Titanomachy

Titanomachy is the mythic war in Greek mythology between the Titans, led by Cronus, and the Olympian gods, led by Zeus, for control of the cosmos. The conflict marks the transition from the older generation of deities to the younger Olympians and is traditionally placed in the early mythic era. In Hesiod’s account, it lasts ten years and ends with the defeat of the Titans and the establishment of the Olympian order. The Titans held Mount Othrys as a stronghold, while the Olympians took Mount Olympus as their seat of power.

Cronus had previously overthrown his own father, Uranus, and ruled with Rhea. To challenge Cronus, Zeus frees his siblings from Cronus’s stomach with the help of Gaia and Uranus’s prophecy. He also releases two groups from Tartarus—the Cyclopes and the Hecatonchires. The Cyclopes forge Zeus’s thunderbolts, and the Hecatonchires contribute with their hundred-handed might in the battles that decide the outcome. After a protracted struggle, the Olympians prevail and cast the Titans into Tartarus, where they are guarded by the Hecatonchires, or, in some traditions, scattered and imprisoned.

The victory establishes Zeus as king of the gods, with Poseidon ruling the sea and Hades the underworld. Atlas, a Titan who supported the Titans, is said in some versions to bear the heavens on his shoulders as punishment. Titanomachy thus explains the rise of the Olympian pantheon and the subsequent cosmic order in Greek myth. Primary sources include Hesiod’s Theogony, with later elaborations by mythographers such as Apollodorus.