thousand neat-ankled daughters of Ocean who are dispersed far and wide, [365] and in every place alike serve the earth and the deep waters, children who are glorious among goddesses. And as many other rivers are there, babbling as they flow, sons of Ocean, whom queenly Tethys bare, but their names it is hard for a mortal man to tell, [370] but people know those by which they severally dwell.

371–385

And Theia was subject in love to Hyperion and bore great Helius （Sun） and clear Selene （Moon） and Eos （Dawn） who shines upon all that are on earth and upon the deathless Gods who live in the wide heaven. [375] And Eurybia, bright goddess, was joined in love to Crius and bore great Astraeus, and Pallas, and Perses who also was eminent among all men in wisdom. And Eos bore to Astraeus the strong-hearted winds, brightening Zephyrus, and Boreas, headlong in his course, [380] and Notus,—a goddess mating in love with a god. And after these Erigeneia1 bare the star Eosphorus （Dawn-bringer）, and the gleaming stars with which heaven is crowned. And Styx the daughter of Ocean was joined to Pallas and bore Zelus （Emulation） and trim-ankled Nike （Victory） in the house. Also she brought forth [385] Cratos （Strength） and Bia （Force）, wonderful children.

389–396

For so did Styx the deathless daughter of Ocean plan [390] on that day when the Olympian Lightning god called all the deathless gods to great Olympus, and said that whosoever of the gods would fight with him against the Titans, he would not cast him out from his rights, but each should have the office which he had before amongst the deathless gods. [395] And he declared that he who was without office or right under Cronos, should be raised to both office and rights as is just.

404–409

Again, Phoebe came to the desired embrace of Coeus. [405] Then the goddess through the love of the god conceived and brought forth dark-gowned Leto, always mild, kind to men and to the deathless gods, mild from the beginning, gentlest in all Olympus. Also she bore Asteria of happy name,

424

προτέροισι θεοῖσιν

486

θεῶν προτέρῳ

507–520

Now Iapetus took to wife the neat-ankled maid Clymene, daughter of Ocean, and went up with her into one bed. And she bore him a stout-hearted son, Atlas: [510] also she bore very glorious Menoetius and clever Prometheus, full of various wiles, and scatter-brained Epimetheus who from the first was a mischief to men who eat bread; for it was he who first took of Zeus the woman, the maiden whom he had formed. But Menoetius was outrageous, and farseeing Zeus [515] struck him with a lurid thunderbolt and sent him down to Erebus because of his mad presumption and exceeding pride. And Atlas through hard constraint upholds the wide heaven with unwearying head and arms, standing at the borders of the earth before the clear-voiced Hesperides; [520] for this lot wise Zeus assigned to him.

521–534

And ready-witted Prometheus he bound with inextricable bonds, cruel chains, and drove a shaft through his middle, and set on him a long-winged eagle, which used to eat his immortal liver; but by night the liver grew [525] as much again everyway as the long-winged bird devoured in the whole day. That bird Heracles, the valiant son of shapely-ankled Alcmene, slew; and delivered the son of Iapetus from the cruel plague, and released him from his affliction—not without the will of Olympian Zeus who reigns on high, [530] that the glory of Heracles the Theban-born might be yet greater than it was before over the plenteous earth. This, then, he regarded, and honored his famous son; though he was angry, he ceased from the wrath which he had before because Prometheus matched himself in wit with the almighty son of Cronos.

535–544

For when the gods and mortal men had a dispute at Mecone, even then Prometheus was forward to cut up a great ox and set portions before them, trying to deceive the mind of Zeus. Before the rest he set flesh and inner parts thick with fat upon the hide, covering them with an ox paunch; [540] but for Zeus he put the white bones dressed up with cunning art and covered with shining fat. Then the father of men and of gods said to him: “Son of Iapetus, most glorious of all lords, good sir, how unfairly you have divided the portions!”

617–653

But when first their father was vexed in his heart with Obriareus and Cottus and Gyes, he bound them in cruel bonds, because he was jealous of their exceeding manhood and comeliness [620] and great size: and he made them live beneath the wide-pathed earth, where they were afflicted, being set to dwell under the ground, at the end of the earth, at its great borders, in bitter anguish for a long time and with great grief at heart. But the son of Cronos and the other deathless gods [625] whom rich-haired Rhea bore from union with Cronos, brought them up again to the light at Earth's advising. For she herself recounted all things to the gods fully, how with these they might gain victory and a glorious cause to vaunt themselves. [630] For the Titan gods and as many as sprang from Cronos had long been fighting together in stubborn war with heart-grieving toil, the lordly Titans from high Othrys, but the gods, givers of good, whom rich-haired Rhea bore in union with Cronos, from Olympus. [635] So they, with bitter wrath, were fighting continually with one another at that time for ten full years, and the hard strife had no close or end for either side, and the issue of the war hung evenly balanced. But when he had provided those three with all things fitting, [640] nectar and ambrosia which the gods themselves eat, and when their proud spirit revived within them all after they had fed on nectar and delicious ambrosia, then it was that the father of men and gods spoke amongst them: “Hear me, bright children of Earth and Heaven, [645] that I may say what my heart within me bids. A long while now have we, who are sprung from Cronos and the Titan gods, fought with each other every day to get victory and to prevail. But show your great might and unconquerable strength, and [650] face the Titans in bitter strife; for remember our friendly kindness, and from what sufferings you are come back to the light from your cruel bondage under misty gloom through our counsels.”

654–686

So he said. And blameless Cottus answered him again: “ [655] Divine one, you speak that which we know well: no, even of ourselves we know that your wisdom and understanding is exceeding, and that you became a defender of the deathless ones from chill doom. And through your devising we have come back again from the murky gloom and from our merciless bonds, [660] enjoying what we looked not for, O lord, son of Cronos. And so now with fixed purpose and deliberate counsel we will aid your power in dreadful strife and will fight against the Titans in hard battle.” So he said: and the gods, givers of good things, applauded when [665] they heard his word, and their spirit longed for war even more than before, and they all, both male and female, stirred up hated battle that day, the Titan gods, and all that were born of Cronos together with those dread, mighty ones of overwhelming strength [670] whom Zeus brought up to the light from Erebus beneath the earth. A hundred arms sprang from the shoulders of all alike, and each had fifty heads growing from his shoulders upon stout limbs. These, then, stood against the Titans in grim strife, [675] holding huge rocks in their strong hands. And on the other part the Titans eagerly strengthened their ranks, and both sides at one time showed the work of their hands and their might. The boundless sea rang terribly around, and the earth crashed loudly: wide Heaven was shaken and [680] groaned, and high Olympus reeled from its foundation under the charge of the undying gods, and a heavy quaking reached dim Tartarus and the deep sound of their feet in the fearful onset and of their hard missiles. So, then, they launched their grievous shafts upon one another, [685] and the cry of both armies as they shouted reached to starry heaven; and they met together with a great battle-cry.

687–728

Then Zeus no longer held back his might; but straight his heart was filled with fury and he showed forth all his strength. From Heaven and from Olympus [690] he came immediately, hurling his lightning: the bolts flew thick and fast from his strong hand together with thunder and lightning, whirling an awesome flame. The life-giving earth crashed around in burning, and the vast wood crackled loud with fire all about. [695] All the land seethed, and Ocean's streams and the unfruitful sea. The hot vapor lapped round the earthborn Titans: flame unspeakable rose to the bright upper air: the flashing glare of the thunderstone and lightning blinded their eyes for all that they were strong. [700] Astounding heat seized Chaos: and to see with eyes and to hear the sound with ears it seemed even as if Earth and wide Heaven above came together; for such a mighty crash would have arisen if Earth were being hurled to ruin, and Heaven from on high were hurling her down; [705] so great a crash was there while the gods were meeting together in strife. Also the winds brought rumbling earthquake and duststorm, thunder and lightning and the lurid thunderbolt, which are the shafts of great Zeus, and carried the clangor and the warcry into the midst of the two hosts. A horrible uproar [710] of terrible strife arose: mighty deeds were shown and the battle inclined. But until then, they kept at one another and fought continually in cruel war. And amongst the foremost Cottus and Briareos and Gyes insatiate for war [715] raised fierce fighting: three hundred rocks, one upon another, they launched from their strong hands and overshadowed the Titans with their missiles, and hurled them beneath the wide-pathed earth, and bound them in bitter chains when they had conquered them by their strength for all their great spirit, [720] as far beneath the earth as heaven is above earth; for so far is it from earth to Tartarus. For a brazen anvil falling down from heaven nine nights and days would reach the earth upon the tenth: and again, a brazen anvil falling from earth nine nights and days [725] would reach Tartarus upon the tenth. Round it runs a fence of bronze, and night spreads in triple line all about it like a neck-circlet, while above grow the roots of the earth and unfruitful sea.

729–735

There by the counsel of Zeus who drives the clouds the Titan gods [730] are hidden under misty gloom, in a dank place where are the ends of the huge earth. And they may not go out; for Poseidon fixed gates of bronze upon it, and a wall runs all round it on every side. There Gyes and Cottus and great-souled Obriareus [735] live, trusty warders of Zeus who holds the aegis.

729–734 (Most)

That is where the Titan gods are hidden under murky gloom by the plans of the cloud-gatherer Zeus, in a dank place, at the farthest part of huge earth. They cannot get out, for Poseidon has set bronze gates upon it, and a wall is extended on both sides.

807–814

And there, all in their order, are the sources and ends of the dark earth and misty Tartarus and the unfruitful sea and starry heaven, [810] loathsome and dank, which even the gods abhor. And there are shining gates and an immovable threshold of bronze having unending roots, and it is grown of itself.1And beyond, away from all the gods, live the Titans, beyond gloomy Chaos.

901–906

Next [Zeus] married bright Themis who bore the Horae (Hours), and Eunomia (Order), Dikë (Justice), and blooming Eirene (Peace), who mind the works of mortal men, and the Moerae (Fates) to whom wise Zeus gave the greatest honor, [905] Clotho, and Lachesis, and Atropos who give mortal men evil and good to have.

915–920

And again, he loved Mnemosyne with the beautiful hair: and of her the nine gold-crowned Muses were born who delight in feasts and the pleasures of song. And Leto was joined in love with Zeus who holds the aegis, [920] and bore Apollo and Artemis delighting in arrows, children lovely above all the sons of Heaven.

