In Greek mythology , Inachus, Inachos or Inakhos ( Ancient Greek : Ἴναχος) was the first king of Argos after whom a river was called Inachus River , that drains the western margin of the Argive plain .
101-508: For modern scholars, Inachus is the most ancient god or hero of Argos. Various ancient authors describe Inachus as being one of the river gods born of Titans Oceanus and Tethys , and thus to the Greeks, was part of the pre-Olympian or " Pelasgian " mythic landscape. In Greek iconography, Walter Burkert notes, the rivers are represented in the form of a bull with a human head or face . Although these myths have been passed down since then, one of
202-499: A chorus composed of freed Titans. Possibly even earlier than Pindar and Aeschylus, two papyrus versions of a passage of Hesiods' Works and Days also mention Cronus being released by Zeus, and ruling over the heroes who go to the Isle of the Blessed; but other versions of Hesiod's text do not, and most editors judge these lines of text to be later interpolations. It is generally accepted that
303-560: A country", an ethnos created in the Epic tradition , has modern supporters among those who conclude that "Achaeans" were redefined in the 5th century BC, as contemporary speakers of Aeolic Greek . Karl Beloch suggested there was no Dorian invasion, but rather that the Peloponnesian Dorians were the Achaeans. Eduard Meyer , disagreeing with Beloch, instead put forth the suggestion that
404-572: A daughter, Libya, by her. And Io, lamenting her ruin, fled to the Silpion Mountain and there died. Her father and her brothers, when they learned this, built a shrine to her and called the place Iopolis and remained there until the end. And they performed a ritual in her memory, banging on each other's doors every year and saying 'io, io!'. Sophocles wrote an Inachos , probably a satyr play , which survives only in some papyrus fragments found at Oxyrhyncus and Tebtunis , Egypt ; in it Inachos
505-458: A goddess. In the account of Diodorus Siculus , after Io's disappearance, Inachus sent forth Cyrnus , one of his men in high command, fitting him out with a considerable fleet, and ordered him to hunt for Io in every region and not to return unless he had got possession of her. And Cyrnus, after having wandered over many parts of the inhabited world without being able to find her, put ashore in Caria on
606-540: A huge stone wrapped in baby's clothes which he swallowed thinking that it was another of Rhea's children. Zeus, now grown, forced Cronus (using some unspecified trickery of Gaia) to disgorge his other five children. Zeus then released his uncles the Cyclopes (apparently still imprisoned beneath the earth, along with the Hundred-Handers, where Uranus had originally confined them) who then provide Zeus with his great weapon,
707-607: A hypothetical older Greek form reflected in the Hittite form Aḫḫiyawā ; the latter is attested in the Hittite archives, e.g. in the Tawagalawa letter . However, Robert S. P. Beekes doubted its validity and suggested a Pre-Greek *Akay a- . In Homer , the term Achaeans is one of the primary terms used to refer to the Greeks as a whole. It is used 598 times in the Iliad , often accompanied by
808-565: A key role in an important part of Greek mythology, the succession myth. It told how the Titan Cronus , the youngest of the Titans, overthrew Uranus , and how in turn Zeus, by waging and winning a great ten-year war pitting the new gods against the old gods, called the Titanomachy ("Titan war"), overthrew Cronus and his fellow Titans, and was eventually established as the final and permanent ruler of
909-499: A list of the cities and regions of the Tanaju is also mentioned in this inscription; among the cities listed are Mycenae, Nauplion , Kythera , Messenia and the Thebaid (region of Thebes ). During the 5th year of Pharaoh Merneptah , a confederation of Libyan and northern peoples is supposed to have attacked the western delta. Included amongst the ethnic names of the repulsed invaders is
1010-532: A nation to the west called Ahhiyawa ( Hittite : 𒄴𒄭𒅀𒉿 Aḫḫiyawa ). In the earliest reference to this land, a letter outlining the treaty violations of the Hittite vassal Madduwatta , it is called Ahhiya . Another important example is the Tawagalawa Letter written by an unnamed Hittite king (most probably Hattusili III ) of the empire period (14th–13th century BC) to the king of Ahhiyawa , treating him as an equal and implying Miletus ( Millawanda )
1111-717: A result of this war, the vanquished Titans were banished from the upper world and held imprisoned under guard in Tartarus . Some Titans were apparently allowed to remain free. According to Hesiod , the Titan offspring of Uranus and Gaia were Oceanus , Coeus , Crius , Hyperion , Iapetus , Theia , Rhea , Themis , Mnemosyne , Phoebe , Tethys , and Cronus . Eight of the Titan brothers and sisters married each other: Oceanus and Tethys, Coeus and Phoebe, Hyperion and Theia, and Cronus and Rhea. The other two Titan brothers married outside their immediate family. Iapetus married his niece Clymene ,
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#17328558266461212-544: A similar fashion, in the Iliad , Hera, upon swearing an oath by the underworld river Styx , "invoked by name all the gods below Tartarus, that are called Titans" as witnesses. They were the older gods, but not, apparently, as was once thought, the old gods of an indigenous group in Greece, historically displaced by the new gods of Greek invaders. Rather, they were a group of gods, whose mythology at least, seems to have been borrowed from
