Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. Today, we’re discussing Typhon. The son of Gaia,
the personification of the earth, and of Tartarus, the personification of the great
abyss deep beneath the earth, Typhon was the most powerful monster in all of Greek mythology, even
more powerful, perhaps - if you remove weapons from the equation - than all of the gods too.
In the Greek creation myth, there was a sequence of three great conflicts, each of which entailed
a powerful enemy the gods had to overcome: there was the war against the titans; there was the war
against the giants; and lastly, there was the battle against Typhon. As Apollodorus tells it,
Gaia was the driving force behind most of these conflicts. She created the giants to attack the
gods after the titans were imprisoned in Tartarus, and then after the giants were destroyed, she
created Typhon to attack the gods. This version portrays Gaia as some wrathful brood mother that
keeps pumping out new batches of monsters to avenge older batches of monsters. But I digress.
Typhon was, unequivocally,
the gravest threat Olympus faced, and his appearance makes this easy to understand.
He was terrible to behold, even the boldest were stricken with fear by him,
and his awesome strength was unmatched by any other.
Even mighty Zeus, if not for the blazing bolts he wielded, likely would have fallen.
Typhon was half man and half beast. In size and strength he eclipsed all of Gaia’s other children.
100 snakes twisted out of his shoulders where arms should have been, but aside from his arms,
his body was human-like until his thighs, below which was a multitude of coiled vipers. Wings
grew all over his body, and his eyes were two merciless pits of fire, almost like the mouths of
two volcanoes. The sounds of every fierce animal thundered from him. Wings of every sort grew
all over his body, and foul hair grew from his head and cheeks. He dwarfed the mountains as he
strode across the land, and his head brushed the stars. It was said that if he extended his arms,
he could grasp the farthest Western and Eastern points at the same time.
Now, as far as I can tell, there seems to be two versions that detail the battle between Typhon
and Olympus, and they’re quite disparate. In Hesiod’s Theogony,
all of creation trembled before Typhon, even those underground - Hades in the underworld and
the Titans in Tartarus - were racked with fear. Only intrepid Zeus was undaunted. He was a raging
storm incarnate. He wielded thunder, lightning, and the smoking bolt as mortal men would swords,
spears, and arrows. He unleashed an onslaught of blows, and all of the bestial heads were
scoured from Typhon’s body. Zeus then cast Typhon down into the depths of Tartarus.
The second version is the one recounted by the poet Ovid in Metamorphoses and by the mythographer
Apollodorus in The Library of Bibliotheca. This version paints a less flattering picture of the
gods when Typhon besieges Mt Olympus. All of them - yes, all of them, even Zeus - fled to Egypt,
and when they realized that Typhon was pursuing them, they transformed into animals and hid. Zeus
took the form of a ram, Hera, the form of a white cow, Dionysus, a goat, Aphrodite, a fish, and so
on. Zeus eventually found his courage and fired a barrage of thunderbolts, but Typhon - his approach
inexorable - pressed forward until he and Zeus were locked in a melee. A flurry of slashes from
Zeus’ adamantine sickle carved Typhon’s flesh, so the monster turned and ran. Zeus chased after him,
and then, upon seeing how grievously wounded Typhon was, became overconfident and charged
forward, opting once again to fight in close quarters. But Typhon’s strength was not yet spent,
and Zeus became wrapped up in and incapacitated by Typhon’s coils. The sickle was wrenched from Zeus’
grip, and with it, all of the sinews were cut from his hands and feet. Typhon hauled Zeus to the
cave, and the sinews were placed in a bear skin guarded by the she-dragon Delphyne. Fortunately,
Zeus wasn’t the only god who found their courage. Hermes slayed the dragon, grabbed the sinews,
and then restored and rescued Zeus, who returned to battle with a vengeance when his strength had
recovered. In the meantime, Typhon was tricked by the Fates into eating the ephemeral fruits,
weakening him. Zeus, in his chariot, then descended on Typhon, overwhelming the monster.
The battle ends when Zeus hurls Mount Etna at Typhon and entombs him beneath the earth.
To close out this video, we’re going to quickly go through the many monstrous children
Typhon sired by Echidna, who was sometimes referred to by the moniker,
Mother of Monsters and was either the daughter of Gaia and Tartarus or of the sea god Phorcys and
the sea goddess Ceto, depending on the version. From their union came Orthus, a two-headed dog,
Geryon, a triple-bodied giant, Cerberus, the triple-headed dog that guards the underworld,
the Hydra of Lerna, and the dragon Landon, which guarded the apples of the Hesperides.
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