The Twelve Titans

In Greek mythology the Titans (The

elder gods) were a primeval race of
powerful deities, descendants of
Gaea who is Earth and Uranus who is
Sky, that ruled during the legendary
Golden Age and preceded the
Olympians.

They were immortal humongous

beings of incredible stamina and
strength and were also the first
pantheon of Greco-Roman gods and
goddesses .
 GAEA URANU
S
The The
Titans Titanesses
Kronos Mnemosyne
Oceanus Tethys
Crius Theia
Coeus Phoebe
Iapetus Rhea
Hyperion Themis.
GAEA
Gaea, the primordial earth or mother
goddess was one of the deities who
governed the universe before THE TITANS
existed.
She is the mother of everything.
According to one version, Gaea, along with
Chaos and Eros, coexisted during the
creation of the world.
Another version has it that the three of them
were born out of the Cosmic Egg, which
itself was created out of nothingness.
The Greek Historian Hesiod wrote that the union of
Gaea and Chaos created Uranus.

From there Gaea and Uranus gave birth to the

Giants, the Titans, Oceanus and the whole world.

Uranus decided to stop Gaea from creating

anything else and sent his children inside her,
imprisoning them in her womb, therefore
infuriating Gaea and causing her allegiance to her
Titan son Cronus, and together they overthrew
Uranus.
Uranus
He was the embodiment of the sky or
heavens, and known as the god of the
sky.
Uranus was the son and husband of Gaia,
Mother Earth.
In some stories Gaia, who is the mother
of all living things, conceived him without
a father. In others, the father of Uranus is
Aether or CHAOS.
Together, Uranus and Gaia had many offspring,
including the Titans, pre-Olympian gods and goddesses;
the CYCLOPES, the one-eyed giants and the
Hecatoncheires, giants who had fifty heads and one
hundred hands.
There were six male and six female Titans. The males
were Oceanus, CRIUS, Iapetus, HYPERION, CRONUS
and COEUS.
The goddesses were Theia, Rhea, Themis,
Mnemosyne, Phoebe and Tethys.
The Cyclops were Brontes, Steropes and Arges, and
the Hecatoncheires were Cottus, Briareos and
Gyges.
URANUS: The Bad Father
According to myth, Uranus came to Gaia every night and sired
the children upon her, but he disliked all of them. He
considered them threats to his power.
Though his Titan children could be quite beautiful, Uranus was
so repelled by the sight of the Hecatoncheires that he tried to
push them back into Gaias womb, which caused her terrible
pain.
Eventually, Uranus imprisoned the Cyclopes and the
Hecatoncheires in Tartarus, a gloomy place that lay beneath
the Earth or Hades.
This caused Gaia to resent Uranus even more, and she plotted
with her Titan children to at least overthrow him, since Uranus
was immortal and couldnt be killed.
Only her youngest son Cronus agreed to the plot, because he
wanted to replace his father as leader of the gods. Gaia
fashioned a sickle of flint and gave it to him.
One night, when Uranus came to Gaia, his sons ambushed him and held him down
while Cronus used the sickle to castrate him. He threw both the sickle and Uranus
genitals into the sea.
The blood from the mutilation fell on the earth and gave rise to the Gigantes, or
Giants; the ash tree nymphs called the Meliae and the Furies, or the Erinyes. Some
myths claim that the Telchines, gods who settled the isle of Rhodes, were also
born at this time.

The goddess APHRODITE arose from the genitals that were tossed into the sea.

Goddess of love and beauty

 When Uranus was mutilated he called his sons TITANES, or straining ones for
their betrayal and prophesied that Cronus would also be overthrown by his
children.
Cronus (Kronus)
The youngest and most powerful among the Titans.
He was married to Rhea, by whom he became the
father of Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon,
and Zeus. Cheiron is also called a son of Cronus.

He was the King of the Titanes and the god of time,

in particular time when viewed as a destructive, all-
devouring force.