Works and Days

110–111

the deathless gods who dwell on Olympus made a golden race of mortal men who lived in the time of Cronos when he was reigning in heaven.

Homer

Iliad

3.374

Aphrodite, daughter of Zeus,

5.370

[370] but fair Aphrodite flung herself upon the knees of her mother Dione.

5.445–448

Aeneas then did Apollo set apart from the throng in sacred Pergamus where was his temple builded. There Leto and the archer Artemis healed him in the great sanctuary, and glorified him;

8.478–481

But of thee I reck not in thine anger, no, not though thou shouldst go to the nethermost bounds of earth and sea, where abide Iapetus and Cronos, [480] and have joy neither in the rays of Helios Hyperion nor in any breeze, but deep Tartarus is round about them.

14.200–210

For I am faring to visit the limits of the all-nurturing earth, and Oceanus, from whom the gods are sprung, and mother Tethys, even them that lovingly nursed and cherished me in their halls, when they had taken me from Rhea, what time Zeus, whose voice is borne afar, thrust Cronos down to dwell beneath earth and the unresting sea. [205] Them am I faring to visit, and will loose for them their endless strife, since now for a long time's space they hold aloof one from the other from the marriage-bed and from love, for that wrath hath come upon their hearts. If by words I might but persuade the hearts of these twain, and bring them back to be joined together in love, [210] ever should I be called dear by them and worthy of reverence.”

14.245–246

the river Oceanus, from whom they all are sprung;

14.270–279

[270] So spake she, and Sleep waxed glad, and made answer saying: “Come now, swear to me by the inviolable water of Styx, and with one hand lay thou hold of the bounteous earth, and with the other of the shimmering sea, that one and all they may be witnesses betwixt us twain, even the gods that are below with Cronos, [275] that verily thou wilt give me one of the youthful Graces, even Pasithea, that myself I long for all my days.” So spake he, and the goddess, white-armed Hera, failed not to hearken, but sware as he bade, and invoked by name all the gods below Tartarus, that are called Titans. [280]

15.225

even the gods that are in the world below with Cronos.

20.40

[40] and Leto and Xanthus and laughter-loving Aphrodite [go to the aid of the Trojans].

20.72

against Leto stood forth the strong helper, Hermes,

21.497–501

But unto Leto spake the messenger Argeiphontes [Hermes]: “Leto, it is not I that will anywise fight with thee; a hard thing were it to bandy blows with the wives of Zeus, the cloud-gatherer; [500] nay, with a right ready heart boast thou among the immortal gods that thou didst vanquish me with thy great might.”

21.502–504

So spake he, and Leto gathered up the curved bow and the arrows that had fallen hither and thither amid the whirl of dust. She then, when she had taken her daughter's bow and arrows, went back; [505]

Odyssey

576–581

“And I saw Tityos, son of glorious Gaea, lying on the ground. Over nine roods1 he stretched, and two vultures sat, one on either side, and tore his liver, plunging their beaks into his bowels, nor could he beat them off with his hands. [580] For he had offered violence to Leto, the glorious wife of Zeus, as she went toward Pytho through Panopeus with its lovely lawns.

Homeric Hymn to Apollo (3)

91–93

But Leto was racked nine days and nine nights with pangs beyond wont. [95] And there were with her all the chiefest of the goddesses, Dione and Rhea

305–310

[305] She it was who once received from gold-throned Hera and brought up fell, cruel Typhaon to be a plague to men. Once on a time Hera bare [Typhon] because she was angry with father Zeus, when the Son of Cronos bare all-glorious Athena in his head. Thereupon queenly Hera was angry [310] and spoke thus among the assembled gods:

334–339

When she had so spoken, she went apart from the gods, being very angry. Then straightway large-eyed queenly Hera prayed, striking the ground flatwise with her hand, and speaking thus:

“Hear now, I pray, Earth and wide Heaven above and you Titan gods who dwell beneath the earth about great Tartarus, and from whom are sprung both gods and men! Harken you now to me, one and all, and grant that I may bear a child apart from Zeus, no wit lesser than him in strength —nay, let him be as much stronger than Zeus as all-seeing Zeus than Cronos.”

Homeric Hymn to Demeter (2)

441–444

And all-seeing Zeus sent a messenger to them, rich-haired Rhea, to bring dark-cloaked Demeter to join the families of the gods

Hyginus

Fabulae

Theogony 3

From Ether and Earth came ... Ocean, Themis, Tartarus, and Pontus; and the Titans, Briareus [two of the Hundred-Handers], Gyges, Steropes [one of the Cyclopes], Atlas, Hyperion and Polus [Coeus], Saturn [Cronus], Ops [Rhea], Moneta [Mnemosyne], Dione, and the three Furies (Alecto, Megaera, Tisiphone)."

150

The Titanomachy When Juno saw that Epaphus, Jupiter's son by his mistress, had gained such great power, she took great pains to ensure Epaphus would be killed on a hunt. she also urged the Titans to remove Jupiter from his kingship and restore Saturn to the throne, but when they tried to climb into heaven, Jupiter along with Minerva, Apollo, and Diana cast them headlong into Tartarus. Jupiter made Atlas, who was their leader, place the whole vault of the sky on his shoulders. He, they say, holds up they sky to this very day.

155

Jupiter's Children Liber by Prosepina; the Titans ripped him apart.

Pausanias

7.18.4

The stories told of Dionysus by the people of Patrae, that he was reared in Mesatis and incurred there all sob of perils through the plots of the Titans, I will not contradict, but will leave it to the people of Patrae to explain the name Mesatis as they choose.

8.37.5

By the image of the Mistress stands Anytus, represented as a man in armour. Those about the sanctuary say that the Mistress was brought up by Anytus, who was one of the Titans, as they are called. The first to introduce Titans into poetry was Homer,1 representing them as gods down in what is called Tartarus; the lines are in the passage about Hera's oath. From Homer the name of the Titans was taken by Onomacritus, who in the orgies he composed for Dionysus made the Titans the authors of the god's sufferings.

Pindar

Olympian

2.69–77

Those who have persevered three times, on either side, to keep their souls free from all wrongdoing, [70] follow Zeus' road to the end, to the tower of Cronus, where ocean breezes blow around the island of the blessed, and flowers of gold are blazing, some from splendid trees on land, while water nurtures others. With these wreaths and garlands of flowers they entwine their hands [75] according to the righteous counsels of Rhadamanthys, whom the great father, the husband of Rhea whose throne is above all others, keeps close beside him as his partner.

Pythian

4.289–291

And truly he, like Atlas, [290] now strains against the weight of the sky, far from his ancestral land and his possessions. But immortal Zeus freed the Titans;

Plato

Timaeus

40e

It is, as I say, impossible to disbelieve the children of gods, even though their statements lack either probable or necessary demonstration; and inasmuch as they profess to speak of family matters, we must follow custom and believe them. Therefore let the generation of these gods be stated by us, following their account, in this wise: Of Ge and Uranus were born the children Oceanus and Tethys; and of these, Phorkys, Cronos, Rhea, and all that go with them;

Proclus

Commentary on Plato's "Timaeus"

= Orphic fr. 135 Kern

• West 1983, p. 130

Oceanus then tarried in his abode,

...

• Gantz, p, 12

One other point of interest comes to us from Proklos' comments on the Timaios: he cites seven lines of a hexameter poem, probably of Orphic origin, in which Okeanos ponders whether to join Kronos and his other brothers in the attack on his father, as their mother desires, or to remain safely at home (fr. 135 Kern). As the fragment breaks off we leave Okeanos in his halls, brooding and angry with his mother and especially his brothers; Proklos tells us that he did not in fact join them.

Scholia on the Iliad

15[?].229 [see Grimal, p. 513]

Modern

Archi

[In folder]

p. 114

Emil Forrer, in his well-known study on "The Kingship in Heaven" myth, pointed out that "the former, primeval gods" who apprear in the proem occur also in lists of the gods called as witnesses in political treaties, where they constitute a well-defined group¹. ...

As Emmanual Laroche³ states in another important paper, these "former primeval gods", karuileš šiuneš, ... are also called "inferior gods", kattereš šiuneš, which means "gods of the earth", taknaš šiuneš, ... the expression kattereš šiuneš translates the [cont.]

p. 115

Hurrian ... "inferior gods", who live in the Underworld and who belong to the first generation of gods. The Hurrians (and the Hittites), acquainted with the Akkadian deities, equated them with the ^DA-NUN-NA-KE_4.

Burkert 1985

p. 122

[In the Theogony] The gods are arranged in four generations; the second generation comes to power through a hideous deed, the casteration of the Sky by Kronos, while the third generation under the leadership of Zeus is victorious in a great battle against the Titans and establishes a lasting dominion and just order ... For both [cont.]

p. 123

central myths, the succession myth and the battle myth [against Typhon], there are detailed Hittite parallels;³¹ hence these myths must be regarded as borrowings from Asia Minor. ...

p. 127

That Kronos swallowed his children is modelled on the Near Eastern succession myth.

p. 200

... there are also chthonic gods. ... In one place the Iliad names the Titans ...¹³ [p. 428 n. 13: Il. 14.274-9]

p. 221

the race of Titans lies eternally imprisoned in Tartaros,

Burkert 1995

[Compare with Burkert 2004]

p. 94

More specific is the question of the Titans. ... Since the Kumarbi discovery it has been well known that the concept of ancient, fallen gods connects Greek mythology with the Hittites, the Phoenicians, and the Babylonians. ... In Greek tradition the concept of the Titans as a collective group is not easily reconciled with the very special personality of Kronos; on the other side we find, besides Kumarbi the hero of the Hurrian-Hittite myth of succession, apparently other "ancient gods," always mentioned collectively in the plural. We learn that the weather god—who corresponds to Zeus—banished them to the underworld.²³ The corresponding deities in Mesopotamia are the "defeated" or "fettered gods," ilani kamûti.²⁴ They, too, have been banished beneath the earth by the victorious god or gods. In the Enuma Elish these have been the supporters of Tiamat; in other texts they are the evil "Seven" who have been bound by the god of the heavens. Note that in Orphic tradition the Titans, sons of Heaven and Earth but "bound" in the netherworld, are precisely seven in number.²⁵

