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TWELVE ORIGINAL TITANS
In Greek mythology, any of the children of Uranus and
Gaea and their descendants. There were 12 original
Titans.The Titans were best known for their war against the
Olympian gods. Many of these gods were captive within the
stomach of their father, Cronus. After Zeus, king of the
Olympian gods, freed his siblings the war with the Titans
began. After ten long years of battle Zeus asked Gaia
for help. She told him to release the Cyclops and the
hundred-handed ones. This led to Crius and the other
Titans losing the long war.
The eldest of the Titans, Cronus and his four
brothers - Krios, Koios, Hyperion and
Iapetos, were imprisoned after the War in the stormy
pit of Tartarus, deep beneath the roots of the earth. Many
of the younger Titan gods however had allied themselves with
Zeus and so retained their divine portions under the new
regime. Some of these later proved rebellious and were
sentenced to other harsh punishments, such as Atlas,
the heaven-bearer, and Prometheus. |
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The female Titans (Titanides) remained neutral in
the War, and mostly retained their positions as great
prophetic goddesses, readers of time, or passed their divine
privileges down to their children and descendants in the new
regime. Several of these were consorts of Zeus who received
a place on Mount Olympus as mothers of the younger gods.
The twelve Titans were grouped in pairs, or couples;
they included Oceanus and Tethys, Hyperion and Theia, Coeus and
Phoebe, Cronus and Rhea and four separate gods: Mnemosyne, Themis,
Crius and Iapetus.
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COEUS: Titan of Intelligence. Father of Leto. |
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CRIUS (KRIOS): The Titan god of the heavenly
constellations and the measurement of the year. His was
the constellation Aries, the heavenly ram (which
the Greeks called Krios), whose spring rising
marked the beginning of the new year, and in whose wake
the other constellations were said to follow. Krios was
one of the four brother Titans who held their father
fast, whilst Cronus castrated him with a sickle. He was
later cast into the Tartarean pit by Zeus, which was
probably used to explain why his constellation shone so
dim: the faintest in all the heavens. Krios was
sometimes also named as a leader of the Gigantes,
apparently the troops of the Titan gods in some
accounts.
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CRONUS (KRONOS): The ruling Titan who came to power
by castrating his father Uranus. His wife was
Rhea. There offspring were the first of the
Olympians. To insure his safety Cronus ate each of the
children as they were born. This worked until Rhea,
unhappy at the loss of her children, tricked Cronus into
swallowing a rock, instead of Zeus. When he grew up Zeus
would revolt against Cronus and the other Titans, defeat
them, and banish them to Tartarus in the underworld.
Cronus managed to escape to Italy, where he ruled as
Saturn. The period of his rule was said to be a golden
age on earth, honored by the Saturnalia feast.
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HYPERION: The Titan of light, the father of the
sun, the moon, and the dawn.
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IAPETUS: The father of Prometheus,
Epimetheus, and Atlas. |
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MNEMOSYNE: The Titan of memory and the mother of
Muses. |
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OCEANUS: Oceanus is the unending stream of water
encircling the world. Together with his wife Tethys
they produced the rivers and the three thousand ocean
nymphs.
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PHOEBE: Titan of the Moon. Mother of Leto. |
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RHEA: The wife of Cronus. Cronus made it a practice
to swallow their children. To avoid this, Rhea tricked
Cronus into swallowing a rock, saving her son Zeus.
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TETHYS: The wife of Oceanus. Together they
produced the rivers and the three thousand ocean nymphs.
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THEA: Married her brother Hyperion. She gave
birth to Helios the sun, Eos the dawn and
Selene the moon. She also appears to have
produced a troop of trickster monkeys called the
Cercopes.
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THEMIS: The Titan of justice and order. She was the
mother of the Fates and the Seasons.
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Even from a
foe a man may learn wisdom.
Greek Proverb
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