He ruled the cosmos during the Golden Age after

castrating and deposing his father Uranus (Sky).
 In fear of a prophecy that he would in turn be
overthrown by his own son, Kronos swallowed
each of his children as they were born.

Rhea managed to save the youngest, Zeus, by

hiding him away on the island of Crete, and fed
Cronus a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes.

The god grew up, forced Kronos to disgorge his

swallowed offspring, and led the Olympians in
a ten year war against the Titanes (Titans),
driving them in defeat into the pit of Tartarus.
Rhea
She is the mother of the gods, and goddess of female
fertility, motherhood, and generation. (Also, Queen of
Heaven.) Her name means "flow" and "ease.

As the wife of Cronus, she represented the eternal

flow of time and generations; as the great Mother
(Meter Megale), the "flow" was menstrual blood, birth
waters, and milk.
She was also a goddess of comfort and ease, a blessing
reflected in the common Homeric phrase "the gods
who live at their ease (rhea)."
Oceanus
He is god of the great, earth-encircling River
Okeanos, font of all of the earth's fresh-
water - rivers, wells, springs and rain-clouds.

He was also the god who regulated the

heavenly bodies which rose from and set
into his waters.

He was the husband of Tethys (goddess of

the primal font of fresh water which
nourishes the earth.)
Tethys
The goddess of the primal font of fresh water
which nourishes the earth.

The mother of the Potamoi (Rivers), the

Okeanides (nymphs of springs, streams and
fountains), and the Nephelai (Clouds).

Tethys, daughter of Gaia (Earth), wife of

Oceanus, fed her children's springs with the
waters of Okeanos drawn through
(Oceanus and Tethys)
subterranean aquifers.
 Her name was derived from the Greek word tth
meaning "nurse" or "grandmother

In Greek vase painting Tethys appears as an

unremarkable woman accompanied by Eileithyia,
goddess of childbirth, and her fish-tailed husband
Okeanos.

In mosaic art she was depicted with a small pair of

wings on her brow which probably signified her role
of mother of rain-clouds.
Coeus
He is the god of intelligence and foresight,
meaning that, due to his inquisitive mind and
desire to learn, he was with gained knowledge
and understanding able to see beyond the
obvious.

He was also identified as god of wisdom and

heavenly oracles. Coeus was also known as a
Pillar of the north pole from which
constellations revolved and therefore,
controlled the axis between Heaven and Earth.
Crius
He was the god of heavenly constellations and was
also known as a Pillar of the south pole.

Crius, which means "Ram", was often referred as a

starting season of the Greek year, because his
constellation was called Aries which nowadays
means the start of spring.

Together with his other three brothers Coeus,

Hyperion and Iapetus, they presided as the Pillars
of holding Heaven and Earth apart.
Iapetus
He is the god of mortal life span or god of death. He
presided over the timeline of all mortals.

His nickname, "the piercer", actually meant that he

came for a life of mortals in terms of violence. In other
words, when Iapetus decided that one's time had
passed, he brought violent death upon him. He was also
known as a Pillar of west.

Together with his other three brothers Coeus, Hyperion

and Crius they presided as the Pillars of holding Heaven
and Earth apart.
Hyperion
He was the god of light or sunlight and was associated
with watching and observation from above. He was
also known as a Pillar of east.

PILLAR OF EAST:
(Pillars of holding Heaven and Earth apart.)
- Coeus
- Iapetus
- Crius
- Hyperion
Mnemosyne
She was a Titan goddess of memory and
remembrance. She was believed to be the inventors
of speech and writings.

In Hesiod's Theogony, her daughters, the Muses, are

described as the spirits who possessed kings and
poets, whom the gods favored and gave them special
powers of authoritative speech and wisdom.

Was one of the affairs of Zeus.