1313-464: A succession of kings in heaven: Anu (Sky), Kumarbi , and the storm-god Teshub , with many striking parallels to Hesiod's account of the Greek succession myth. Like Cronus, Kumarbi castrates the sky-god Anu, and takes over his kingship. And like Cronus, Kumarbi swallows gods (and a stone?), one of whom is the storm-god Teshub, who like the storm-god Zeus, is apparently victorious against Kumarbi and others in
1414-772: A thirteenth Titan, Dione , the mother of Aphrodite by Zeus. Plato's inclusion of Phorkys, apparently, as a Titan, and the mythographer Apollodorus 's inclusion of Dione , suggests an Orphic tradition in which the canonical twelve Titans consisted of Hesiod's twelve with Phorkys and Dione taking the place of Oceanus and Tethys. The Roman mythographer Hyginus , in his somewhat confused genealogy, after listing as offspring of Aether (Upper Sky) and Earth (Gaia), Ocean [Oceanus], Themis, Tartarus, and Pontus, next lists "the Titans", followed by two of Hesiod's Hundred-Handers : Briareus and Gyges, one of Hesiod's three Cyclopes : Steropes, then continues his list with Atlas, Hyperion and Polus, Saturn [Cronus], Ops [Rhea], Moneta , Dione, and
1515-413: A war of the gods. Other Hittite texts contain allusions to "former gods" ( karuilies siunes ), precisely what Hesiod called the Titans, theoi proteroi . Like the Titans, these Hittite karuilies siunes , were twelve (usually) in number and end up confined in the underworld by the storm-god Teshub, imprisoned by gates they cannot open. In Hurrian, the Hittite's karuilies siunes were known as
1616-591: A welcome volunteer, on the side of Zeus; and it is by reason of my counsel that the cavernous gloom of Tartarus now hides ancient Cronus and his allies within it. The mythographer Apollodorus , gives a similar account of the succession myth to Hesiod's, but with a few significant differences. According to Apollodorus, there were thirteen original Titans, adding the Titaness Dione to Hesiod's list. The Titans (instead of being Uranus' firstborn as in Hesiod) were born after
1717-623: Is one of the names in Homer which is used to refer to the Greeks collectively. The term "Achaean" is believed to be related to the Hittite term Ahhiyawa and the Egyptian term Ekwesh which appear in texts from the Late Bronze Age and are believed to refer to the Mycenaean civilization or some part of it. In the historical period, the term fell into disuse as a general term for Greek people, and
1818-494: Is reduced from magnificence to misery through the unrequited love of Zeus for his daughter Io . Hermes wears the cap of darkness, rendering him invisible, but plays the aulos , to the mystification of the satyrs ; Argos and Iris , as a messenger of Hera both appear, a "stranger" turns Io into a heifer at the touch of a hand, and at the end, apparently, the satyrs are freed from their bondage, to become shepherds of Inachos. An additional papyrus fragment of Sophocles' Inachos
1919-695: Is round about them", and further, that Zeus "thrust Cronos down to dwell beneath earth and the unresting sea." Brief mentions of the Titanomachy and the imprisonment of the Titans in Tartarus also occur in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo and Aeschylus ' Prometheus Bound . In the Hymn , Hera, angry at Zeus, calls upon the "Titan gods who dwell beneath the earth about great Tartarus, and from whom are sprung both gods and men". In Prometheus Bound , Prometheus (the son of
2020-450: Is uncertain. Hesiod in the Theogony gives a double etymology, deriving it from titaino [to strain] and tisis [vengeance], saying that Uranus gave them the name Titans: "in reproach, for he said that they strained and did presumptuously a fearful deed, and that vengeance for it would come afterwards". But modern scholars doubt Hesiod's etymology. Jane Ellen Harrison asserts that
2121-566: The Dead Gods ( Dingiruggû ), the Banished Gods ( ilāni darsūti ), and the Defeated (or Bound) Gods ( ilāni kamûti ). In Orphic literature, the Titans play an important role in what is often considered to be the central myth of Orphism , the sparagmos , that is the dismemberment of Dionysus , who in this context is often given the title Zagreus . As pieced together from various ancient sources,
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#17328558266462222-568: The Near East (see "Near East origins," below). These imported gods gave context and provided a backstory for the Olympian gods, explaining where these Greek Olympian gods had come from, and how they had come to occupy their position of supremacy in the cosmos. The Titans were the previous generation, and family of gods, whom the Olympians had to overthrow, and banish from the upper world, in order to become
2323-494: The Titanides ( αἱ Τῑτᾱνῐ́δες , hai Tītānídes ) or Titanesses — Theia , Rhea , Themis , Mnemosyne , Phoebe , and Tethys . After Cronus mated with his older sister Rhea, she bore the first generation of Olympians: the six siblings Zeus , Hades , Poseidon , Hestia , Demeter , and Hera . Certain descendants of the Titans, such as Prometheus , Atlas , Helios , and Leto , are sometimes also called Titans. The Titans were
2424-695: The "gods of down under" ( enna durenna ) and the Hittites identified these gods with the Anunnaki , the Babylonian gods of the underworld, whose defeat and imprisonment by the storm-god Marduk , in the Babylonian poem Enûma Eliš (late second millennium BC or earlier), parallels the defeat and imprisonment of the Titans. Other collectivities of gods, perhaps associated with the Mesopotamian Anunnaki, include
2525-598: The Anatolian mainland, came to the conclusion that Ahhiyawa referred to the Mycenaean world, or at least to a part of it. Scholarship up to 2011 was reviewed by Gary M. Beckman et al. In this review, the increasing acceptance of the Ahhiyawa-Mycenaeans hypothesis was noted. As to the exact location of Ahhiyawa: It now seems most reasonable to identify Ahhiyawa primarily with the Greek mainland, although in some contexts