The evil Seven belong above all in the realm of exorcism and protective magic. This fact leads to a further possible connec- [cont.]

p. 95

tion: In protective magic, figurines—some friendly, but mostly hostile—are often fabricated but then destroyed. The most common material is clay, Akkadian titu. This word reached Greek as titanos, plaster.²⁶ Later Greek authors have taken precisely this word to provide an etymology for the name of Titans: When the Titans attacked the child Dionysus they disguised their faces with plaster; hence their name.²⁷ In the Greek language, however, this etymology fails as a result of the fact that the i of Titanes/Titenes is long, whereas that of titanos is short. The Semetic base word, however, has a long i, so that with the hypothesis of borrowing the ancient etymology becomes possible again.

p. 203

24. Ebling (1931) ...

Caldwell

p. 36 on lines 133-137

The twelve children here named will be called the Titans by their father Ouranos in 207. It was once thought that the Titans represented the gods of a previous Greek indigenous population of Greece, but our present knowledge of Near Eastern parallels suggest that the concept of a group of gigantic older gods (e.g. Kingu and the "older gods" in the "Enuma Elish") was borrowed from the East, perhaps during the Mycenean period. Koios, Kreios, and Hyperion have virtually no separate identities and serve only a genealogical function (Koios is the father of Leto and Hyperion of Helios). The same is true of Phoibe and Theia, the wives of Koios and Hyperion. Kreios' wife will be the equally colorless Eurybia, daughter of Gaia and Pontos, who is at least distinguished by having a "heart of adamant" (239). Themis and Mnemosyne will become wives of Zeus (901, 915), Tethys is the wife of Okeanos (and, like him, perhaps one of the primal couple in a variant theogony), and Iapetos (whose name resmbles that of Noah's son Japheth in Genesis) will be the father of Prometheus and his brothers (507-511). Besides Okeanos, the only Titans to have much of a story connected with them are Kronos and Rhea, who succeed Ouranos and Gaia as the ruling couple.

p. 40 on lines 207-210

Hesiod derives the name Titanes from the the verb titaino [strian]; there is also a secondary connection with tisis [revenge]. In the late rationalizing account of Diodoros, who interpreted all myths as distorted versions of actual human history, the Titans got their name from their human mother Titaia, later called Gaia. Diodoros' strange version goes on to say the eldest daughters of Ouranos and Titaia were Basileia and Rhea (or Pandora). Basileia succeeded to the throne after her father's death and married her brother Hyperion, by whom she had two children Helios and Selene. But her brothers, the Titans, murdered Hyperion and drowned Helios, at which Selene jumped to her death from a roof top. Helios then appeared to Basileia in a vision and told her the Titans would be punished and that he and his sister would give their names to the sun and moon (formerly called "holy fire" and "mene"). Basileia then vanished from mortal sight and was honored as the Great Mother, and all the Titans were killed in a battle with Dionysos and his followers.

Connelly

ISBN 9780385350501

p. 80?

Fowler 2013

p. 8

Epimenides [fr. 6ab] next said that Night and Aer produced Tartaros; from him (by an unnamed mother—it would have to be Night—or by no mother at all). came (uniquely) only two Titans, and from them the world-egg. Who are the Titans? Ouranos and Ge are never so called, only their children, and on the analogy of all the other un-Hesiodic theogonies, the ordinary Titans such as Kronos and Rhea ought to come after all this preliminary, non-canonical business (though nothing prevents us from thinking that Epimenides wrote ordinary Titans into his account at that stage too; it would be difficult to write them out. Diodorus 5.66 = Epimen. fr. 4 has them in the usual place, for what it is worth.) ... Okeanos and Tethys are another possibility (cf. Plato Tim 40e),²⁰ The evidence for these gods as fountainheads of a rival theogony begins with Homer Il. 14.201 ...

p. 11

As mentioned above, however an intriguing line in the Iliad (14.201=302) suggests an alternative theogony, according to which Okeanos and Tethys were the original parents; and again at 14.246, where Hypnos refers to Okeanos ... [Hera's] remarks also imply that the couple took no part in the Titanomachy; certainly Okeanos could never be sent to Tartaros, and at Hesiod Th. 389–98, he advises his daughter Styx to assist Zeus.

Gantz

p. 1

Homer speaks only rarely of the period before Zeus; references to Kronos and the other Titans in Tartaros (where Zeus put them), to Okeanos as the genesis of all the gods (whatever that means), to Tethys as caring for Hera, and to a first union of Zeus and Hera unknown to their parents, are about the extent of the information that the Iliad and the 'Odyssey offer.

p. 2

Of post-Archaic sources the most obviously relevant is the first section of Apollodorus' Bibliotheke, where we have an account mirroring for the most part Hesiod. There are, however several differences, notably that the Titans release the Kyklopes and Hundred-Handers before Kronis reimprisons them, Gaia and Ouranos predict to Kronos his overthrow by an offspring, ... Zeus defeats Kronos with the aid of Metis and an emetic ... Thus ... we may conclude that while Apollodoros did not use Hesiod exclusively for his account, neither can he have drawn exclusively from the Titanomachia, since ... He might, of course, have fused the two works together, but similarities with Orphic versions have prompted the suggestion that an Orphic Theogony (as part of the Epic Cycle) was his source;⁶

p. 10

...To Ouranos she bears first twelve relatively normal children, six male six female, whom Hesiod will later call "Titans": Okeanos, ... Of these, Kronos is named expressly as the youngest and "crooked-planning" (probably the sense Hesiod gave to the word, even if originally it referred rather to Kronos' sickle¹⁵), the most terrible of the group, who hated his father.

... 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. When the latter comes to lie with Gaia, bringing with him night, and stretches out beside her, his son reaches out with the sickle and castrates him.

p. 11

This section of the Theogony then concludes with Ouranos' prediction that retribution will come to the Titans for their deed (Th 207-10).

Homer, as we have seen, relates none of this; indeed, in Iliad 14, Okeanos and Tethys seem elevated to the status accorded Ouranos and Gaia in Hesiod (Il. 14.200-210, 245-46), while Aphrodite ... The first of these points is especially difficult to assess: Hera tells Zeus as part of her Trugrede that she is on her way to the ends of the earth to visit "Okeanos the genesis of gods and mother Tethys, they who raised me well in their home, receiving me from Rheia when Zeus cast Kronos down beneath the earth and the barren sea." Mother Tethys here need be no more than a stepmother to Hera herself, and the phrase "genesis of gods" might be simply a formulaic epithet indicating the numberless rivers and springs descended from Okeanos; so for example, at Iliad 21.195-97 he is that from which all rivers and springs and the whole sea derive. But in Hera's subsequent interview with Hypnos, the latter describes the great river as the "genesis for all," leaving us to wonder whether Homer could have supposed Okeanos and Tethys the parents of the Titans (Kronos' father is never specified), for how else can they fit this description? ...

From a later time we have Plato's Timaios, where the genealogy offered looks very much like an attempt to bridge a presumed Homer/Hesiod divergence in Iliad 14: Ouranos and Gaia here beget Okeanos and Tethys who in turn beget Kronos, Rheia, and the others, plus Phorkys (Tim 40d-e).

p. 12

As a matter of strict accuracy, we should note in passing that neither Iliad nor Odyssey ever uses the term "Titan" to denote anything except those Titans under the earth with Kronos; as a result we cannot say with certainty, however likely it may seem, that Homer thought of figures such as Hyperion, Themis, Mnemosyne, Leto, and Atlas as related to Kronos, or indeed that he thought of their parentage at all.

Dione ... One other point of interest comes to us from Proklos' comments on the Timaios: he cites seven lines of a hexameter poem, probably of Orphic origin, in which Okeanos ponders whether to join Kronos and his other brothers in the attack on his father, as their mother desires, or to remain safely at home (fr. 135 Kern). As the fragment breaks off we leave Okeanos in his halls, brooding and angry with his mother and especially his brothers; Proklos tells us that he did not in fact join them.

p. 25

This union [between Crius] and Eurybia] i to some extent the result of the fact that four of the other Titan males marry their sisters, while the remaining two sisters, Themis and Mnemosyne, are reserved for the subsequent attentions of Zeus. Thus the remaining two brothers must find spouses outside the immediate family.

pp. 27–44

The Titans

p. 27

Okeanos, whatever his Homeric role in fathering the gods, is clearly in all accounts the great stream surrounding the world, to be found at the ends of the earth (Th 791–792) and in Homer somehow crossed in order to arrive at the entrance to Hades (Od 11.13–19). Later writes tell us the sun sails at night from west to east through his waters ...

p. 28

[Oceanus] is normally a place rather than a person, the major exception being in Aischylos' Prometheus Demotes. Here Okeanos visits the bound Prometheus ... at one point, appears to imply that his fellow Titan aided him in putting Zeus on the thrown ... but the lines are questionable ... Earlier in the chapter we considered the Orphic fragment in which Okeanus hesitated and demurred when the other Titans made their attack on Ouranos (fr. 135 Kern).

p. 40

The fifth of the Titan sons ... is Iapetos, who, like Kreios, must marry outside the immediate circle of his sisters. He chooses Klymene, a daughter of his brother Okeanos, and their children in Hesiod are Menoitos, Atlas, Prometheus, and Epimetheus (Th 507-11). Iapetos is the one Titan mentioned specifically by Homer as being in Tartaros with Kronos (Il 8.478–81). Of Menoitos Hesiod says that he was hubistês, and that Zeus, striking him with the thunderbolt, cast him down into Erebos because of his folly and excessive abilities. No other Archaic writer mentions this event, and we cannot be sure whether it was part of the Titan's war against the Olympians, or some other incident altogether (as the word "folly" [anastalia] might seem to suggest); the later account of Apollodorus (ApB 1.2.3) does make it part of the Titanomachy. Atlas' fate, too, would seem linked to a defiance of Zeus in that battle but Hesiod again does not say so, while for Prometheus we can only note that, whatever his role (or lack of it) in the conflict, he does survive to deceive Zeus at Mekone. The fourth brother, Epimetheus (who looks very much like a specially invented foil for Prometheus), alos survives but only to become the receiver of Pandora.

pp. 44–56

The Titanomachia ...

p. 43

As for Rhea, she appears subsequently at Leto's delivery of Apollo, and is Zeus' messenger to announce the settlement regarding Persephone (HAp 93; HDem 441-43), while in Bakchylides she is the one Pelops back to life (fr. SM).

p. 44

What Hesiod does say is that Kronos was deceived into disgorging his children by the stratagems of Gaia, ...

p. 45

At this point, the battle between the Olympians and the Titans begins, with the Olympians fighting from Mount Olympos, the Titans from Mount Othrys to the south. ... Apollodorus would seem acquainted with a more detailed version of some events than that given by Hesiod, for he tells us that Zeus slew a female guard named Kampe in orer to release those under the earth (ApB 1.2.1). Hyginus' account offers even more novelty, for he says that Hera, angered at the vast territory of Epaphos, son of Io, called upon the Titans to rise up against Zeus and restore Kronos; Zeus as elsewhere, throws them down to Tartaros (with the help of Athena, Apollo and Artemis: Fab 150). Likely enough Hyginus has confused stories of Hera's summoning of the Gigantes to her aid (as in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo) with the overthrow of the Titans. But such confusion serves to underline how little we really know about the conflict of Olympians and Titans; apart from Hesiod, no preserved Archaic work describes it, there are no relevant fragments from the Titanomachia⁵⁶ and as noted above no sure (and certainly no useful) artistic representations.

