Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. Today, we’re going to dive into Greek mythology,
focusing on Hyperion, a primeval solar deity. He was the father of the sun,
of the moon, and of the dawn, of the 12 first-generation Titans,
one of the Titans who helped castrate Uranus, and one of the Titans cast down into the depths
of Tartarus, battered and banished, following the victory of Zeus and the Olympian-led forces.
Here’s how this video is going to work: first we’re going to go over Hyperion’s
sphere of influence, which is to say what he was associated with and what
role he played in structuring and maintaining the universe;
second, we’re going to quickly go over who his three children were; and third, we’re going to go
over his rise and fall, beginning with his birth and ending with his imprisonment in Tartarus.
Alright, let’s get into it.
1 - SPHERE OF INFLUENCE.
His name meaning “The One on High” or “He Who Walks Above”, Hyperion was a primeval solar deity,
though he was not the personification of the sun itself. Indeed, the matter of Greek mythology’s
sun god is a bit confusing because there are three of them: Hyperion, a primeval solar deity, Helios,
the personification of the sun, and Apollo, whose own sphere of influence eventually subsumed the
sun. All three of them were identified with each other and to an extent were conflated.
One idea is that Hyperion’s original role was orchestrating the cycle of celestial objects,
ensuring that the symphony of heaven sang out harmoniously. This ties into who Hyperion’s
wife and children were. According to Hesiod’s Theogony, his wife was Theia,
another of the 12 first-generation Titans and his sister. She was a goddess associated
with sight and was called “The One Who Sees”. (Incidentally, a god given epithets
that describe him as being high up a goddess associated with sight feels like a perfect fit.)
In other works, she’s referred to by other names. In the Homeric Hymns, for example,
she’s referred to as Euryphaessa, meaning something like “Wide-Shinning” or “Far-Shining”.
Regardless, names notwithstanding, these two Titans came together and produced three children:
Helios, the personification of the sun, Selene, the personification of the moon,
and Eos, the personification of the dawn. The sun, it full-bodied in the sky, follows the dawn,
the moon follows the sun, and the dawn follows the moon; so that Hyperion was
viewed as the orchestrator of the heavens makes sense - a father guiding his children.
This, Hyperion’s role as a cosmic conductor,
is touched on in the “Bibliotheca Historica” or “Library of History”,
written by Diodorus Siculus, a Greek historian of the first century BC. Here’s the passage:
“"Of Hyperion we are told that he was the first to understand, by diligent attention and observation,
the movement of both the sun and the moon and the other stars, and the seasons as well,
in that they are caused by these bodies, and to make these facts known to others;
and that for this reason he was called the father of these bodies,
since he had begotten, so to speak, the speculation about them and their nature."
2 - THREE CHILDREN.
Helios, because of his lofty vantage, arcing across the sky as the sun arcs across it,
was thought of as all-seeing, and this attribute is relevant to how the events of many myths
unfolded , him bearing witness to Hades’ abduction of Persephone and to the myriad surreptitious,
lustful encounters between Ares and Aphrodite. (Hephaestus and Aphrodite were married.)
Here’s a passage from the Homeric Hymns that describes Helios’ appearance:
“"[Helios the Sun] rides his chariot, he shines upon men and deathless gods, and piercingly he
gazes with his eyes from his golden helmet. Bright rays beam dazzlingly from him, and
his bright locks streaming from the temples of his head gracefully enclose his far-seen face: a rich,
fine-spun garment glows upon his body and flutters in the wind : and stallions carry him. Then,
when he has stayed his golden-yoked chariot and horses, he rests there upon the highest
point of heaven, until he marvelously drives them down again through heaven to Okeanos ."
Selene’s parentage was varied, also said to be the daughter of the Titan Pallas or of Helios.
Like her brother - or father, I suppose, depending on the version - she is depicted
driving a horse-drawn chariot across the sky, only she was a beautiful woman and her chariot,
radiantly wrought of glowing silver, was pulled by two horses instead of four.
Sometimes she was also shown riding a horse sidesaddle.
One of the most prominent aspects of her mythology was her great love for Endymion,
a mortal man and a king. In one version, she bore him 50 children and pleaded with Zeus to allow him
to choose his own fate, which, per his choice, was to live forever, both ageless and deathless,
in eternal slumber. And as well see momentarily, including agelessness was a sage stipulation.