2626-538: The Boghazköy tablets in Berlin, said the Achaeans of pre-Homeric Greece were directly associated with the term "Land of Ahhiyawa" mentioned in the Hittite texts. His conclusions at the time were challenged by other Hittitologists (i.e. Johannes Friedrich in 1927 and Albrecht Götze in 1930), as well as by Ferdinand Sommer, who published his Die Ahhijava-Urkunden ( The Ahhiyawa Documents ) in 1932. The exact relationship of
2727-709: The Cadmeans ( the Thebans ), Hellen of the Hellenes (not to be confused with Helen of Troy ), Aeolus of the Aeolians , Ion of the Ionians , and Dorus of the Dorians . Cadmus from Phoenicia , Danaus from Egypt , and Pelops from Anatolia each gained a foothold in mainland Greece and were assimilated and Hellenized. Hellen, Graikos, Magnes, and Macedon were sons of Deucalion and Pyrrha ,
2828-471: The Cherronesus where he founded a city which bore his name Cyrnus. In a rare variant of the myth according to Parthenius , Inachus sent several men to search and attempt to find her daughter Io who had been captured by brigands (not Zeus this time). One of these was Lyrcus , the son of Phoroneus, who covered a vast deal of land and sea without finding the girl, and finally renounced the toilsome quest. But he
2929-472: The Eating of Flesh , Plutarch writes of "stories told about the sufferings and dismemberment of Dionysus and the outrageous assaults of the Titans upon him, and their punishment and blasting by thunderbolt after they had tasted his blood". While, according to the early 4th century AD Christian apologist Arnobius , and the 5th century AD Greek epic poet Nonnus , it is as punishment for their murder of Dionysus that
3030-752: The Ekwesh or Eqwesh, whom some have seen as Achaeans, although Egyptian texts specifically mention these Ekwesh to be circumcised. Homer mentions an Achaean attack upon the delta, and Menelaus speaks of the same in Book IV of the Odyssey to Telemachus when he recounts his own return home from the Trojan War . Some ancient Greek authors also say that Helen had spent the time of the Trojan War in Egypt, and not at Troy , and that after Troy
3131-740: The Greek succession myth was imported from the Near East , and that along with this imported myth came stories of a group of former ruling gods, who had been defeated and displaced, and who became identified, by the Greeks, as the Titans. Features of Hesiod's account of the Titans can be seen in the stories of the Hurrians , the Hittites , the Babylonians , and other Near Eastern cultures. The Hurro - Hittite text Song of Kumarbi (also called Kingship in Heaven ), written five hundred years before Hesiod, tells of
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3232-456: The Greeks went there to recover her. In Greek mythology , the perceived cultural divisions among the Hellenes were represented as legendary lines of descent that identified kinship groups, with each line being derived from an eponymous ancestor. Each of the Greek ethne were said to be named in honor of their respective ancestors: Achaeus of the Achaeans, Danaus of the Danaans, Cadmus of
3333-419: The Hundred-Handers and Cyclopes in Tartarus. Although Hesiod does not say how Zeus was eventually able to free his siblings, according to Apollodorus, Zeus was aided by Oceanus' daughter Metis , who gave Cronus an emetic which forced him to disgorge his children that he had swallowed. According to Apollodorus, in the tenth year of the ensuing war, Zeus learned from Gaia, that he would be victorious if he had
3434-558: The Hundred-Handers and the Cyclopes as allies. So Zeus slew their warder Campe (a detail not found in Hesiod) and released them, and in addition to giving Zeus his thunderbolt (as in Hesiod), the Cyclopes also gave Poseidon his trident , and Hades a helmet, and "with these weapons the gods overcame the Titans, shut them up in Tartarus, and appointed the Hundred-handers their guards". The Roman mythographer Hyginus , in his Fabulae , gives an unusual (and perhaps confused) account of
3535-646: The Mycenaean world is in the Annals of Thutmosis III ( c. 1479 –1425 BC), which refers to messengers from the king of the Tanaju, c. 1437 BC , offering greeting gifts to the Egyptian king, in order to initiate diplomatic relations, when the latter campaigned in Syria. Tanaju is also listed in an inscription at the Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III . The latter ruled Egypt in c. 1382 –1344 BC. Moreover,
3636-534: The Sun), would seem to be the result of cosmological necessity, for how could a world encircling river, or the Sun, be confined in Tartarus? As for other male offspring of the Titans, some seem to have participated in the Titanomachy, and were punished as a result, and others did not, or at least (like Helios) remained free. Three of Iapetus' sons, Atlas , Menoetius , and Prometheus are specifically connected by ancient sources with
3737-463: The Titan Iapetus ) refers to the Titanomachy, and his part in it: When first the heavenly powers were moved to wrath, and mutual dissension was stirred up among them—some bent on casting Cronus from his seat so Zeus, in truth, might reign; others, eager for the contrary end, that Zeus might never win mastery over the gods—it was then that I, although advising them for the best, was unable to persuade
3838-485: The Titaness Tethys . Aeschylus ' Prometheus Bound , has Oceanus free to visit his nephew Prometheus sometime after the war. Like Oceanus, Helios, the Titan son of Hyperion, certainly remained free to drive his sun-chariot daily across the sky, taking an active part in events subsequent to the Titanomachy. The freedom of Oceanus, along with Helios (Sun), and perhaps Hyperion (to the extent that he also represented
