Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today’s video we’re going to discuss
the seven most devastating weapons in Greek mythology, weapons so powerful they won wars,
structured the cosmos, and even dictated the destinies of Primordial Deities, Titans, and Gods.
Let’s get into it. Starting off our list is Medusa’s head.
Medusa is one of three Gorgon sisters, creatures of such overwhelming hideousness
that one look turned a person to stone, though, in some accounts, it is Medusa alone who has this
power, or curse, depending on how you look at it. Of the three, only Medusa was mortal,
meaning she was the only one who could be killed, which is why she, not either of her two sisters,
was chosen as the object of Perseus’ quest. Depending on the version, Medusa was either
transformed from the beautiful woman that she was into a snake-haired monster, or was born a Gorgon,
the daughter of Phorcys and his sister Ceto, both of them sea deities, though perhaps Ceto,
whose name was a generic term for sea monster, was more monster than goddess.
Per the account of Apollodorus, the Gorgons had writhing nests of snakes for hair,
golden wings, boar-like tusks that jut from their maws, and hands of
bronze that could slash a person to pieces. Perseus did succeed in his quest to slay Medusa;
however, in large part, this achievement can more so be attributed to the gifts he was leant
than to his prowess as a monster slayer. Outfitted in winged sandals that granted flight and a
helmet that bestowed invisibility, wielding an impossibly sharp sword and a shield so burnished
it could be used as a mirror, he came upon Medusa unawares and decapitated her while she slept.
Now, for the reason Medusa’s head earned a spot on this list. Perseus had a run in with Atlas,
the Titan holding up the sky, before he gave the head to Athena and had returned home.
Atlas wouldn’t grant the hero hospitality, telling him to move on,
so Perseus, feeling slighted, unveiled the head and turned the Titan to stone. To be fair,
this version of the myth was written by Ovid, a Roman poet notorious for thinking Greek myths
nothing more than fanciful tales told in bygone time, this giving rise to much embellishment,
but still, anything that can turn a Titan, which is just a name for a group of gods, to stone,
indicating that it would have the same effect on other gods, is a weapon of superlative potency.
At number 2 we have the venom of the Lernaean hydra
The Lernaean Hydra is the object of Hercules’ second labour. It was an enormous serpent with
nine sinuous, strangling heads, though some versions describe a greater number,
50 or even 100. Already it sounds formidable, but its great size and multitude of heads is just the
beginning. Its venom was so lethal that any bite spelled certain death; two heads would grow back
each time one was severed or bludgeoned, and the center head was immortal, so couldn’t be killed.
Hercules wins, but not without the help of Iolous, who cauterized the gory stumps left
after each head was destroyed. Because the center head was immortal, the best Hercules could do was
bury it, and before he left, he dipped his arrows in the Hydra’s venom. With these augmented arrows
bristling in his quiver, Hercules was able to dispatch many a foe with relative ease. One of
these was Geryon, a triple-headed, triple-bodied giant. He was known for his exceptional herd of
crimson cattle, and the object of Hercules’ 10th labour was to drive them away and retrieve them,
putting the two at odds. What otherwise would have been a fierce battle, I’m sure, was ended
at a distance when Hercules let loose and pierced Geryon with a single arrow, killing him. Perhaps
the instance in which the lethality of the Hydra’s venom is best showcased comes in Chiron’s story.
Chiron was an immortal centaur and a trainer of heroes. In an unfortunate turn of events,
Chiron was wounded by one of Hercules’ arrows, and because Chiron was immortal, he could not die,
making his immortality, in this case, more of a curse than a blessing. The excruciating pain
caused by the arrow didn’t subside, which meant that Chiron’s immortality trapped him in a state
of perpetual pain. He yearned for death, and his predicament became so unbearable that Zeus
eventually took pity on him, allowing Chiron to transcend his pain and his flesh by setting
him in the sky as a constellation. In another version, Chiron swaps destinies with Prometheus.
While Chiron wasn’t killed outright, the venom of the Lernaean Hydra subjected him, an immortal,
as the gods are immortal, to such sustained agony that he begged for death, eventually escaping his
body through divine intervention. Up next we have the Ophiotaurus.
The Ophiotaurus is a monster and a somewhat esoteric bit of Greek mythology.
Spawned by Gaia, the front half was that of a bull and where the hindquarters should have been
was the tail of a snake. The mere fact that it was alive posed an ever-present,
existential threat to the Olympians. Supposedly, if its entrails were burned,
the person or group that enacted this right became endowed with the power to defeat the gods,
a great boon that the Titans were in dire need of, one that would have given them surety of victory.
From what I’ve read, there seems to only be one source that mentions the Ophiotaurus,
which is Fasti, the last major work written by the Roman Poet Ovid after he was banished to the
Black Sea city of Tomis by Emperor Augustus. The book gives an account of the Roman year
and of its many religious festivals. It comprises 12 books, one corresponding to each month of the
year, but only the first six books endured the passing of the centuries and still exist today.
