Titanomachy

In Greek mythology, the Titanomachy (/ˌtaɪtəˈnɒməki/; Ancient Greek: Τιτανομαχία, lit. 'battle of Titans') was a ten-year war fought in ancient Thessaly, consisting of most of the Titans (the older generation of gods, based on Mount Othrys) fighting against the Olympians (the younger generations, who would come to reign on Mount Olympus) and their allies. This event is also known as the War of the Titans, Battle of the Titans, Battle of the Gods, or just the Titan War.^{[citation needed]} The war was fought to decide which generation of gods would have dominion over the universe; it ended in victory for the Olympian gods.

Greeks of the classical age knew of several poems about the war between the gods and many of the Titans. The dominant one, and the only one that has survived, is the Theogony attributed to Hesiod. The Titans also played a prominent role in the poems attributed to Orpheus. Although only scraps of the Orphic narratives survive, they show differences from the Hesiodic tradition.

The stage for the Titanomachy was set after the youngest Titan Cronus overthrew his own father, Uranus (Οὐρανός, the sky and ruler of the cosmos), with the help of his mother, Gaia (Γαῖα, the earth).

Uranus drew the enmity of Gaia when he imprisoned six of her children — the three Hecatonchires (giants with 50 heads and 100 arms) and the three Cyclopes (also giants, each with a single eye in the middle of its forehead) — within her womb. Gaia created a great sickle, forged from adamantine, and hid it in a crevice on Mount Othrys. Gaia then proceeded to attempt to convince 12 of her other children from Uranus, who were known as the Titans, to castrate Uranus. Only Cronus was willing to do the deed, so Gaia gave him the adamantine sickle and positioned him in the same crevice that previously held his sickle.

When Uranus met to consort with Gaia on Mount Othrys, Cronus ambushed Uranus, and with the adamantine sickle, sliced off his genitals, casting them across the Mediterranean. After doing so, Cronus freed the imprisoned Hecatonchires and Cyclopes, by slicing open Gaia's womb and promptly imprisoned them in Tartarus. Cronus also quickly imprisoned Uranus deep below Tartarus. In doing this, he took his father's title of ruler of the cosmos and then secured his power by forcing his siblings to bow down to his will. But Uranus cursed Cronus so that Cronus's own children would rebel against his rule, just as Cronus had rebelled against his own father. Uranus' blood that had spilled upon the earth gave rise to the Gigantes, Erinyes, and Meliae. From the mixture of blood and semen from his mutilated genitalia, Aphrodite arose from the sea where they landed in Cyprus.

...so soon as he had cut off the members with flint and cast them from the land into the surging sea, they were swept away over the main a long time: and a white foam spread around them from the immortal flesh, and in it there grew a maiden..."

Cronus, paranoid of Uranus's curse and fearing the end of his rule, now turned into the tyrant his father Uranus had once been, swallowing each of his children whole as they were born from his sister-wife Rhea. Rhea, who began to resent Cronus, managed to hide her youngest newborn child Zeus, by tricking Cronus into swallowing a magnetite rock, given to her by her mother Gaia, wrapped in a blanket instead. Rhea brought Zeus to a cave in Crete, where he was raised by Amalthea and the Meliae. Rhea's attendants, the warrior-like Kouretes and Dactyls, acted as bodyguards for Zeus, helping to conceal his whereabouts from his father.

Once Zeus reached adulthood, the Oceanid Metis gave Cronus an emetic, which caused him to vomit out his swallowed children, now fully grown. After freeing his siblings, as well as the Hecatonchires and Cyclopes, Zeus led them in a war against the Titans.