3939-427: The Titanomachy, but Prometheus does remain free, in the Theogony , for his deception of Zeus at Mecone and his subsequent theft of fire , for which transgressions Prometheus was famously punished by Zeus by being chained to a rock where an eagle came to eat his "immortal liver" every day, which then grew back every night. However Aeschylus 's Prometheus Bound (as mentioned above) does have Prometheus say that he
4040-438: The Titanomachy, their war with the Olympians. As a group, they have no further role in conventional Greek myth, nor do they play any part in Greek cult. As individuals, few of the Titans have any separate identity. Aside from Cronus, the only other figure Homer mentions by name as being a Titan is Iapetus. Some Titans seem only to serve a genealogical function, providing parents for more important offspring: Coeus and Phoebe as
4141-457: The Titanomachy. According to Hyginus the Titanomachy came about because of a dispute between Jupiter and Juno (the Roman equivalents of Zeus and Hera). Juno, Jupiter's jealous wife, was angry at her husband, on account of Jupiter's son Epaphus by Io (one of her husband's many lovers). Because of this Juno incited the Titans to rebel against Jupiter and restore Saturn (Cronus) to the kingship of
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4242-758: The Titans Oceanus and Tethys, Cronus and Rhea, Themis, and Mnemosyne (i.e. the river gods, the Oceanids, the Olympians, the Horae, the Moirai, and the Muses) are not normally considered to be Titans, descendants of the other Titans, notably: Leto, Helios, Atlas, and Prometheus, are themselves sometimes referred to as Titans. Passages in a section of the Iliad called the Deception of Zeus suggest
4343-406: The Titans end up imprisoned by Zeus in Tartarus. The only ancient source to explicitly connect the sparagmos and the anthropogony is the 6th century AD Neoplatonist Olympiodorus , who writes that, according to Orpheus, after the Titans had dismembered and eaten Dionysus, "Zeus, angered by the deed, blasts them with his thunderbolts, and from the sublimate of the vapors that rise from them comes
4444-514: The Titans in a revolt against Zeus (Jupiter). The Theogony has Menoetius struck down by Zeus' thunderbolt and cast into Erebus "because of his mad presumption and exceeding pride". Whether Hesiod was using Erebus as another name for Tartarus (as was sometimes done), or meant that Menoetius's punishment was because of his participation in the Titanomachy is unclear, and no other early source mentions this event, however Apollodorus says that it was. Hesiod does not mention Prometheus in connection with
4545-489: The Titans, children of Heaven and Earth; but they, disdaining counsels of craft, in the pride of their strength thought to gain the mastery without a struggle and by force. ... That it was not by brute strength nor through violence, but by guile that those who should gain the upper hand were destined to prevail. And though I argued all this to them, they did not pay any attention to my words. With all that before me, it seemed best that, joining with my mother, I should place myself,
4646-484: The Titans, defeating them and throwing them into Tartarus , with the Hundred-Handers as their guards. Only brief references to the Titans and the succession myth are found in Homer . In the Iliad , Homer tells us that "the gods ... that are called Titans" reside in Tartarus. Specifically, Homer says that "Iapetus and Cronos ... have joy neither in the rays of Helios Hyperion [the Sun] nor in any breeze, but deep Tartarus
4747-555: The aforementioned terms were used synonymously to denote a common Greek identity. In some English translations of the Iliad , the Achaeans are simply called the Greeks throughout. Later, by the Archaic and Classical periods, the term "Achaeans" referred to inhabitants of the much smaller region of Achaea . Herodotus identified the Achaeans of the northern Peloponnese as descendants of
4848-602: The ancient Inachus gathered sweet herbs and offered them to her, she licked his hands, kissing her father's palms, nor could she more restrain her falling tears. If only words as well as tears would flow, she might implore his aid and tell her name and all her sad misfortune; but, instead, she traced in dust the letters of her name with cloven hoof; and thus her sad estate was known. At this, Inachus understood Io's condition, and, lamenting, wished for death, but acknowledged his godly status made this an impossibility. Io subsequently recovered her original form and came to be worshipped as
4949-549: The base of the Greek ἄναξ, “a king.” In Virgil's Aeneid , Inachus is represented on Turnus 's shield. Compare the Inachos or Brimos of the Eleusinian Mysteries . Inachus and his river god brothers Cephissus and Asterion were mediators in a land dispute between Poseidon and Hera. When they judged that the land belonged to Hera, Poseidon took away their water out of anger. For this reason neither Inachus nor either of
5050-404: The basis for an Orphic doctrine of the divinity of man." However, when and to what extent there existed any Orphic tradition which included these elements is the subject of open debate. The 2nd century AD biographer and essayist Plutarch makes a connection between the sparagmos and the punishment of the Titans, but makes no mention of the anthropogony, or Orpheus, or Orphism. In his essay On