 Mnemosyne was one of the six daughters of
primeval deities Uranus and Gaea in the first
generation of Titans. Mnemosyne was also
known to be a mother of Muses and
represented the memorization of stories and
myths preserved in history before the discovery
of writing.

Mnemosyne dwelled over the hills of Eleuther

(in Pieria, near Mount Olympus) where Zeus
came to live with her for nine nights, away from
other immortal gods. Together in those nine
nights they gave birth to nine Muses.
 The Nine Muses:
1. Calliope - muse of epic poetry was believed to have possessed
Homer and gave him inspiration for the Odyssey and the Iliad.
2. Clio - muse of history. She is usually depicted of holding an
open scroll or is seated beside a chest of books.
3. Erato - muse of love and erotic poetry. Most of the time she is
depicted playing a kithara or a lyre, but in some cases she is
shown with a wreath of myrtle and roses.
4. Euterpe - muse of music. She is often depicted sitting on a
chair and playing her double flute.
5. Melpomene - muse of tragedy. However, she was originally a
muse of singing and dancing which came from her name
6. Polyhymnia - muse of sacred hymns. She is depicted as serious or
meditative, often standing, wearing long cloak and supporting her arm with a
part of the cloak.

7. Terpsichore - muse of dancing. Usually, she is depicted in a sitting position

and playing a lyre with her special plectrum. She is also mentioned to be the
mother of Sirens.

8. Thalia - muse of comedy. Most of the time, she is depicted holding a comic
mask in her hand and wearing a cloak and a crown made of ivy.

9. Urania - muse of astronomy. She is depicted with a globe in her hand. Urania
was believed to be able of foretell the future by arrangement of the stars and
is often associated with Universal Love and the Holy Spirit.
Theia
She was a Titan goddess of shining, associated with
shining light, shining metals or jewels.

Her other name Euryphaessa means "wide-shining" and

therefore she was connected with all that is shining.

She was also a goddess of sight, because ancient Greeks

believed that eyes emitted beams of light which allowed
them to see what they looked upon. Theia was also, like
her sisters Phoebe and Themis, associated with
prophecies. She had a shrine in Thessaly.
Themis
She was a was a Titan goddess of divine law and
order. She was a messenger of the very first rules of
conduct, established by the elder gods.

Her ability to foresee the future enabled her to

become one of the oracles at Delphi, which in turn
led to her establishment as the goddess of divine
justice.

Her place was at the Oracle of Delphi where she was

one of the early prophets, second more precisely,
according to Aeschylus.
Blindfolded = she can see the future.

Balance = Impartiality
In a role of divine voice (themistes), she first
instructed the primal laws of justice and morality
to mankind. Some of these were precepts of piety,
rules of hospitality, good governance, conduct of
assembly and various offerings to gods. Themis
was also known to be a counsellor of Zeus,
advising the king of gods on the conduct of men.

Alongside her daughter Dike (justice), she would

have reported to Zeus, if the primal laws had been
breached by anyone. She is also said to had, on
Zeus` orders, gathered all the gods to the
Sword = authority
assembly on Olympus during Trojan war.
Phoebe
She was a Titan goddess of prophetic radiance, often
associated with Selene (goddess of the moon).

She, however, had never been referred as the goddess

of the moon. The misinterpretation probably comes
because her granddaughter Artemis was also called
Phoebe, after her, just like her grandson Apollo was
called Phoebus.

She became the third prophet at the Oracle of Delphi,

where she was believed to have heard her mother's
voices. Her predecessors were Gaea and Themis.
 Phoebe was rather associated with being prophetic,
like her sister Themis and her mother Gaea.

She was also one of the twelve titans who were the
descendants of Uranus and Gaea.

She was, like all of her sisters, never involved in the

war between Titans and Olympian gods, and was
spared from being imprisoned in Tartarus. Instead,
she took her place at the oracle of Delphi.

Phoebe consorted with her brother Coeus, with

whom she had two daughters. One of the daughters,
called Leto.
 !!!
(THE END)