We have seen that the ensconsement of the Titans in Tartaros is mentioned several times in the Iliad, chiefly when Zeus is threatening to send other Olympians to the same place (Il. 8.478; 14.203-4, 273-74, 278-79; 15.225). On most occasions, Kronos is noted specifically as the god who resides there (or was driven there by Zeus), with the other Titans gathered around him (including in particuar Iapetos). The same picture emerges from the Theogony (Kronos alone named) and the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (where [cont.]

p. 46

Hera calls on the Titans for aid, much as if they were chthonic spirits: HAp 334-36), likewise in Prometheus Desmotes, where Kronos is again named (PD 219-21). On the other hand the female Titans appear to be very much at large: Leto and Tethys in the Iliad, Themis and Mnemosyne in the Theogony, Rheia and Leto in the Homeric Hymns, and Phoibe in Aischylos. Okeanos and Hyperion, who also seem at liberty in Homer (if the latter is in any way the sun), and Okeanos again in Aischylos are probably special cases, since they represent physical elements of the cosmos from which they can hardly be separated. Apart from all these Atlas, ...

As to the ultimate fate of the Titans, after they have arrived in Tartaros, there is some variance of tradition. For Homer and the Theogony, they certainly remain in Tartaro, Kronos included. But in two papyrus versions of a passage of Works & Days, the description of the Fourth Ade heroes who [cont.]

p. 47

go to the Isles of the Blessed includes Kronos, who is said to rule there, having been released by Zeus (W&D 173a-c). ... If with most editors we take the lines as a later interpolation into some manuscripts,⁵⁸ the next earliest appearance of such a tradition occurs in Pindar and Aischylos. ...

p. 48

... Kronos' association with some such world [as the Isles of the Blessed] seems to be a common notion by the latter half of the fourth century; whether it gained impetus from Pindar or some other source is harder to say.

p. 154

Of these Menoitios is immediately struck down by Zeus' thunderbolt and sent down to Erebos ... it is not clear whether Hesiod means by this Tartaros, or that Menoitos met the fate of a mortal (in contravention of his Titan status). Neither are we told what transgression he committed. ... which might refer to a role in the Titanomachy but sounds rather more like a preemptive stirke by Zeus. The same situation applies to his brother Atlas; Zeus assigns to this figure the moira of holding up the sky, but no reason is given. ... Likewise left unexplained by Hesiod is how Prometheus and Epimetheus survived the Titanomachy, and what role (if any) they played in it.

p. 743

By contrast, for the second branch of tradition, that called the Eudemian, we know for certain only that Nyx had absolute primacy, appearing first of all (fr. 28 Kern). West proceeds on the assumption that Plato's Timaios order of succession, in which Okeanos occupies an intermediate genealogy between Ouranos and Kronos (Tim 40e), come from this poem, and that we only need to Nyx at the head of it. Phorkys' mention as a brother of Kronos there may mean that he and Dione (a thiteenth Titan in Apollodorus) assume the place of Okeanos and Tethys to make up the canonical twelve Titans, in which case Dione is probably Aphrodite's mother as in the Iliad; the castration of Ouranos is omitted.

Grimal

p. 191

s.v. Helios

He belonged to the generation of the Titans,

p. 457

s.v. Titans

Titans (Τiτᾶνες) This was the generic name borne by six of the male children of Uranus and Gaia (Table 5). They belonged to the earliest generation of gods; the youngest amongst them was CRONUS from which the Olympians were descended. They had six sistes, the Titanides, on whom they fathered a whole cycle of divinities. (Table 38).

After the castration of Uranus by Cronus, the Titans, who had been removed from Heaven by their father, siezed power. Oceanus refused to help Cronus, however, and remained independent. He later helped Zeus dethrown Cronus. This struggle, which brought the Olympians to power, was known as the Titanomachia and is related in some detail by Hesiod in the Theogony, but it is suspected that the passage is a interpolation. Zeus' allies in this struggle were not only the Olympians, such as Athena, Apollo, Hera, Poseidon and Pluto, but also the Hecatoncheires, who had suffered under the Titans, and even Prometheus, although he was the son of Iapetus and Styx, the first-born of the Oceanids.

s.v. Titanides

Titanides (Τiτᾶνιδες) The name given to six of the daughters of Uranus and Gaia: Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, and Tethys (Table 12). After they slept with their brothers, the Titans, they gave birth to divinities of different kinds (Table 38). They do not seem to have taken their brothers side in the Titanomachia.

Hansen

p. 302

TITANS (GREEK TITANES)

Older family of gods who preceded the Olympians.

As a group the Titans are the older gods, the former gods, in contrast to the Oympians, who are the younger and present gods. In this opposition, the two collectives are more important than the identities of individual deities, especially in the case of the Titans, for some of them, such as Themis, make a poor fit for the role of opposing the Olympians, not to mention being prisoners in Tartaros.

According to Hesiod's Theogony, the Titans are six sons and six daughters of the primordial cosmic parents Ouranos and Gaia: Okeanos, (Latinized form = Oceanus), Koios (Coeus), Kreios, Hyperion, Iapetos (Iapetus), Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosynê, Phoibê (Phoebe), Tethys, and Kronos (Cronus).

Hesiod recounts how Ouranos, hating his children, prevented each new child from being born, apparently by engaging in continual sexual intercourse with Gaia. In a state of permanent labor, Gaia groaned with pain. Finally she created a great, toothed sickle of adament and conspired with her children to punish their evil father. Only the youngest of the Titans, Kronos, was willing to undertake the task. From within his mother, Kronos lopped off his father's genitals with the sickle. As a result, Ouranos nicknamed Kronos and his siblings Titans, since they strained (Greek titaino "strain") to do their great deed, for which they themselves would be punished. And indeed the twelve Titans subsequently fought a ten-year battle against the Olypians, a younger family of gods who were the offspring of the Titans Kronos and Rhea. The older gods were headquartered on Mount Othrys and the younger gods on Mount Olympus. Eventually the Olympians, with the help of the Hundred-Handers, overwhelmed the Titans and sent them down into Tartaros, where they remain imprisoned and under guard.

Hard

p. 32

Gaia bore three sets of children to Ouranos, first a group of primordial gods who were know as the Titans (properly Titanes in Greek), then two sets of monsters the one-eyed Kyklopes and the hunfred-armed giants who came to be known as the Hekatocheires or Hundred-Handers. Ouranos hated them all, however, and prevented them from emerging into the light, causing such anguish to Gaia that she finally urged them to take action against him. The youngest of the Titans, Kronos, who was the only one who had the courage to do so, laid ambush for his father, armed with a sickle that his mother had prepared for the purpose; and he cut off the genitals of Ouranos as he approached his wife to make love, so bringing their union to a violent end and making it possible for Gaia to bring their children to the light at last.

p. 33

By mutilating Ouranos and so bringing his union with Gaia to an end, Kronos displaced him as the main god, establishing himself as the new lord of the universe with his fellow Titans as his subordinates. This was not the final order of things, however, since Kronos maltreated his children like his father before him, and was destined to be overthrown by them in his turn. ... The initial story of the mutilation and displacement of Ouranos thus forms part of an overarching 'succession myth' ...

p. 34

Of all the Titans, only Kronos and Rhea are accorded distinctive roles of their own in the succession myth, while the others act solely as a collective body. In the Theogony (though not in other accounts, see p. 68) the latter make no contribution at all to the ousting of Ouranos, which is effected by Kronos alone; but they benefit from it to become the chief gods of the pre-Olympian order under the rule of Kronos. They subsequently take common action in the Titanomachy, the great war in which they attempt to quell the insurrection mounted by Zeus and his allies, but are defeated and banished from the upper world forever. So is it possible to say anything meaningful about their common nature, beyond the fact that they are the banished ruling gods of an earlier generation? This was once a question that gave rise to a considerable amount of speculation. A much-favoured theory suggested that the Titans were old prehellenic gods who had been displaced by the Olympian gods of the Greek invaders. If that were so, the myth of the great war between the Olympians and the Titans could be explained in historical terms, as reflecting the struggle of belief that the suppression of the older religion had entailed. It was often proposed, furthermore, that the old gods must have been nature-powers of a less advanced or less moral nature than the Olympian gods. Another theory appealed to late evidence of doubtful value to suggest that the Titans were phallic deities. The whole nature of the discussion altered, however, when it came to be realized that the Greek succession myth bears a marked resemblance to myths of a comparable nature from the Near East. Although other eastern succession myths had been known at an earlier period, the crucial factor in this regard was the publication in 1946 of a Hurro-Hittite myth that provides a particularly close parallel to Hesiod's myth.⁷¹ [p. 606: 71 H.G. Güterloch, Kumarbi, Zurich 1946.]