5151-440: The blessed, and flowers of gold are blazing, some from splendid trees on land, while water nurtures others. With these wreaths and garlands of flowers they entwine their hands according to the righteous counsels of Rhadamanthys , whom the great father, the husband of Rhea whose throne is above all others, keeps close beside him as his partner. Prometheus Lyomenos , an undated lost play by Aeschylus (c. 525 – c. 455 BC), had
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#17328558266465252-476: The celestial personifications Helios (Sun), Selene (Moon), and Eos (Dawn). From Iapetus and Clymene came Atlas , Menoetius , Prometheus , and Epimetheus . From Cronus and Rhea came the Olympians: Hestia , Demeter , Hera , Hades , Poseidon , and Zeus. By Zeus, Themis bore the three Horae (Hours), and the three Moirai (Fates), and Mnemosyne bore the nine Muses . While the descendants of
5353-406: The child. The Titans whiten their faces with gypsum, and distracting the infant Dionysus with various toys, including a mirror, they seized Dionysus and tore (or cut) him to pieces. The pieces were then boiled, roasted and partially eaten, by the Titans. But Athena managed to save Dionysus' heart, by which Zeus was able to contrive his rebirth from Semele. Commonly presented as a part of the myth of
5454-428: The children she birthed. This he did with the first five: Hestia , Demeter , Hera , Hades , Poseidon (in that order), to Rhea's great sorrow. However, when Rhea was pregnant with Zeus, Rhea begged her parents Gaia and Uranus to help her save Zeus. So they sent Rhea to Lyctus on Crete to bear Zeus, and Gaia took the newborn Zeus to raise, hiding him deep in a cave beneath Mount Aigaion. Meanwhile, Rhea gave Cronus
5555-566: The city of Argos. Other times, the ancients regarded Inachus as an immigrant who had come across the sea as the leader of an Egyptian or Libyan colony, and had united the Pelasgians, whom he found scattered on the banks of the Inachus. They who make Inachus to have come into Greece from beyond the sea regard his name as a Greek form for the Oriental term Enak, denoting “great” or “powerful,” and this last as
5656-491: The cosmos. According to the standard version of the succession myth, given in Hesiod's Theogony , Uranus initially produced eighteen children with Gaia: the twelve Titans, the three Cyclopes , and the three Hecatoncheires (Hundred-Handers), but hating them, he hid them away somewhere inside Gaia. Angry and in distress, Gaia fashioned a sickle made of adamant and urged her children to punish their father. Only her son Cronus
5757-479: The daughter of Oceanus and Tethys, while Crius married his half-sister Eurybia , the daughter of Gaia and Pontus . The two remaining Titan sisters, Themis and Mnemosyne, became wives of their nephew Zeus . From Oceanus and Tethys came the three thousand river gods , and three thousand Oceanid nymphs. From Coeus and Phoebe came Leto , another wife of Zeus, and Asteria . From Crius and Eurybia came Astraeus , Pallas , and Perses . From Hyperion and Theia came
5858-420: The dismembered Dionysus Zagreus, is an Orphic anthropogony, that is an Orphic account of the origin of human beings. According to this widely held view, as punishment for their crime, Zeus struck the Titans with his thunderbolt , and from the remains of the destroyed Titans humankind was born, which resulted in a human inheritance of ancestral guilt, for this original sin of the Titans, and by some accounts "formed
5959-467: The earlier, Homeric Achaeans. According to Pausanias , writing in the 2nd century AD, the term "Achaean" was originally given to those Greeks inhabiting the Argolis and Laconia . Pausanias and Herodotus both recount the legend that the Achaeans were forced from their homelands by the Dorians , during the legendary Dorian invasion of the Peloponnese. They then moved into the region later called Achaea. A scholarly consensus has not yet been reached on
6060-513: The earth, because if Inachus would not follow the oracle's instructions, Zeus would hurl a fiery thunderbolt that would utterly destroy his whole race. The king yielding in obedience to such prophetic utterances of Loxias (Apollo), Inachus drove his daughter away and barred her from his house, against his and Io's will. According to Ovid , Inachus was the only one absent when his fellow river gods , Sperchios , Enipeus , Amphrysos , Apidanus and Aeas, visited Peneus , father of Daphne , following
6161-439: The epithet "long-haired". Other common names used in Homer are Danaans ( / ˈ d æ n eɪ . ən z / ; Δαναοί Danaoi ; used 138 times in the Iliad ) and Argives ( / ˈ ɑːr ɡ aɪ v z / ; Ἀργεῖοι Argeioi ; used 182 times in the Iliad ) while Panhellenes ( Πανέλληνες Panhellenes, "All of the Greeks") and Hellenes ( / ˈ h ɛ l iː n z / ; Ἕλληνες Hellenes ) both appear only once ; All of
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#17328558266466262-406: The eponym of Mycenae , the spring nymph Amymone , Messeis , Hyperia , Themisto (mother of Arcas by Zeus ). Argus Panoptes was also called the son of Inachus as what Asclepiades also asserted. The historian Pausanias describes him as the eldest king of Argos who named the river after himself and sacrificed to Hera . He also notes that some said he was not a mortal, but a river. Inachus
6363-430: The farthest part of huge earth. They cannot get out, for Poseidon has set bronze gates upon it, and a wall is extended on both sides. However, besides Cronus, exactly which of the other Titans were supposed to have been imprisoned in Tartarus is unclear. The only original Titan, mentioned by name, as being confined with Cronus in Tartarus, is Iapetus . But, not all the Titans were imprisoned there. Certainly Oceanus ,
