How many titans are in greek mythology

She took her son the sky, Uranus, as her husband, and with him, she mothered the twelve Titans, the very first gods and goddesses, taller than the mountains they used as thrones.

However, Uranus was disgusted by their next children, the three cyclopes and three monstrous sons, each with fifty heads and one hundred arms, and he threw them into Tartarus, the underworld prison of suffering. Yet Gaea loved all of her children, and she could not forgive Uranus for his cruelty. She made a diamond sickle for her youngest son, Cronus, and with it he defeated his father.

Gaea later married her son Pontus, the ocean , and the Titans took charge of the universe. They were the ancestors or parents of most of the twelve Olympians discussed here below, though it was through their children that they too were eventually overthrown. The eldest of the Titans, Oceanus was married to his sister Tethys. Together the two produced over spirits of the oceans and streams, known as the Oceanids. In fact, Oceanus and Tethys were far too fertile, and their union began to cause floods so they divorced to stop all the damage they were causing.

He gave over his realm to Poseidon after the rise of the Olympians, but Zeus allowed him to continue to live as a simple god of the ocean. When Cronus became paranoid and his wife, Rhea, wished to protect her children, she brought Hera to her sister Tethys who raised her as her daughter. Later, as a favor to Hera, Tethys punished Callisto and Arcas, a lover and child of Zeus, by forbidding their constellations from touching the sea.

They were forced to continuously circle the sky without rest. We know those constellations as Ursa Major and Ursa Minor , or the big and little dippers.

Hyperion was the Titan god of light, wisdom, and vigilance. He married his sister Thea, and they gave birth to Helios, the sun , Selene, the moon , and Eos, the dawn. Hyperion and three of his other brothers, Coeus, Crius, and Iapetus, formed the four pillars that separated and held the heavens above one another. According to one of the more horrifying Greek traditions, the same four pillars pinned their father down while Cronus castrated Uranus with his sickle.

Thea, the goddess of light, was also a ravishing beauty, perhaps the loveliest of the six Titan daughters. She was the goddess of light, and therefore the perfect match for her brother, Hyperion.

She also imbued gold, silver, and precious gems with their radiant shine, and spoke through an oracle at Phthiotis in Thessaly.

Coeus was the keeper of the pillar of the north. He was the Titan god of intellect, and married his sister Phoebe. Their children, Asteria and Leto, were foundational figures in later mythology. Both daughters were pursued by Zeus. Asteria turned into a quail and drowned herself in the Aegean Sea, but Leto bore Zeus two children, the twins Apollo and Artemis who became powerful Olympians. Phoebe also had some association with the moon, as did Artemis. Her most integral power was that of prophecy, and she was heavily associated with the famous Oracle at Delphi , later connected to Apollo.

Crius or Krios married his half-sister, Eurybia, who was not one of the original twelve Titans but the daughter of Gaea from her second husband, Pontus. They produced three children, Astraios, the god of dusk , Pallas, god of Warcraft , and Perses, the god of destruction. The goddess of memory and the voice of the underground Oracle of Trophonios in Boetia, Mnemosyne did not marry one of her brothers but still helped mother the next generation of deities.

She slept with Zeus for nine consecutive days, and as a result, gave birth to the nine muses; Calliope, Clio, Erato, Euterpe, Melpomeni, Polymnia, Ourania, Terpsichore and Thalia whose roles were to give artists and philosophers inspiration for creation. The Titan Iapetus was the god of craftsmanship or mortality , varying between sources. He married one of his Oceanid nieces, Clymene, and they produced four sons, Atlas, Prometheus, Epimetheus, and Menoetius.

These four sons were the ancestors of the first humans, and each passed a certain detrimental quality onto humanity; brash courage, scheming, stupidity, and violence, respectively.

The Titan goddess Themis represented natural and moral order and law. In the Greek mythology, the Titans were a race of powerful giant deities bigger than the gods who would replace them that ruled during the legendary and long Golden Age. Their role as Elder gods being overthrown by a race of younger gods, the Olympians led by Zeus , effected a mythological paradigm shift that the Greeks borrowed from the Ancient Near East.

There are twelve Titans: six male Titans and six females Titans, known as the Titanesses. The Titans were associated with various primal concepts, some of which are simply extrapolated from their names: ocean and fruitful earth, sun and moon, memory and natural law. The twelve Titans were ruled by the youngest, Kronos , who overthrew their father, Ouranos , to appease their mother, Gaia. The Titans preceded the Twelve Olympians, who, led by Zeus , eventually overthrew them in the Titanomachy.

The Titans were imprisoned in Tartaros , the deepest part of the underworld ruled by Hades , with the few exceptions such as Okeanos , most being those who did not fight against Kronos. Greek Mythology Wiki Explore.