Eos was commonly described as ‘rosy-fingered’, this a metaphor for the rays of light that first
break over the world when the upper-edge of the sun’s crown first comes into view. Because she
was the day's first light, she was thought of as emitting the brilliant slashes of light that cut
through the veil of night and ushered in the new day. She was often depicted as a winged woman and
sometimes, like her two siblings, was also shown in a chariot, as can be seen in the picture on
the screen - her and her magnificent horses coming in behind Nyx, replacing dark night with dazzling
dawn. She was well known, infamously so, for her love of handsome men, and many men unfortunate
enough to catch her eye suffered unenviable fates. Certainly the worst was Tithonus. Eos
wanted immortality for him, beseeching Zeus as Selene had, but unlike the case of Endymion,
agelessness wasn’t asked for, only deathlessness, so Tithonus just kept getting older without being
able to die, eventually deteriorating into nothing more than a remnant of chirping noises.
3 - RISE AND FALL.
Born to Gaia and Uranus, Hyperion was one of the 12 first generation Titans.
When Gaia supplicated the Titans for succor, beseeching them to rise up against their father,
Hyperion answered his mother’s call and came to her aid. Cronus, the most audacious and ambitious
despite being the youngest, was the fulcrum of the operation, wielding a sickle of adamant and
waiting in ambush. But Hyperion and three of his other brothers still played a substantial role in
the supplanting. Four of them grabbed Uranus and held him fast, and then Cronus came out of his
place of hiding and castrated Uranus, tossing the severed sex into the sea. Only Oceanus,
the eldest of the 12 first-generation Titans, avoided participating in this plot, a pattern
that would persist during the Titanomachy, the ten year war between the gods and the Titans,
when Oceanus and his wife Tethys remained neutral throughout. In some versions,
the role Hyperion played in the castration of Uranus is marginally elaborated upon.
One added detail is that, when Uranus came down to envelop Gaia in a carnal embrace,
Hyperion, Crius, Coeus, and Iapetus stood at the four corners of the world when they grabbed hold
of their father and restrained him while their youngest brother went about his excising work.
Here, the four Titans at the four corners of the world embody four pillars holding up the heavens,
each one at the furthest point of the four cardinal directions: East, West, North,
and South. It is likely that Hyperion was the eastern pillar, as that is where the sun rises.
Following the fall of Uranus and the rise of Cronus, many events ensued,
and these we will now gloss over, fast-forwarding to the end of the Titanomachy, the conclusion of
which was the defeat of the Titans, the triumph of the Olympians, and the ascension of Zeus, who,
having defeated his father, became the unequivocal king of creation. Concerning which Titans ended
up in Tartarus - trounced, then trussed, and then tossed - this isn’t known for certain. As far as I
know, there isn’t a comprehensive list that gives such an accounting. What’s clear, though, is that
the belligerent Titans who fought against the Olympians - with the exception of Atlas who was
saddled with the special punishment of holding up the sky - were all condemned to the abyssal
depths beneath the earth. Of the first-generation Titans, all the male ones, Hyperion included,
were banished to that most capacious chasm - that is, all of the male ones with the exception of
Oceanus, maintaining neutrality throughout the war as he did. Other examples of Titans who managed to
evade the manacles of subterranean exile include Prometheus and Epimetheus, both of whom forsook
Cronus and his ilk in favor of Zeus and the forces who followed him. However, it wasn’t
smooth sailing for the pair from then on out. On the one hand, their betrayal worked out for them,
avoiding the fate that fell on the enemies of Olympus; on the other, though, Prometheus ended up
chained to a rock for tens of thousands of years, subjected to unending torture for all that time.
The passage I’m drawing from comes from Fabulae, written by Pseudo-Hyginus. Here’s the passage:
"Men in early times sought fire from the gods, and did not know how to keep it alive.
Later Prometheus brought it to earth in a fennel-stalk, and showed men how to keep
it covered over with ashes. Because of this… [Hermes and Zeus bound him with iron spikes
on a mountain,] and set an eagle to eat out his heart; as much as it devoured in the day,
so much grew again at night. After 30,000 years Hercules killed this eagle and freed Prometheus."
And that’s it for this video. If you enjoy the content,
please like and subscribe. Thanks for watching!