The passage that pertains to the Ophiotaurus describes how a kite - a medium-sized bird of
prey - became set in the sky amongst the stars. It says that Saturnus, the Latin version of Saturn,
whom the Romans equated with the Titan Cronus, was cast down by Jove, another name for Jupiter,
the Roman equivalent for Zeus. Cronus galvanized the titans and then turned to the fates,
by whom he was purportedly owed assistance. A monster, the Ophiotaurus was imprisoned by the
goddess Styx in a black grove protected by a triple wall - possibly meaning Tartarus,
which was described as being enclosed in three walls by other Roman writers. Even the existence
of the Ophiotaurus posed a grave threat to the gods, for the burning of its entrails
bestowed the power to defeat them. Briareus - here incarnated as a giant ally of the Titans,
not as one of the three Hecatonchires - slayed the Ophiotaurus with an adamantine axe.
However, the danger of this precarious predicament was averted when Zeus sent the birds of the sky to
retrieve the entrails before they were burned. In this task, a kite succeeded, and for its
great service to the gods, Zeus rewarded it by giving it a place amongst the stars.
Had the Titans succeeded in burning the Ophiotaurus’ entrails, it would
have spelled disaster for the gods, who would have been defeated and imprisoned in Tartarus.
It is possible that the details of this quote were derived from the Titanomachia,
the lost epic that described the war between the gods and the titans;
however, it’s also possible that Ovid just invented them. He was a notorious embellisher,
and it’s well documented that he thought the old stories of the Greeks to be nothing but nonsense
written by fools. Here’s a couple lines he wrote: “I prate of ancient poets’ monstrous lies,
ne’er seen or now or then by human eyes.” At numbers 4, 5, 6, we have Zeus’ lightning,
Poseidon’s trident, Hades’ helm of darkness. We’re going to begin with a quick overview of the events
leading up to what transpired during the Titanomachy, the 10 year war between the
gods and the Titans, as it explains the origin of all three of these weapons.
After that preliminary explanation, we’ll look at each weapon individually.
And if you’re not interested in hearing about what transpired during the Titanomachy,
a war we’ve already discussed on this channel, feel free to use the time stamps and skip ahead.
Gaia and Uranus prophesied to Cronus that he was destined to be supplanted by one of his children
as he himself had supplanted his father. In an effort to forestall this eventuality, Cronus
swallowed each of his children as they were born. He sired the first six Olympian gods - Hestia,
Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus - and one by one he imprisoned them inside himself - that
is, with the exception of Zeus. The Titan Rea, Cronus’ consort, became more grief-stricken with
each child she lost. She couldn’t bear to have her youngest child taken like all the others,
so she swaddled a stone in baby’s wrappings and proffered it to Cronus in Zeus’ stead. Cronus
swallowed the stone and, with that act, thought he had preempted the inexorable words of prophecy.
However, unbeknownst to him, Zeus had been whisked away and was being raised in secret. Years later,
when Zeus was fully grown, he came out of hiding and rescued his siblings by forcing Cronus to
disgorge them, beginning the Titanomachy. During the 10 years the gods and the Titans were at war,
Zeus freed the Hecatonchires and the cyclopes from Tartarus. Both trios joined the gods and,
working in concert, combined into an overwhelming force that even the Titans couldn’t withstand.
The Hecatonchires contributed to the war effort by being indomitable forces of destruction. Each of
them had 100 arms, 50 on each shoulder, making for 300 arms total amongst the three of them.
They unleashed an onslaught of of projectiles at the titans, crushing volley after crushing volley,
but they didn’t use bows, spears, or slings; no, the gouged rock from the earth, leaving craters,
and the broke off crags and peaks, hurling a relentless barrage, battering the Titans with
what must have looked like mountain ranges arcing through then plummeting from the sky.
The contribution of the three cyclopes was of another sort. Though surpassed in size and
strength by the Hecatonchires, they were master craftsmen, so they forged three awesome weapons
for the gods: lightning for Zeus, a trident for Poseidon, and the Helm of Darkness for Hades.
With that covered, we’re now going to look at each of these three weapons in turn.
Zeus’ lightning was instrumental to forging the hierarchy of the cosmos. It helped him win the
Titanomachy, which resulted in the Titans, the previous rulers of creation, being imprisoned
in Tartarus; it helped him win the Gigantomachy, which was the war between the gods and the giants,
and it helped him defeated Typhon, unequivocally the most powerful monster in Greek mythology.
Thunder and lightning were phenomena as old as the earth, but for millennia in the primordial past,
even though they technically existed, they weren’t able to be heard and seen. Gaia
thought them such destructive forces that she hid them away. It wasn’t until the Titanomachy,
when the cyclopes were forging weapons for the gods, that Gaia allowed thunder and lightning
back into the world. Here’s a passage from Hesiod’s Theogony that speaks to this:
“He set his father’s brothers free from their baneful bondage.