6464-503: The former gods: the generation of gods preceding the Olympians . They were overthrown as part of the Greek succession myth, which tells how Cronus seized power from his father Uranus and ruled the cosmos with his fellow Titans before being in turn defeated and replaced as the ruling pantheon of gods by Zeus and the Olympians in a ten-year war called "the Titanomachy " ( Ancient Greek : ἡ Τῑτᾱνομαχίᾱ , romanized : hē Tītānomakhíā , lit. 'a battle of Titans'). As
6565-410: The gods. Jupiter, with the help of Minerva ( Athena ), Apollo , and Diana ( Artemis ), put down the rebellion, and hurled the Titans (as in other accounts) down to Tartarus. After being overthrown in the Titanomachy, Cronus and his fellow vanquished Titans were cast into Tartarus: That is where the Titan gods are hidden under murky gloom by the plans of the cloud-gatherer Zeus, in a dank place, at
6666-413: The great world encircling river, seems to have remained free, and in fact, seems not to have fought on the Titans' side at all. In Hesiod, Oceanus sends his daughter Styx , with her children Zelus (Envy), Nike (Victory), Kratos (Power), and Bia (Force), to fight on Zeus' side against the Titans, while in the Iliad , Hera says that, during the Titanomachy, she was cared for by Oceanus and his wife
6767-541: The matter from which men are created." Olympiodorus goes on to conclude that, because the Titans had eaten his flesh, we their descendants, are a part of Dionysus. Some 19th- and 20th-century scholars, including Jane Ellen Harrison , have argued that an initiatory or shamanic ritual underlies the myth of the dismemberment and cannibalism of Dionysus by the Titans. Martin Litchfield West also asserts this in relation to shamanistic initiatory rites of early Greek religious practices. The etymology of Τiτᾶνες ( Titanes )
6868-400: The most remarkable findings of modern archaeology was the monuments and remains showing that Argos had indeed been an ancient civilization alongside Egypt and Babylonia. Inachus had many children, the chief of whom were his two sons, Phoroneus and Aegialeus or Phegeus , and his two daughters, Io and Philodice , wife of Leucippus . The mother of these children was variously described in
6969-478: The nine Muses . Leto, who gives birth to the Olympians Apollo and Artemis , takes an active part on the side of the Trojans in the Iliad , and is also involved in the story of the giant Tityos . Tethys, presumably along with her husband Oceanus, took no part in the war, and, as mentioned above, provided safe refuge for Hera during the war. Rhea remains free and active after the war: appearing at Leto's delivery of Apollo, as Zeus' messenger to Demeter announcing
7070-410: The oracle of Pytho and Dodona so that he might discover what deed or word of his would find favor with the gods. But the messengers returned with report of oracles, riddling, obscure, and darkly-worded. Then at last there came an unmistakable utterance to Inachus, charging and commanding him clearly that he must thrust forth Io from his house and native land to roam at large to the remotest confines of
7171-409: The origin of the historic Achaeans relative to the Homeric Achaeans and is still hotly debated. Former emphasis on presumed race, such as John A. Scott's article about the blond locks of the Achaeans as compared to the dark locks of "Mediterranean" Poseidon , on the basis of hints in Homer, has been rejected by some. The contrasting belief that "Achaeans", as understood through Homer, is "a name without
7272-455: The other rivers provided any water except during rainy seasons. In Danaan founding myth , because of the springs of Argolid being dried up, King Danaus sent his daughters to draw water to counter this drought. One of these daughters, Amymone , in her search lay with Poseidon who revealed to her the springs at Lerna . Otherwise, Poseidon was also said to flooded the greater part of the country as his revenge but Hera induced Poseidon to send
7373-543: The parents of Leto , the mother, by Zeus, of the Olympians Apollo and Artemis ; Hyperion and Theia as the parents of Helios , Selene and Eos ; Iapetus as the father of Atlas and Prometheus ; and Crius as the father of three sons Astraeus , Pallas , and Perses , who themselves seem only to exist to provide fathers for more important figures such as the Anemoi (Winds), Nike (Victory), and Hecate . The Titans play
7474-435: The parents of Oceanus and Tethys, and Oceanus and Tethys as the parents of Cronus and Rhea "and all that go with them", plus Phorcys . In his Cratylus , Plato quotes Orpheus as saying that Oceanus and Tethys were "the first to marry", possibly also reflecting an Orphic theogony in which Oceanus and Tethys, rather than Uranus and Gaia, were the primeval parents. To Hesiod's twelve Titans, the mythographer Apollodorus , adds
7575-541: The possibility that Homer knew of a tradition in which Oceanus and Tethys (rather than Uranus and Gaia, as in Hesiod) were the parents of the Titans. Twice Homer has Hera describe the pair as "Oceanus, from whom the gods are sprung, and mother Tethys", while in the same passage Hypnos describes Oceanus as "from whom they all are sprung". Plato , in his Timaeus , provides a genealogy (probably Orphic) which perhaps reflected an attempt to reconcile this apparent divergence between Homer and Hesiod, with Uranus and Gaia as
7676-622: The pursuit of his daughter by the god Apollo and her transformation into a laurel tree (they are not sure whether to congratulate or to condole Peneus). It was explained that Inachus hid in his cave, deepening his waters with his tears, bewailing also for his daughter Io who was lost. Inachus and his naiad daughters did not recognize Io, whom Zeus had transformed into a cow so that she could avoid detection by his jealous wife, Hera . And Inachus and all her [i.e. Io] sister Naiads knew her not, although she followed them, they knew her not, although she suffered them to touch her sides and praise her. When