The Hurrians, ... one such [Hurrian] myth tells of the sequence of events that led to the accession of the Hurrian equivalent of Zeus. Anu (Sky), who corresponds to the Greek Ouranos, seized power by disposing an obscure predecessor, Alalu, and reigned for nine years until his cupbearer, Kumarbi, engaged him in battle and defeated him. As Anu was trying to escape into the heavens, Kumarbi dragged him down by his feet, and bit off his genitals and swallowed them. As he was rejoicing in his triumph, anu warned him to think again, saying that his action had caused him to become impregnated with three terrible gods. Although Kumarbi immediately spat out the contents of his mouth, the Storm-god was already inside him, and eventually emerged from his body. ... the Storm-god, ... finally displaced Kumarbi as ruler.⁷² Hesiod's myth may also be compared with a very ancient Babylonian myth in the poem known as the Ennuma Elish, and also with a Phoenician myth (of questionable status, but thought to be at least partially authentic) which is [cont.]

p. 35

preserved in a Greek work of the early Roman period.⁷³ When the implications of these foreign parallels came to be appreciated, it came to be generally accepted that the Greek succession myth was not of native origin, but was based on a myth that had been introduced from the Near East.

If this was the case, a group of displaced earlier gods corresponding to the Titans must have been introduced as part of the imported myth. The Hurro-Hittite equivalents of the Titans were known as the former gods (Hesiod refers to the Titans or Kronos in corresponding terms on two occasions),⁷⁴ while their Babylonian equivalents were known as the dead gods. If the question of the origins of the Titans is viewed from this perspective, two possibilities arise. There may have been an early group of native gods of that name who were identified with the former gods of the imported myth; or else the name Titan was simply a title that was applied by the Greeks to gods of eastern origin. There is no way of telling which alternative is true, and it makes no practical difference in any case, since we know nothing whatever of the original nature of the Titans if they had one enjoyed a separate existence in Greece. The essential point is that the Titans, as they are known to us as a collective body from the time of Hesiod onwards, are precisely what they are presented as being in the succession myth of eastern origin, the former ruling gods who were banished from the upper world when the present devine order was established. This is their 'nature', and nothing is served by enquiring any further; they have no other stories or functions as a collective body in conventional myth, and they had no place in Greek cult. The etymology of their name is uncertain; there is some ancient evidence to suggest that it may have meant 'princes' or the like. Hesiod offers an ingenious but obviously factitious double etymology, stating that Ouranos confered this title on them in reproach, 'for he said that they strained (titainontes) and insolently performed a dreadful deed, for which vengeance (tisin) came to them afterwards'.⁷⁵ [p. 606: 75 Hes. Theog. 207-10; the meaning of the first etymology is uncertain see West on 209.]

to turn aside from the conventional mythology of the Titans for a moment, they figure prominently in an esoteric myth of unusual interest; for in a tale that originated in the Orphic literature, the human race is said to have sprung from the remains of the Titans after Zeus destroyed them with a thunderbolt. ...

p. 36

Hesiod assigns individual names to all the Titans, listing six male Titans and six females (know as the Titanides). In view of Kronos' special role in the succession myth and his status as the second lord of the universe, he would surely have been identified as a Titan in the prior tradition. Confirmation of this can be found in Homer, since Kronos is mentioned on three occasions in the Iliad as one of the banished gods in Tartaros (who are named as Titans on one occasion).⁷⁸ [p. 606: 78 Hom. Il. 8.478-81, 14.203-4 and 274, 15.224-5; banished gods named as Titans, 14.279.]

p. 37

from whom all the gods had sprung (an idea that was apparently derived from a Babylonian myth in which Apsu and Tiamat, representing the sweet and salt waters respectively, were portrayed as the first couple). Even if they could not be regarded as the first gods of all in the succession myth, Hesiod accords them only a slightly lower status by including them among the Titans, as would be fitting for venerable deities whose union could account for the origin of all the lesser streams of the world. Okeanos seems ill-fitted, on the other hand, to share in the collective actions of and fate of the Titans, since his streams are a permanent feature of the world and one might suppose that he would be obligated to remain in them at the edges of the earth. The story of the latter part of the Theogony in which he tells his daughter Styx to assist Zeus against the Ttitans⁸² (see p. 49) is consistent with the thought that he did not join with the other Titans in fighting against Zeus; and in Apollodorus' theogony, in which the Titans are presented as attacking Ouranis as a collective body, it is explicitly stated that Okeanus took no part in the enterprise.⁸³

p. 49

p. 67

p. 68

p. 69

p. 75

p. 90

p. 91

Harrison

p. 490

The monstrous complex myth is obviously aetiological ... the kernel of the whole being the ritual fact that a sacrifitial bull, or possibly a child, was torn to pieces and his flesh eaten. Who tore him to pieces? In actual fact his worshippers, but the myth-making mind always clamours for divine precedent. ...

Rose

p. 143 s.v. Atlas

Atlas ... in mythology a Titan, son of ...

p. 597 s.v. Leto

Leto ... a Titaness,

p. 772 s.v. Pallas (2)

Pallas (2), ... a Titan

p. 883 s.v. Prometheus

Prometheus ... one of the Titans ...

p. 1079 s.v. Titan

TITAN (Τιτάν, -ήν), one of the older gods who were before the Olympians, children of Heaven and Earth. Hesiod (Theog. 132 ff.) lists Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetos, Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Tethys, and Kronos (q.v.). These names are an odd mixture of Greek and non-Greek, personal names and abstractions. For the battle between them and Zeus see KRONOS. The etymology of Τιτάνες is highly uncertain; Hesiod (ibid. 209) fancifully derives it from τιτῆνες, to strain, and τίαις vengeance, in allusion to their relations to their father. Later poetry often uses Titan and Titanis for Hyperion and Phoebe, Sun and Moon. On the problem of their origin, Nillson, GGR i². 510 ff. See also ORPHISM.

Rutherford

[In folder]

Online version

p. 51

Further traces of a group of twelve gods are to be found in Hittite rituals from the late second millenium BC, where again the context is chthonic.³⁹ Taking this back a stage further we might think of the 'primeval gods' or lower gods' of Hurrian and Mesopotamian origin—the so-called 'Anunnaki', who are invoked at the start of the Kumarbi Cycle; in most accounts of the Anunnaki, at least those from Hittite sources, there are precisely twelve of them, arranged in six pairs of male and female.⁴⁰ Now it has often been claimed that the Anunnaki correspond roughly to the Titans of Greek mythology, who are also twelve in number, divided equally into male and female, perceived as deities of a previous generation and associated with a chthonic realm. The correspondence is not exact, because the present generation of gods in Hittite-Hurrian mythology does not come to power by defeating the Anunnaki, and neither Kumarbi nor the various adversaries that he creates for Tessub are among them. Nevertheless, the Anunnaki and the Titans is close enough for us to offer the hypothesis that in Greek religion, the idea of a set of twelve gods was applied first to the Titans, in imitation of the Anunnaki, and then transferred to the present generation.⁴¹ In that case the presence of Kronos and Rhea among the Dodekatheon of Olympia would not be an aberration but a trace of the earlier arrangement.

If the twelve in chamber B at Yazilikay are chthonic, the twelve [cont.]

p. 52

in Chamber A could be a representation of the whole pantheon ...

Smith

s.v. Titan 1.

This name commonly appears in the plural Τιτᾶνες, from Τιτανίδες, as the name of the sons and daughters of Uranus and Ge, whence they are also called Οὐρανίωνες or Οὐρανίδαι. (Hom. Il. 5.898; Apollon. 2.1232.) These Titans are Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus, Cronus, Theia, Rheia, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, and Tethys, to whom Apollodorus (1.1.3) adds Dione. (Hes. Theog. 133, &c.) Some writers also add Phorcys and Demeter. (Heyne, ad Apollod. 1.1.1; Clemens, Homil. 6.2.) Stephanus of Byzantium (s. v. Ἄσανα) has the following as the names of the children of Uranus and Ge : Adanus, Ostasus, Andes, Cronus, Rhea, Iapetus, Olymbrus; and Pausanias (8.37.3) mentions a Titan Anytus, who was believed to have brought up the Arcadian Despoena. Uranus, the first ruler of the world, threw his sons, the Hecatoncheires, Briareus, Cottys, Gyes (Hes. Theog. 617), and the Cyclopes, Arges, Steropes, and Brontes, into Tartarus. Gaea, indignant at this, persuaded the Titans to rise against their father, and gave to Cronus an adamantine sickle (ἅρπη). They did as their mother bade them, with the exception of Oceanus. Cronus, with his sickle, unmanned his father, and threw the part into the sea, and out of the drops of his blood there arose the Erinnyes, Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megaera. The Titans then deposed Uranus, liberated their brothers who had been cast into Tartarus, and raised Cronus to the throne. But he again threw the Cyclopes into Tartarus, and married his sister Rhea (Ovid, Ov. Met. 9.497, calls her Ops). As, however, he had been foretold by Gaea and Uranus, that he should be dethroned by one of his own children, he, after their birth, swallowed successively his children Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Pluto and Poseidon. Rhea therefore, when she was pregnant with Zeus. went to Crete, gave birth to the child in the Dictaean Cave, and entrusted him to be brought up to the Curetes, and the daughters of Melissus, the nymphs Adrasteia and Ida. The armed Curetes guarded the infant in the cave, and struck their shields with their spears, that Cronus might not hear the voice of the child. Rhea, moreover, deceived Cronus by giving him a stone wrapped up in cloth, which he swallowed, believing it to be his newly-born son. (Apollod. 1. §§ 1-5; Ov. Fast. 4.179, &c.) When Zeus had grown up he availed himself of the assistance of Thetis, the daughter of Oceanus who gave to Cronus a potion which caused him to bring up the stone and the children he had swallowed. United with his brothers and sisters, Zeus now began the contest against Cronus and the ruling Titans. This contest (usually called the Titanomachia), which was carried on in Thessaly, the Titans occupying Mount Othrys, and the sons of Cronus Mount Olympus, lasted for ten years, when at length Gaea promised victory to Zeus, if he would deliver the Cyclopes and Hecatoncheires from Tartarus. Zeus accordingly slew Campe, who guarded the Cyclopes, and the latter furnished him with thunder and lightning, Pluto wave him a helmet, and Poseidon a trident. The Titans then were overcome, and hurled down into a cavity below Tartarus (Hom. Il. 14.279; Hes. Theog. 697, 851 ; Hom. Hymn. in Apoll. 335 ; Paus. 8.37.3), and the Hecatoncheires were set to guard them. (Hom. Il. 8.479; Hes. Theog. 617, &c.; Apollod. 1.2.1.) It must be observed that the fight of the Titans is sometimes confounded by ancient writers with the fight of the Gigantes.

s.v. Titan 2.

