The Titanomachy

What Led To It

The war's roots lie in Kronos's own rise to power. He had overthrown his father Ouranos at Gaia's urging and taken the throne of the cosmos for himself. The births that led to that throne, from Chaos to Ouranos's fall, are told in Creation from Chaos. He then learned from Gaia and the dying Ouranos that a son of his own was fated to overthrow him in turn, exactly as he had overthrown his father. To stop that prophecy from having anyone left to fulfill it, Kronos swallowed each child Rhea bore him as soon as it was born. Rhea, helped by Gaia, hid her sixth child, Zeus, on Crete and gave Kronos a stone wrapped in cloth to swallow in his place. Zeus grew to adulthood in secret. He then forced Kronos to disgorge the stone and, after it, his five swallowed children, who emerged alive and in reverse order. Zeus led those freed siblings into the war against their own father.

The Myth

For the first ten years, neither side could force the war to a decision. Hesiod's Theogony describes the two armies fighting continually with bitter wrath, the issue hanging evenly balanced the whole time. Kronos and the other Titans held one side. Zeus and his freed Olympian siblings held the other, neither able to break the deadlock through strength alone.

Zeus broke it by going to Tartarus rather than the battlefield. Ouranos had once imprisoned his own monstrous children there out of jealousy at their size and strength. Among them were the three Cyclopes and the three Hundred-Handers - Cottus, Briareus and Gyges, each with a hundred arms. Zeus freed them and brought their strength into the war. The Cyclopes forged his thunderbolt, the weapon that would become his signature. The Hundred-Handers raised fierce fighting of their own, launching three hundred rocks at once and overshadowing the Titans with missiles. Between the thunderbolt and that barrage, the ten-year stalemate finally gave way.

Defeat did not fall equally on every Titan. Most of the males who had fought were bound in bitter chains beneath the earth, as far down as the heavens stand above it, with the freed Hundred-Handers set to guard them behind bronze gates. Atlas, son of the Titan Iapetus, received an individual sentence instead: to stand at the western edge of the world, holding up the sky itself. Prometheus, Iapetus's other son, took the Olympians' side rather than his own family's. His own conflict with Zeus, over fire and the treatment of humanity, still lay ahead of him as a separate story. The Titanesses were not described as punished at all. Several, including Rhea, continued to appear active in later myth and cult alongside the Olympians who had just defeated their brothers.

What Followed

The Titans' defeat did not immediately settle who ruled what. Homer has Poseidon describe how he, Zeus and Hades divided the world between them afterward by drawing lots. Zeus won the sky, Poseidon the sea, and Hades the world below, with earth and Olympus left common to all three. Nor did the Titanomachy end every challenge to the new order. Zeus's rule was tested again later, separately, by Typhon and by the war Greek tradition calls the Gigantomachy, against Gaia's other monstrous children. Kronos's own fate afterward is not settled the same way twice: Hesiod's own poem leaves him bound in Tartarus with the other defeated Titans, but a later, softer tradition instead has Zeus release him to rule over the Isles of the Blessed.

Where Accounts Differ

• kronos-fate-after-the-war

• Hesiod's Theogony leaves Kronos imprisoned in Tartarus with the other defeated Titans; a later, softer tradition instead has Zeus release him to rule over the Isles of the Blessed. This entry follows Hesiod's own ending and records the later variant rather than resolving the disagreement.

Mythology

• Mythology Greek Mythology

Figures In This Myth

• Character Kronos
• Character Zeus
• Character Rhea
• Character Gaia
• Character Ouranos
• Character Atlas
• Character Prometheus
• Character Poseidon
• Character Hades

Related Terms

• Term Titan
• Term Tartarus
• Term Golden Age

Referenced By

• Term Giants
• Topic Titans, Primordials and Creation

Sources