The Titanomachy is one of the pivotal moments of Greek Religion. It was the point in time when one generation of Gods, the Titans, were replaced with another, the Olympians.
The word Titanomachy effectively means the War of the Titans and it was a 10-year war fought through a number of battles between the two enemies. Unfortunately details of the war do not survive into the modern day, and the only reference point today comes from the Theogony of Hesiod.
Background of the Titanomachy
Prior to the Titans, the cosmos was ruled by Ouranos (Sky), one of the Protogenoi. Yet, Ouranos did not feel safe in his position of power, so he imprisoned his own children, the Hecatonchires and the Cyclopes.This angered Gaia, his wife, who then plotted with another group of Ouranos’ children, the Titans.They did overthrow him, but the new ruler, Cronos, abstained from restoring justice, and shut his brethren up in the same dark depth again. Revolt breeds revolt in ever swifter succession, and that may be the reason why both Gaia and Uranus foretold Cronos that in turn he would be dethroned by his own son.
Cronos would then seek to circumvent the prophecy by swallowing his children, born to Rhea,and imprisoning them into his stomach; and in this way Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades and Poseidon were swallowed. A sixth child of Cronus, Zeus, would have followed but Rhea and Gaia managed to hide Him to a cave on Mount Ida on Crete.She had given Cronos a stone wrapped in clothes to swallow,tricking him into thinking that he had eaten young Zeus.
When the young Zeus grew up, He asked Metis to help Him against His father; and She gave Cronos a drug that forced him to disgorge first the stone, and then the children he had previously swallowed. After all of Zeus's siblings had been rescued, it was time for Them to wage war against Cronos and the Titans. So Styx came first to Olympus, and together with Her children rallied to His side. This is why Zeus granted Her special honours, and appointed her to be the great oath of the Gods, and her children Nike, Zelos, Cratos, and Bia, to live near Him always.
The Titans fought from Mount Othrys, and the Gods from Mount Olympus, but after ten years of continuous fight, the issue of the war hung evenly balanced. It was then that Gaia prophesied that Zeus would win the war, if He took as allies all those who had been locked up to Tartarus- namely, the Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires. Cronos had imprisoned the Hecatoncheires because he was jealous of their manhood and comeliness, as they say. He made them live beneath the earth, being set to dwell under the ground for a long time and with great suffering. But Zeus and His brothers decided to bring them up again at Gaia's advising and freed them. Zeus then provided the Hecantoncheires with nectar and ambrosia, and their spirit revived. Then he addresed them:
"Hear me, bright children of Earth and Heaven, 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 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." (Zeus to the Hecatoncheires. Hesiod, Theogony 645).
The Cyclopes gave Zeus His emblematic weapons- the thunderbolt and the lightning , with which the God struck the Titan Menoetius,who was the brother of Atlas and Prometheus. The Cyclopes also gave Hades a helmet which made Him invisible, and Poseidon received His famous Trident from them.
The war
It is told that during this great war the sea rang terribly, the earth crashed loudly, heaven was shaken, and Olympus reeled from its foundation: The Hecatoncheires held huge rocks with their hundred arms, and Zeus hurled His lightning, while the earth burned and the woods crakled with fire. The streams of Ocean seethed, and the vapor lapped round the Titans. A huge flame rose to the upper air, and that the glare of thunderstone and lightining blinded the eyes of Zeus' enemies. And it is said that heat seized Chaos, and that it seemed as if earth and heaven came together in a mighty crash, amid earthquakes and dust storms. The Hecantoncheires overshadowed the Titans with the many rocks that their hundred arms hurled at them, and having defeated them, they chained them into the depths of Tartarus, deep within the ground. greatest depths of the earth- the distance between the prison of the Titans and the surface of the Earth is equal to the distance between the earth and the sky. Around Tartarus, there is a bronze fence that even the Gods abhor.
Two TITANS who sided with Zeus
The Titaness Themis sided with Zeus because She knew that intelligence would prevail in this battle and not brute force. Prometheus followed Her example. However, after the war, when Zeus had Prometheus chained for having given fire to mortals, He lamented his choice:
"Thus I helped the tyrant of the gods and with this foul payment he has responded; for it is a disease that is somehow inherent in tyranny to have no faith in friends." (Prometheus 1. Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 225).
The victors divide the spoil
Zeus appointed the Hecantoncheires to guard the imprisoned Titans , and in time Poseidon gave to the Hecantoncheir Briareus His daughter Cymopolea as a wife. Having won , the Gods cast lots for the sovereignty; to Zeus the dominion of the sky was alloted, Poseidon got the dominion of the sea, and Hades took the dominion of the Underworld. It is also told that, as time went by, Zeus issued an amnesty and set the Titans free, except for Atlas, who still holds the sky. There is also a tradition which says that the Titans, encouraged by Hera who was jealous on account of Io, once tried to climb to Olympus and restore Cronos back on the throne; however, Zeus aided by Athena, Apollo, and Artemis, cast them back to Tartarus. Since Atlas was the leader of this action, Zeus punished him ,by making him hold the sky.
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