The name Titans is also given to those divine or semi-divine beings who were descended from the Titans, such as Prometheus, Hecate (Hes. Theog. 424 ; Serv. ad Aen. 4.511), Latona (Ov. Met. 6.346), Pyrrha (1.395), and especially Helios and Selene (Mene), as the children of Hyperion and Theia, and even the descendants of Helios, such as Circe. (Serv. ad Aen. 4.119, 6.725 ; Schol. ad Apollon. Rhod. 4.54; Ov. Fast. 1.617, 4.943, Met. 3.173, 14.382; Tib. 4.1. 50.)

s.v. Titan 3.

The name Titans, lastly, is given to certain tribes of men from whom all mankind is descended. Thus the ancient city of Cnosos in Crete is said to have originally been inhabited by Titans, who were hostile to Zeus, but were driven away by Pan with the fearful sounds of his shell-trumpet. (Hom. Hymn. in Apoll. 336 ; Diod. 3.57, 5.66 ; Orph. Hymn. 36. 2 ; comp. Höck, Creta, p. 171, &c.; Lobeck, Aglaoph. p. 763; Völcker, Mythol. des Iapet. Geschl. p. 280, &c.)

Tripp

p. 120 s.v. Atlas

Atlas. A Titan.

p. 266 s.v. Helius

Helius. ... was sometimes called merely Titan,

p. 499 s.v. Prometheus

Prometheus. A Titan.

p. 579 s.v. Titans

Titans. The first born children or Uranus and Ge. The Titans, according to the Theogony (132-138) of Hesiod, were Oceanus, god of the river of that name; Hyperion, a sun-god; Thmemis and Rhea, both earth-goddesses; Tethys, who was perhaps a sea-goddess; Mnemosyne, a personification of memory; and Coeus, Crius, Theia, and Phoebe, whose functions are less clear. The youngest Titan was CRONUS, the boldest and wiliest of the lot. Ge persuaded him to rebel against his father. Alone, or with the aid of the other Titans, he castrated Uranus and usurped the rule of Olympus. He was in turn overthrown, together with those among his brothers and nephews who supported him, by his son Zeus. Zeus was aided by his brothers and the CYCLOPES and the HUNDRED-HANDED, half-brothers of Cronus. After a ten-year war, these Titans were thrown into Tartarus and imprisoned there forever under guard of the Hundred-handed.

Cronus, according to an alternative tradition, ruled after his fall in the Islands of the Blessed. His reign in heaven had, in fact, been a golden age in which mortals were as fortunate as gods. Atlas, one of the second generation of Titans, was condemned, because of his part in the war with the gods, to support the sky on his shoulders for eternity. Oceanus; Hyperion's son Helius, the sun-god; and the Titanesses had taken no part in the conflict and they continued to perform their functions under the rule of Zeus, though Rhea, Phoebe, Theia, and Mnemosyne faded into the background. Oceanus, his wife Tethys, and Themis were particularly revered by the Olympians. A very different view of the Titans is expressed in the Orphic myth of Zagreus (see DIONYSUS, A), in which they appear as the cause of Dionysus' sufferings.

It is generally accepted that the Titans (except for Mnemosyne, who is merely an abstraction) were very ancient deities, connected in some way with the powers of nature. Beyond this their is little agreement. [Homer, Iliad, 14.277-279; Hesiod, Theogony, 207-20, 617-735, 389-396, 807-814; Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, 201-223; Hyginus, Fabulae 150; Pausanias 7.18.4, 8.37.5.]

West 1966

p. 18

Here we confine ourselves to the ‘Succession Myth’ which forms the backbone of the [‘’Theogony’’]. It relates how Uranos was overcome by Kronos, and how Kronos with his Titans was in his turn overcome by Zeus. …

Uranos begets eighteen children, but prevents them from [cont.]

p. 19

being born, apparently by continuing his intercourse with Gaia. … Kronos alone has the courage to do so. … Kronos now rallies the other Titans to war against the new gods. …

This Succession Myth has parallels in oriental mythology which are so striking that a connection is incontestable. They occur principally in Hittite and Akkadian texts, and in Herennius Philo's translation of the Phoenician History of Sanchuniathon. Some account of these must now be given.

p. 20

(a) Hittite Texts

The texts with which ... They were therefore written not later than the end of the thirteenth century B.C., ... The myths related in them are not Hittite in origin, but were taken over, if not actually translated, from Hurrian originals. ... The text that concerns us most is a story of kingship in heaven; its title is lost. Once, it recounts, Alalu was king in heaven. Then he was defeated in battle by Anu (the Babylonian sky-god), and fled down to dark earth. Anu then reigned for nine years, at the end of which he became involved in battle with Kumarbi ...

p. 21

The close similarity of the Hurrian Succession Myth to that in Hesiod was realized as soon as it was read. ... The second king Anu ... Sky, and therefore corresponds to Uranos ... The third king, Kumarbi, like Kronos, castrates his father and swallows his son, and (probably) a stone. ... The fourth king is the Weather-god, who is the chief god, corresponding to the Greek Zeus. He survives Kumarbi's attempt to destroy him, and is victorious in a theomachy.

p. 22

(b) Akkadian Texts

After the Epic of Gilgameš, the most celebrated poem which has come down to us from ancient Babylon is undoubtedly that known originally after its opening words as Enûma Eliš, 'When on high'.

... the mythological background of the narrative is Sumerian, the language is the epic dialect of Akkadian,

In the begining, before heaven and earth, or any of the other gods existed, Apsû and Tiâmat mingled their waters ...

p. 23

The similarities between this story and the Hesiodic Succession Myth, while not as striking as those between the later and the Hurrian myth, are nevertheless unmistakable, ... In both, we begin with a pair of primeval, elemental parents: Apsû and Tiâmat, Uranos and Gaia. The parents beget children, who in each case are confined within their mother, and cause her distress; the father hates them, but the mother does not. The children fall silent with fear: in Hesiod because of what Gaia suggests they should do, in the Babylonian poem because of what Apsû intends to do to them. Then one god takes courage: Ea, the wise god; Kronos, the cunning god.

p. 31

2. Gods of mythology, e.g. … To this group one should also reckon … Kronos, Iapetos, and the Titans collectively; for while there are traces of them in cult, their inclusion in the ‘’Theogony’’ has certainly been determined not by this, but by their importance in the myths that Hesiod related.

p. 36

The Titans, the Old Gods, Kronos' allies, were too important to be left without individual names. Kronos himself and Iapetos are the only two known by name to Homer. In the Theogony a full list is offered. Its very heterogeneity betrays its lack of traditional foundtion. Rhea, Zeus' mother, must be married to Kronos, Zeus' father. Hyperion, as father of Helios, must be put back to that generation; so must ancient and venerable personages as Oceanus and Tethys, Themis and Mnemosyne. By the addition of four more colourless names (Koios, Kreios, Theia, and Phoibe), the list is made up to a complement of six males and six females.²

² According to Pohlenz, ... the number was modelled on the Olympian twelve. But the latter do not appear as such in Hesdiod. On the other hand, he does very often arrange families in threes or multiples of three. ...

p. 157 on line 18

Iapetos and Kronos are the only individual Titans named as such in Homer (‘’Il.’’ 8. 479); other in Hesiod’s list of Titans (below, 133-7) are mentioned only incidentally, Hyperion as the Sun or his [cont.]

p. 158

father, Rhea as the mother of Zeus and his brothers, and so forth. But if Hesiod here seems to agree with Homer, he also agrees with himself, in that Iapetos and Kronos are the only two of the Titans who stand out later in the ‘’Theogony’’ as constituting a serious individual danger to Zeus: Kronos who nerly swallows him, and Iapetos who rears a brood of dangerous sons against whom measures have to be taken individually.

p. 172 on line 46

θεοὶ, δωτῆρες ἐάων: here, and more clearly in 633, the phrase distinguishes the younger gods from their parents the Titans. This is hard to reconcile with E. Meyer’s view of the Titans as beneficent earth-spirits (‘’Kl. Schr.’’ ii. 39). Cf. on 133.

p. 200 on line 133

The list of children that follows as far as 138, six male and six female (cf. p. 36). forms the group which Uranos gives the name Titans in 207; ...

The heterogeneity of [Hesiod’s list of Titans] is striking. Besides the dangerous ogres Kronos and Iapetos (cf. on 18), we find the relatively colourless figures Koios, Kreios, Hypoerion, Theia; the gentle Oceanus, who encourages his daughter Styx to help Zeus against the Titans (398); Zeus’ mother Rhea, who saves him from Kronos, and can never have joined battle against him; and the venerable goddesses Themis and Mnemosyne, whom Zeus marries after he has consigned the Titans to Tartarus. This with the fact that lists given by other sources (Orph. fr. 114, Apld. 1.1.3, Hyg. ‘’fab. praef.’’ 3, etc.; …) vary in number and composition, indicate that the identification of the Titans with this particular group of gods is secondary; originally they must have been a collective body (like the Muses, Nereids, etc: p. 32) without individual names and of indefinite number. It is this collective body that we think of in connection with the Titanomachy.

The essential characteristics of the Titans are that they represent an older generation of gods, 'the former gods' (424, 486, with note), and they are no longer active in the world, but dwell in Tartarus (729 ff. 814; cf. Il. 14.279 ... [Orph.] H. 37.2-3, etc.). A group known as the ‘former gods’ is also found in the Hittite pantheon, and the myth of the defeat and imprisonment of the Titans by Zeus is paralleled in the ‘’Enûma Elis’’ …

So it is probable that the Titans were taken over from the Orient as part of the Succession Myth, or else that they were gods native to Mycenean Greece but similar enough to the ‘older gods’ of the Near East to be identified with them.

The name Titan is obscure; …

Traces of a cult of the Titans in historical times are few and doubtful. A festival Titania is mentioned by Thodosius, ‘’Gramm.’’ 69. 19 [cont.]

p. 201

Goettling, and Nicander fr. 4 spoke of the Titans as assisting men when called upon … There can be no certainty that they were ever worshipped : they may have existed from the beginning as ‘the former gods’ or ‘the gods of the underworld’, a mythological antithesis to the gods of the present and of the upper world.