7777-428: The real-life Achaeans were mainland pre-Dorian Greeks. His conclusion is based on his research on the similarity between the languages of the Achaeans and pre-historic Arcadians. William Prentice disagreed with both, noting archeological evidence suggests the Achaeans instead migrated from "southern Asia Minor to Greece, probably settling first in lower Thessaly " probably prior to 2000 BC. Some Hittite texts mention
7878-567: The reconstructed story, usually given by modern scholars, goes as follows. Zeus had intercourse with Persephone in the form of a serpent, producing Dionysus. He is taken to Mount Ida where (like the infant Zeus) he is guarded by the dancing Curetes . Zeus intended Dionysus to be his successor as ruler of the cosmos, but a jealous Hera incited the Titans—;who apparently unlike in Hesiod and Homer, were not imprisoned in Tartarus—;to kill
7979-407: The ruling pantheon of Greek gods. For Hesiod, possibly in order to match the twelve Olympian gods, there were twelve Titans: six males and six females, with some of Hesiod's names perhaps being mere poetic inventions, so as to arrive at the right number. In Hesiod's Theogony , apart from Cronus, the Titans play no part at all in the overthrow of Uranus, and we only hear of their collective action in
8080-528: The sea back. The Argives then made a sanctuary to Poseidon Prosclystius (Flooder) at the spot where the tide ebbed. In an episode in Prometheus Bound , a horned Io recalls her history to Prometheus of being disturbed by visions during her sleep night after night, where Zeus lusted for her maidenhood, but of initially rejecting the god's advances. When Io gained the courage to tell Inachus about these haunting dreams, his father sent many messengers to consult
8181-428: The settlement concerning Persephone , bringing Pelops back to life. While in Hesiod's Theogony , and Homer's Iliad , Cronus and the other Titans are confined to Tartarus—apparently forever —another tradition, as indicated by later sources, seems to have had Cronus, or other of the Titans, being eventually set free. Pindar , in one of his poems (462 BC), says that, although Atlas still "strains against
8282-479: The sources, either an Oceanid named Melia , called the mother of Phoroneus and Aegialeus (or Phegeus), or another Oceanid named Argia , called the mother of Phoroneus and Io. Io is sometimes confused as the daughter of Inachus and Melia but she is the daughter of Inachus alone. Io was born from Inachus' mouth. Aside from the Inachians of whom he was simply the back-formed eponym , his other children include Mycene ,
8383-492: The term Ahhiyawa to the Achaeans beyond a similarity in pronunciation was hotly debated by scholars, even following the discovery that Mycenaean Linear B is an early form of Greek ; the earlier debate was summed up in 1984 by Hans G. Güterbock of the Oriental Institute . More recent research based on new readings and interpretations of the Hittite texts, as well as of the material evidence for Mycenaean contacts with
8484-643: The term "Ahhiyawa" may have had broader connotations, perhaps covering all regions that were settled by Mycenaeans or came under Mycenaean control. In fact, the authors state that "there is now little doubt that Ahhiyawa was a reference by the Hittites to some or all of the Bronze Age Mycenaean world", and that Forrer was "largely correct after all". It has been proposed that Ekwesh of the Egyptian records may relate to Achaea (compared to Hittite Ahhiyawa ), whereas Denyen and Tanaju may relate to Classical Greek Danaoi . The earliest textual reference to
8585-555: The three Furies : Alecto , Megaera , and Tisiphone . The geographer Pausanias , mentions seeing the image of a man in armor, who was supposed to be the Titan Anytos , who was said to have raised the Arcadian Despoina . The Titans, as a group, represent a pre-Olympian order. Hesiod uses the expression "the former gods" ( theoi proteroi ) in reference to the Titans. They were the banished gods, who were no longer part of
8686-422: The three Hundred-Handers and the three Cyclopes , and while Uranus imprisoned these first six of his offspring, he apparently left the Titans free. Not just Cronus, but all the Titans, except Oceanus, attacked Uranus. After Cronus castrated Uranus, the Titans freed the Hundred-Handers and Cyclopes (unlike in Hesiod, where they apparently remained imprisoned), and made Cronus their sovereign, who then reimprisoned
8787-421: The thunderbolt, which had been hidden by Gaia. A great war was begun, the Titanomachy , for control of the cosmos. The Titans fought from Mount Othrys , while the Olympians fought from Mount Olympus . In the tenth year of that great war, following Gaia's counsel, Zeus released the Hundred-Handers, who joined the war against the Titans, helping Zeus to gain the upper hand. Zeus cast the fury of his thunderbolt at
8888-531: The upper world. Rather they were the gods who dwelt underground in Tartarus , and as such, they may have been thought of as "gods of the underworld", who were the antithesis of, and in opposition to, the Olympians, the gods of the heavens. Hesiod called the Titans "earth-born" ( chthonic ), and in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo , Hera prays to the Titans "who dwell beneath the earth", calling on them to aid her against Zeus, just as if they were chthonic spirits. In
