Hesiod, Theogony, line 1
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THE TITANES were six elder gods named Kronos , Koios , Krios , Iapetos , Hyperion and Okeanos , ons of Ouranos (Sky) and Gaia (Earth), who ruled the cosmos before the Olympians came to power. When their father was king he imprisoned six giant brothers of the Titanes--the Kyklopes and Hekatonkheires --in the belly of Earth. Gaia was incensed and incited her Titan sons to rebel. Led by Kronos, five of the six brothers, laid an ambush for their father, seizing hold of him as he descended to lie upon Earth. Four of them--Hyperion, Krios, Koios and Iapetos--were posted at the four corners of the earth to hold Sky fast, while Kronos in the centre castrated him with an adamantine sickle. After they had seized control of the cosmos, the Titanes released their storm giant brothers from Gaia's belly, only to lock them away shortly afterwards in the pit of Tartaros.
TITANS : TITANES
OKEANOS (or Oceanus) was the Titan god or Protogenos (primeval deity) of the great earth-encircling river Okeanos , the font of all the earth's fresh-water: including rivers, wells, springs and rain-clouds. Okeanos was also the god who regulated the rising and setting of the heavenly bodies which were believed to emerge and descend into his watery realm at the ends of the earth. Okeanos' wife was Tethys , the nurse, who was probably thought to distribute his water to the earth via subterranean caverns. Their children were the Potamoi or River-Gods and Okeanides , nymphs of springs and fountains. Unlike his brother Titanes, Okeanos neither participated in the castration of Ouranos nor joined the battle against the younger Olympian gods. He was probably identical to Ophion , an elder Titan in the Orphic myths who ruled heaven briefly before being wrestled and cast into the Ocean stream by Kronos .
OCEANUS : OKEANOS
OPHION was the first of the Titan gods to rule Olympos. However, he was overthrown by Kronos , who wrestled him for the throne and cast him down defeated into the Ocean-Stream . At the same time Ophion's wife Eurynome was wrestled and cast down by Rheia . Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 1. 498 ff (trans. Rieu) (Greek epic C3rd B.C.) : "He [Orpheus] sang of . . . how, in the beginning, Ophion and Eurynome, daughter of Okeanos, governed the world from snow-clad Olympos; how they were forcibly supplanted, Ophion by Kronos, Eurynome by Rhea; of their fall into the waters of Okeanos; and how their successors ruled the happy Titan gods."
OPHION (Orphic)
HYPERION
HYPERION was the Titan god of light, one of the sons of Ouranos (Heaven) and Gaia (Earth), and the father of the lights of heaven--Eos the Dawn, Helios the Sun, and Selene the Moon. His wife was Theia, lady of the aither--the shining blue of the sky. Hyperion's name means "watcher from above" or "he who goes above" from the greek words hyper and iôn . Hyperion was one of the four Titan brothers who conspired with Kronos in the castration of their father Ouranos. When Sky descended to lie with Earth, Hyperion, Krios, Koios and Iapetos--posted at the four corners of the world--seized hold of their father and held him fast while Kronos castrated him with a sickle. In this myth these four Titanes personify the great pillars which appear in Near-Eastern cosmogonies holding heaven and earth apart, or else the entire cosmos aloft.
Sacred-Texts Classics Hesiod Greek translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White (ll. 1-25) From the Heliconian Muses let us begin to sing, who hold the great and holy mount of Helicon, and dance on soft feet about the deep-blue spring and the altar of the almighty son of Cronos, and, when they have washed their tender bodies in Permessus or in the Horse's Spring or Olmeius, make their fair, lovely dances upon highest Helicon and move with vigorous feet.
The Theogony of Hesiod
From the Heliconian Muses let us begin to sing, who hold the great and holy mount of Helicon, and dance on soft feet about the deep-blue spring and the altar of the almighty son of Cronos, [5] and, when they have washed their tender bodies in Permessus or in the Horse's Spring or Olmeius, make their fair, lovely dances upon highest Helicon and move with vigorous feet.
Hesiod, Theogony, line 1
ref: people, places & things
Note this entire site has moved to http://messagenetcommresearch.com. Please update your links to us to use this new web address. Thank you! > People, Places, & Things My goal is to create a comprehensive on-line dictionary of all things dealing with Ancient Greece, to create an electronic resource that will be accurate and easy to use. Your suggestions, comments and criticisms are very welcome.
history: The Last Tyrant
Note this entire site has moved to http://messagenetcommresearch.com. Please update your links to us to use this new web address. Thank you! > > The Last Tyrant The last tyrant of ancient Greece was the Athenian, Pisistratus (Peisistratus).
Protogenoi
The first born of the immortals, who formed the very fabric of the universe, were known in Greek mythology as the Protogenoi ( protos meaning "first," and genos "born"). They were, for the most part, purely elemental beings - Uranus was the literal sky, Gaea the body of the earth, etc. A few of them were ocassionally described or portrayed in anthropomorphic form, however these forms were inevitably inseperable from their native element. For example Gaea or Thalassa might appear as a woman half risen from the earth or sea. AETHER (Aither) The Protogenos of the mists of light which fill the upper zones of air.
PHANES was the Protogenos (primeval god) of procreation in the Orphic cosmogony. He was the primal generator of life, the driving force behind reproduction in the early cosmos. Phanes was hatched from the world egg (the primordial mixture of elements) when it was split into its constituent parts by the ancient gods Khronos (Time) and Ananke (Inevitability). Phanes was the first king of the universe, who passed the royal sceptre on to his daughter Nyx (Night),who in turn handed it down to her son Ouranos (Heaven). From him it was first seized by Kronos (Time), and then by Zeus, the ultimate ruler of the cosmos. Some say Zeus devoured Phanes in order to assume his primal cosmic power and redistribute it amongst a new generation of gods--the Olympians which he sired.