Much other material of doubtful relevance has been used in attempts to establish the nature of the Titans. …

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.

p. 225–226 on line 209 τιταίνοντας

this is presumably ... But if so, it is not clear how or why the Titans 'strained'. The castration was in fact done by Kronos alone, ...

[p. 226] ... The ancient interpretations ...

p. 290

The story of how Kronos swallowed his children … and how Zeus avoided this fate … represents a conflation of two originally separate accounts … one an acoount deriving from the Near East.

The Near Eastern element is thrown into relief by comparison with the Hurrian-Hitittite story of Kumarbi. …

p. 301 on line 486 θεῶν προτέρων

a Hesiodic phrase, above, 424; cf. ...No such expression as 'the former king' is elsewhere found in epic; and in Herodotus at any rate the Greek is ...

p. 308 on line 509

Homer calls Atlas … (Od. 1.52), an early epithet … The early poets do not tell of any particular trouble caused by Atlas; later mythographers (Mythogr. Vat. 2.53, Hyg. fab 150) make him the leader of the Titan revolt. (D.S. 3.60 makes him a brother of Kronos), while in Orph. fr. 215 he is one of the Titans who rend Dionysus in pieces, but these are probably inventions designed to account for the task inflicted upon him. There is no hint of his association with the Titans in the early period, and if he had committed their crime he ought to have shared their punishment. Cf. on 516.

p. 308 on line 510

an obscure figure said by Apld. 1.2.3 to have fought in the Titanomachy, though this, like Atlas’ crime, appears to be a secondary systematization.

p. 340 on line 632

Mt. Othrys …

The Titanomachy was set on the Thessalian plain presumably because it lies below Olympus, and Othrys was made the Titan’s headquarters simply because it was the principal mountain on the opposite side of the plain: There is no evidence that it was really a seat of gods as Olympus was. Elsewhere it is said that the Titans formerly occupied Olympus itself, and were deposed from it by the younger gods: cf. 112-13 n., Op. 110-11, A. PV 148, A.R. 1.503 ff., 2.1232.

p. 358

First we have the Titans in their prison (739-33). … by assuring us that the Titans’ dispatch to the place just described is permanent.

West 1983

p. 71

[West's reconstruction of Rhapsodies] Uranos marries Ge, ... Ge gives birth to the Moirai ... the Hundred-Handers ... and the Cyclopes ... Uranos ... throws them into Tartarus ... Ge then, without [Uranos'] knowledge bears the Titans, seven females and seven males: Themis, Tethys, Mnemosyne, Theia, Dione, Phoibe, Rhea; Koios, Kreios, Phorkys, Kronos, Oceanus, Hyperion, Iapetos. Of these it is Kronos who is specially nurtured by Night, the nurse of the gods ... Ge incites the Titans to castrate Uranos; Oceanus alone is unwilling, and stays aloof ...

p. 74

[West's reconstruction of Rhapsodies] The Titans, moved by jealousy [of the new king of the gods the child Dionysus], or prompted by the jealous Hera ... whiten their faces with gypsum (Nonn. 6.169) and deceive [Dionysus] with a mirror, made by Hephaestus, which he follows, apples from the Hesperdies, a pine-cone(?), a bull-roarer, a ball, knucklebones, wool, and puppets; they also gave him a narthex ... Then they slash him into seven pieces, which they boil, roast, and taste ... But Athena preserves the heart, which is still palpitating, and takes it to Zeus in a casket; there is lamentation ... The Titans are blasted with a thunderbolt ... Atlas is made to support the sky ... Zeus entrusts Dionysus' limbs to Apollo, who takes them to Parnassus and inters them ... But from the heart a new Dionysus is given life ...

p. 75

[West's reconstruction of Rhapsodies] The smoke from the blasted Titams deposits a soot from which Zeus creates a new race of mortals ...

p. 102

The bizarre story of the castration of Uranos and his succession by Kronos and Zeus is based on a myth that came to Greece from the Near East sometime before Hesiod.⁵⁹ One of the two main relevant oriental texts is the Babylonian poem Enûma Eliš, dating from about the eleventh century BC. There the two primeval parents are Apsû and Tiâmat, the male fresh water from which rivers have their source and the female salt water of the sea.

⁵⁹ See my Hesiod, Theogony, 18-30; P. Walcot, Hesiod and the Near East (1966), 1-54.

p. 103

The Orphic version represents an effort to make the story clearer and more logical. The poet did not see how the Titans could castrate Uranos if they were confined within the earth. So in his account the Hundred-Handers and cyclopes are born first and suffer imprisonment. Their place of confinement is identified as Tartarus. The Titans escape this fate because Ge, having seen what sort of father Uranos is, keeps their birth secret and entrusts them to their grandmother to rear in a cave. This motif is borrowed from Hesiod's account of Zeus' birth, as also is the detail that the grandmother had warned the father that his son or sons would overthrow him.⁶³ The consequence of these innovations is that when the Titans castrate Uranos it no longer releases anyone from confinement but appears merely s a rough method of disabling the tyrant.

⁶³ Th. 463-84. Fr. 121,

When he observed that they were stern of heart

and lawless in their nature [...],

he hurled them into earth's deep Tartarus,

still reflect the Hesiodic version of the story ...

p. 117

The Timaeus genealogy runs:

From Ge and Uranos the children born were Oceanus and Tethys; from these, Phorkys and Kronos and Rhea, and all of that brood; from Kronos and Rhea, Zeus and Hera and all their brothers and sisters we hear tell of; and again from these more children.

p. 119

The Titans include Oceanus ... Oceanus was never in Tartarus; he is part of the upper world. Hesiod even represents him as assisting Zeus against the Titans by sending his daughter Styx with her children Zelos, Nike, and Bie (Th. 389-98). In Homer, too, Oceanus and Tehtys stay well out of the Titanomachy: Hera is evacuated to them (Il. 14.200-4). In the same passage they are referred to as

Oceanus the genesis of the gods, and mother Tethys,¹¹ [cont.]

p. 120

which puts them in an earlier generation than the Titans. Hesiod's accommodation of them in the list of Titans, then, appears to be something secondary and artificial, a matter of administrative convenience, whereas their position in an anterior generation in the Orphic theogony is a better reflection of their status in mythological tradition.

But in Homer Oceanus and Tethys ...

p. 121

The Titans

The children of Oceanus and Tethys in the Orphic poem are named as 'Phorkys, Kronos, Rhea, and all the rest'. This is the brood that coresponds to Hesiod's twelve Titans. But Phorkys belongs in Hesiod to a different family, as a son of Pontos. The other place where he appears as a Titan is in the Orphic Rhapsodies ..., where the Titans number fourteen: Hesiod's twelve plus Phorkys and DIone. It is tempting to guess that in the poem known to Plato Phorkys and Dione were counted among the Titans to make the number up to twelve because Oceanus and Tethys were otherwise accounted for.

If Dione was a Titan, Aphrodite was probably made her daughter by Zeus instead of being born from Uranos' genitals. Perhaps the whole story of the castration was absent from this poem, as the Titans were not his children but his grandchildren. ...

At the beginning of Apollordorus' Biblioteca (1.1) we find an account of the early history of the gods, from the reign of [cont.]

p. 122

Uranos to the nurture of Zeus in Crete, which agrees in most details with section C of the Orphic Rhapsodies (p. 71). ...

p. 123

Apollodorus' narrative continues with an otherwise unknown version of the Titanomachy, in which, after the war has gone on for ten years, Ge prophesies that Zeus will be victorious if he enlists the aid of the gods imprisoned in Tartarus. He goes on ...

at first glance the significance of these comparisons may seem questionable. A sceptic could point to the presence in Hesiod of nearly all the constituents of Apollodorus' account. There are, however, several features in which it differs from Hesiod ad agrees with the Orphic narrative: ...

p. 125

The Cycle also included the Titanomachy ascribed to Eumelus or Arctinus, ... Apollodorus ...

p. 126

Apollodorus' peculiar account of the war of the gods and Titans ... may have [been] taken ... from the Titanomachy ascribed to Eumelus or Arctinus, ...

p. 130

One feature that was not in Hesiod was the explicit dissociation of Oceanus from the castration. This reflects his ancient non-Titanic nature (cf. p. 119) and accords with the fact that when Kronos is ...

After dealing with Uranos, the Titans at once bring their brothers up from Tartarus. That is logical, since it was indignation at their imprinsonment that led Ge to incite the Titans to overthrow Uranos. But then Apollodorus tells us, Kronos [cont.]

p. 131

condemned them to Tartarus all over again. No motive for this volte-face is given, but the reason is obvious: they have to be in Tartarus so that Zeus can release them to help him against the Titans.

p. 137

the second strand [from the Orphic Rhapsodies] involves a Cretan location for the birth of Dionysus, ... his dismemberment [[by the Titans] and restoration to life. It is natural to infer that all this came from the Eudemian Theogony, ...

p. 139

[in the Eudemian Theogony] Persephone bore Dionysus to Zeus in Crete. There followed the story of the murder of Dionysus by the Titans and his restoration to life. The Titans were blasted to Tartarus, and mandkind came into being fron the sooty fall-out. So theirs is a bad inheritance; Dionysus, however, can help them by his purification rites, which were first established in Crete but soon spread elsewhere.

p. 140

V. THE EUDEMIAN THEOGONY (CONTINUED): THE DEAT AND REBIRTH OF DIONYSUS

Let us recall the detains of the story of Duinysus as it was told in the Rhapsodies, or rather, of that part of the story which we attribute to the Eudemian Theogony ... Zeus installs [Dionysus] on his own throne and tells the gods that this is their new king. But the Titans, whitening their faces with gypsum, lure [Dionysus] away with a mirror ... the residual smoke contains a soot from which mankind is created. ...

In what follows I shall attempt to elucidate Dionysyus' mythical sufferings in terms of two models: initiona ritual and animal sacrifice. But first, to clear the way, I should like to mention certain other possible models which might be thought relevant, and to explain briefly why I do attach importance to them.