8989-423: The war. In the Theogony both Atlas and Menoetius received punishments from Zeus, but Hesiod does not say for what crime exactly they were punished. Atlas was famously punished by Zeus, by being forced to hold up the sky on his shoulders, but none of the early sources for this story (Hesiod, Homer, Pindar , and Aeschylus ) say that his punishment was as a result of the war. According to Hyginus however, Atlas led
9090-455: The way as he went. Which so offended Zeus, that he sent Tisiphone , one of the Furies , who haunted and plagued him to that degree, that he flung himself into the river Haliacmon, bearing his own name afterwards. Inachos, a king of Argos, founded a city which he named for the moon, Io, for that is what Argives call the moon. He also had a daughter Io; Pekos who is also Zeus abducted her and fathered
9191-452: The weight of the sky ... Zeus freed the Titans", and in another poem (476 BC), Pindar has Cronus, in fact, ruling in the Isles of the Blessed , a land where the Greek heroes reside in the afterlife: Those who have persevered three times, on either side, to keep their souls free from all wrongdoing, follow Zeus' road to the end, to the tower of Cronus, where ocean breezes blow around the island of
9292-662: The word "Titan" comes from the Greek τίτανος, signifying white "earth, clay, or gypsum", and that the Titans were "white clay men", or men covered by white clay or gypsum dust in their rituals. The planet Saturn is named for the Roman equivalent of the Titan Cronus. Saturn's largest moon, Titan , is named after the Titans generally, and the other moons of Saturn are named after individual Titans, specifically Tethys , Phoebe , Rhea , Hyperion , and Iapetus . Astronomer William Henry Pickering claimed to have discovered another moon of Saturn which he named Themis , but this discovery
9393-454: Was Leucippus , the eight king of Sicyon . The ancients themselves made several attempts to explain the stories about Inachus: sometimes they looked upon him as a native of Argos, who after the deluge of Deucalion led the Argives from the mountains into the plains, and confined the waters within their proper channels. After rendering the province of Argolis inhabitable again, he then founded
9494-439: Was also said to be first priest at Argos, the country was frequently called the land of Inachus. Jerome and Eusebius (both citing Castor of Rhodes ), and as even late as 1812, John Lemprière euhemeristically asserted that he was the first king of Argos reigning for 50 years (B.C. 1807). Inachus divided the territories between his sons, Phegeus and Phoroneus who succeeded him as the second king of Argos. Inachus contemporary
9595-484: Was an ally of Zeus during the Titanomachy. The female Titans, to the extent that they are mentioned at all, appear also to have been allowed to remain free. Three of these, according to the Theogony , become wives of Zeus : Themis , Mnemosyne , and Leto , the daughter of the Titans Coeus and Phoebe . Themis gives birth to the three Horae (Hours), and the three Moirai (Fates), and Mnemosyne gives birth to
9696-516: Was generally reserved for inhabitants of the region of Achaea , a region in the north-central part of the Peloponnese . The city-states of this region later formed a confederation known as the Achaean League , which was influential during the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. According to Margalit Finkelberg the name Ἀχαιοί ( earlier Ἀχαιϝοί) is possibly derived, via an intermediate form *Ἀχαϝyοί, from
9797-592: Was never confirmed, and the name Themis was given to an asteroid, 24 Themis . Asteroid 57 Mnemosyne was also named for the Titan. A proto-planet Theia is hypothesized to have been involved in a collision in the early solar system, forming the Earth's moon. Achaeans (Homer) On the Greek side: On the Trojan side: The Achaeans or Akhaians ( / ə ˈ k iː ən z / ; Ancient Greek : Ἀχαιοί , romanized : Akhaioí , "the Achaeans" or "of Achaea ")
9898-610: Was published in 1960. Male Female Deity Titan (mythology) In Greek mythology , the Titans ( Ancient Greek : οἱ Τῑτᾶνες , hoi Tītânes , singular : ὁ Τῑτᾱ́ν, -ήν , ho Tītân ) were the pre-Olympian gods. According to the Theogony of Hesiod , they were the twelve children of the primordial parents Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth), with six male Titans— Oceanus , Coeus , Crius , Hyperion , Iapetus , and Cronus —and six female Titans, called
9999-418: Was too much afraid of Inachus to return to Argos and went instead to Caunus , where he married Hilebia, daughter of King Aegialus. According to Plutarch, the river Inachus had before borne the name of Carmanor or Haliacmon . Afterwards it was called after Inachus, the son of Oceanus. After Zeus ( Jupiter ) had deflowered his daughter Io, Inachus pursued the deity close at the heels, abusing and cursing him all
10100-419: Was under his control. It also refers to an earlier " Wilusa episode" involving hostility on the part of Ahhiyawa . Ahhiya(wa) has been identified with the Achaeans of the Trojan War and the city of Wilusa with the legendary city of Troy (note the similarity with early Greek Ϝιλιον Wilion , later Ἴλιον Ilion , the name of the acropolis of Troy). Emil Forrer , a Swiss Hittitologist who worked on
10201-558: Was willing. So Gaia hid Cronus in "ambush", gave him an adamantine sickle, and when Uranus came to lie with Gaia, Cronus reached out and castrated his father. This enabled the Titans to be born and Cronus to assume supreme command of the cosmos, with the Titans as his subordinates. Cronus, having now taken over control of the cosmos from Uranus, wanted to ensure that he maintained control. Uranus and Gaia had prophesied to Cronus that one of Cronus' own children would overthrow him, so when Cronus married Rhea, he made sure to swallow each of
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