... simply taken over in Hellenistic times from the story of Osiris, whom his brother dismembered ...

p. 141

Another explanation of the dismemberment of Dionysus, offered by certain ancient writers, makes him a personification of the vine. The earthborn Titans are supposed to stand for farmers who till the soil, the dismemberment of Dionyus is the grape harvest, his boiling is the boiling of grapes, ...

p. 142

Why do the Titans cover their faces in gypsum?

p. 145

But the references to the coating of the Titans' faces with gypsum ... strongly suggests that the myth reflects a ritual in which the death-dealing ancestral spirits were imprisoned by men, that is to say an initiation of the tribal or secret-society type.

p. 154

The Titans and the token

The Titans' faces were whitened with gypsum in the orphic account and probably also that of Euphorion.⁴⁵ Their motive [cont.]

p. 155

is said to have been to avoid being recognized,⁴⁶ but the disguise is surely a reflection of ritual, where its effect was to make those wearing it into spectral, other-worldly figures. ... The white Titans correspond to the awful ancestral spirits who come to take the initiand away to kill him in primitive rituals. ... Nonnus—one of the writers who tells us that the Titans adopted this disguise when they abducted Dionysus—several times refers to the mystic gypsum as if it were a standard adornment of the god's votaries.⁴⁹

⁴⁹ D. 27.204, 228; 29.274; 34.144; 47.733. ... Although one Greek word for white earth or gypsum is titanos, it is not the word used in the sources for the Orphic myth, and there is no reason to think that the similarity between títǎnos and Tĩtán played any part in the formation of the story.

p. 156

There is also one text, generally overlooked, which says that the narthex (giant fennel) was brought to Dionysus by the Titans

p. 157

According to a Hellenistic text the cry euoi goes back to an exclamation made by the Titans in praise of the invention of the mirror.⁵⁶ This evidently presupposes a Bacchic rite involving a mirror, the cry euoi, and persons masquerading as Titans or performing acts explained by a myth about Titans.

p. 160

The story of the gypsum-painted Titans with their mirror, bull-roarer, and so forth is, likely enough, the mythical reflection of a frightening charade enacted around a candidate for initiation and signifying his mock death. ...

This typically Dionysiac rite of omophagy, however, in which the elated participants are supposed to pull the victim to pieces with their bare hands and bite at once into the uncooked flesh, does not correspond to what the Titans do. It is true ... say he was cut up with a knife.⁷² And there is no doubt they cooked him.

They cooked him in an irregular way. First they boiled the pieces in a cauldron, and then roasted them on spits.⁷³

p. 161

The Titans' culinary methods [boiling then roasting] are thus an affront to convention, ...

p. 162

... the rest of the limbs, in so far as they were not eaten by the Titans were interred by Apollo in the tomb at Delphi.

p. 163

Imagine, for instance, a nocturnal ceremony, torchlit. A boy is to be initiated. ... After a time the circle is penetrated by the ghastly white-faced figures of the Titans, man's ancestors. They prowl about the boy, flashing a mirror before his face. ...

p. 164

The origin of man

The Titans are by definition the banished gods, the gods who have gone out of the world. According to Hesiodic tradition they fought a long war against the younger gods ... Proclus in fr. 215 says that [the Titans] were assigned various stations, presumably in Tartarus, and that at the same time Atlas was made to support the earth. Atlas was not one of the fourteen Titans listed in fr. 114, but the poet seems to have taken the opportunity to supply grounds for the heavy task imposed on him, which Hesiod failed to explain.⁸²

He also took the opportunity to account for the origin of mankind. The smoke from the scortched Titans deposits a soot from which man is created (fr. 220, cf. 140, 224). Olympiodorus, who records this as Orpheus' story, goes on to find ...

⁸² Hos association with the Titans also appears in Diod. 3.60, Hyg. Fab. 150, Myth. Vat. 2.53.

pp. 173f.

p. 181

p. 201f.

p. 217

pp. 235f.

p. 246

p. 252

West 1997 [in folder]

Amazon

p. 111

Besides the gods of the present regime there are those of the past. Zeus, Teššub, Marduk, have not always been king: they achieved this position by defeating predecessors who now count for nothing. There is also a collectivity of former gods, now confined somewhere below the earth. They are know to the Greeks as the Titans; Hesiod calls them precisely 'the former gods', πρότεροι θεοί. [Th. 424, 486] They have the same name in Hittite, karuilies siunes, the Former Gods. In Babylonian theology they are the 'dead gods' the Dingiruggû (or ^dUggû).

p. 139

The infernal deities, the Anunnaki, have been imprisoned by Bel in the basement, just as Hesiod's Titans are imprisoned in Tartarus.

[See Anunnaki]

p. 147

In Hellenistic and Roman verse Tethys was to become a handy learned term for the great outer sea, with which Oceanus had become identified, or for the sea in general. In early poetry she is merely an inactive mythological figure who lives with Oceanus and has borne his children. There is, however, one line in the Iliad,

Oceanus the origin of the gods and mother Tethys,

suggesting a myth according to which these two were the first parents of the whole race of gods.¹⁹⁷ This has long been seen as a parallel to the theogony in Enūma eliš, where Apsu and Tiamat, the Sea, appear as primeval parents. The comparison was first made by Mr. Gladstone, in the interval between his third and forth terms as Prime Minister.¹⁹⁸

More recently the question has been raised whether Tethys' name is not actually derived from that of Tiamat.¹⁹⁹ From a philological point of view it seems quite possible. Tiamat's name is a Semitic word for 'sea, the deep', found in masculine and feminine forms. The masculine prototype *tihāmu is represented in Ugaritic thm, Hebrew ...

¹⁹⁷ Il. 14.201 =302, cf. 246.

¹⁹⁸ W. E. Gladstone, Landmarks of Homeric Study, London 1890, 129-32.

¹⁹⁹ Wirth, 43; O. Szemerényi, JHS 94, 1974, 150 = Scr. Min. iii 1447; Burkert (1992), 92. f.

p 148

The possibility that Tiamat's name resounds in Homer lends colour to the suggestion that there is an echo of Apsu's, in the strange epithet apsorrhoos which is applied to Oceanus and to nothing else. The poets no doubt understood it to mean 'flowing back (ἅψ) into itself', though that does not correspond to Hesiod's conception of its flow (Th. 791 f.), and the formation is anomalous, as ἅψ should not become ἅψο- in compound. The word occurs only in the genitive formula ἀψορρόον Ὼκεανοῖο; was this a representation of an *'Αψο, ῥόον Ὼκεανοῖο, 'of Apsu, the stream of Oceanus' (or the stream of the cosmic Basin, or whatever)?

p. 278

Kumarbi

Let us now turn to the Song of [Kumarbi], recorded in its Hittite version some five hundred years before Hesiod.

p. 280

6. After this the storm-god becomes powerful, and there are hostilities between him and Kumarbi/Kronos with their respective allies.

p. 298

The Hittite 'Fomer Gods' (karuilies siunes) corresponds quite closely to the Titans. of whom Hesiod uses the same expression, 'the former gods', πρότεροι θεοί (424, 486). The dwell in the underworld and are shut in there by gates which it is not in their power to open. They were put there by Teššub, as appears from a later passage from the same ritual test:

When the Storm-god drove you down to the Dark Earth, he established this sacrificial offering for you.⁵⁹

Their number and their individual names vary in different texts. They may be seven or nine, but most often they are twelve, the same number as the Titans. Sometimes they come in assonant pairs ...

p. 299

They were identified with the Mesopotamian Anunnaki.⁶¹ ... but later they tended to be contrasted with the Igigi as the gods of the earth and underworld as against those of heaven. In Enūma eliš it is Marduk who divides the six hundred gods between heaven and the lower world, and some later texts speak more explicitly of his confining the Anunnaki below the earth, as well as settling his father ea down in Apsu.⁶² There are various allusions to collectivities of Dead Gods (Dingiruggû), Banished Gods (ilāni darsūti), Defeated (or Bound) Gods (ilāni kamûti), etc.; we hear of seven (or eight) sons of Enmeš arra whom Anu bound in the underworld before being himself bound by Marduk, and who, according to one tradition, were ruled by Dagan.⁶³ Dagan, as we have seen, corresponds to Kumarbi and Kronos. According to a Selecid ritual text, ⁶⁴ the Dead Gods in the underworld are under the watch of Shamash, the Sun, as in the Hittite invocation it is the sun-goddess of earth who has the power to let them out. Perhaps this has something to do with the presence among Hesiod's Titans of Hyperion, who is the father of Helios and whose name may also augment or stand for that of Helios.

West 2007

p. 162

According to several of the mythic traditions that concern us, before the present gods ruled in heaven there was a different set, still known as gods but nolonger active in the world. In Greek myth they are identified as the Titans. Hesiod applies the expression 'the former gods' θεοί πρότεροι (Th. 424, 486). ...

There are egually old or older allusions to 'former gods' (karuilies siunes) in Hittite texts. The Hittites identified them with the infernal gods of the Babylonian pantheon, the Anunnaki, and their image is strongly coloured by Mesopotamian myth mediated through Hurrian culture. The title Former Gods, however, seems to be specifically Hittite, and may therefore be inherited. Like Hesiod's Titans, the karuilies siunes are confined in the underworld by gates which they cannot open. They are sometimes said to be seven or nine in number, but most often twelve like the Titans.

According to a ritual text they were said to have been driven down to the lower world by the Storm-god, the chief deity of the ruling pantheon. In Hesiod's account the Titans are imprisoned at the insistance of Zeus following their defeat in a war [cont.]

Woodard

p. 92

p. 96

The Hittite structure is paralleled in Hesiod's Theogony: two different sorts of divine beings oppose each other — the gods of Mt. Olympus and the Titan gods.

p. 97

On the other hand, there are the Titans. In this same scene, Hesiod identifies [the Titans] as "earth-born" — chthonian — the Titans who will become the denizens of the Netherworld after being vanguished by Zeus. While the etymology of Greek Titēnes [Τιτῆνες] 'Titan' is uncertain, ⁴³ [p. 154 43 On Akkadian titu 'clay' as the possible source of Greek Titēnes, see Burkert (2004) 33-4; (1992) 38, 95.] the idea that they were originally in opposition to the "heavenly" Olympians is common; thus, West writes of the Titans:

There can be no certainty that they were ever worshipped ...⁴⁴ [p. 154 44. West ((1966) 201. ...]