The sons of Heaven whom their father in his folly had imprisoned;
and they returned thanks for his goodness by giving him thunder and lightning
and the smoking bolt, which mighty Earth had kept hidden up to then. With these to rely
on he is lord of mortals and immortals.” The three cyclopes born to Gaia and Uranus
were godlike giants. They were called Arges, “The Flashing One”, Brontes, “The Thunderer,
and Steropes, “Lightning Bolts. By the account of the Roman poet Virgil,
their forge was located in Sicily under Mount Etna, where even long after the Titan war was won,
they continued the unending labour of crafting fresh bolts for the king of the gods.
Now, there was a fair bit of distance that separated the volcanic forges beneath Mount Etna
from the Pinnacle of Mount Olympus, and I’m sure Zeus wouldn’t have relished the mundane
duty of fetching his own bolts, which is why there was probably a delivery system in place.
We know from Hesiod’s Theogony and other sources that Pegasus, the winged horse that sprung from
the gory stump of Medusa’s neck after she was decapitated, was the creature that carried
thunder and lightning to Zeus, keeping the clouds crackling like a well-stocked quiver,
so it could be that Pegasus was making trips to and from the forge.
Poseidon’s trident, a three-pronged fisherman’s spear, was his signature weapon,
though he also sometimes wielded a boulder, either of unadorned rock or decorated with sea creatures,
depending on the depiction. Greek mythology is quite ambiguous when it comes to clarifying
exactly what Poseidon’s trident does. Because of this, you can’t really discern whether it
amplifies powers Poseidon already possessed or bestows him with new powers he otherwise wouldn’t
have. I could be wrong here, so if anyone is aware of any passages that pertain to this, please share
them in the comments. Anyway, because I wasn't able to ascertain any specifics regarding what the
trident endows, we’re going to quickly discuss two instances that showcase two of Poseidon’s primary
powers, which are earth manipulation and water manipulation. In the Iliad there’s a passage in
which Poseidon lets his strength roll through the earth, shaking the world. In this, his power was
so great that the tremors even passed through to the deeper planes of creation, to the underworld,
where Hades sat fearful in his throne, afraid that his cavernous domain would be sundered above,
bringing down massive falls of rock from the ceiling. When it comes to flexing his mastery over
water, one of the most famous myths is the one in which Poseidon and Athena compete for Attica,
the territory of Athens. Athena wins the contest, as her gift, the olive tree,
was judged the more valuable; however, Poseidon’s gift, while not as useful, was still an impressive
display of his sovereignty over the sea. In one account it is a saltwater spring that begins to
flow when he taps his trident on the ground, but in another, he wills an entire sea into existence,
materializing it from nothing. Here’s the passage from the Bibliotheca of Apollodorus: “So
Poseidon was the first to come to Attica, and striking a blow with his trident on the middle
of the Acropolis, he caused a sea to appear, which is now known as the Erechtheid Sea.”
Though Hades was by no means an Evil god - in fact, when looked at through a modern lens,
he seems to have been far better in terms of scruples and impulse control than either of his
two brothers - he was the ruler of death’s domain, making him more or less synonymous with death,
even though he wasn’t, technically, the god of death itself, who was Thanatos.
Because of this, people were frightened of him, what he ruled, and what he represented, reluctant
to invoke him, let alone name him, instead favoring epithets that circumvented his name,
like ‘Chthonic Zeus’ and ‘Lord of the Underworld’. One of the consequences of this is that he’s
conspicuously absent from Greek mythology, especially so when considering his importance.
He is, after all, one of the three most powerful Olympian gods. An example of this is him being
mostly absent from both the Iliad and the Odyssey, as opposed to Zeus and Poseidon,
both of them playing an important role in each. With respect to how this relates to this video,
there just aren’t many stories in which Hades powers are put on display.
We know that Hades helmet grants the wearer perfect invisibility, but unfortunately, there
don’t seem to be any myths that showcase this. However, one doesn’t have to think too hard to
imagine how powerful this ability must have been. A god of Hades’ power racing around invisible
with god-forged weapons and armor must have been an absolute nightmare to contend with for
the Titans in the Titanomachy and for the giants in the Gigantomachy. Again, if anyone knows of a
myth in which Hades invisibility is discussed, I’d love to hear about it in the comments.
Finishing up our list is the adamantine sickle of Cronus.
In the beginning, there was chaos, the great void. From it came the first generation of
primordial deities. One of these was Gaia, the personification of the earth.
She independently produced three offspring, three second generation primordial deities.
They were Ourea, the mountains, Pontus, the sea, and Uranus, the sky,
whom Gaia took as her consort. Together they had many children: the three Hecatonchires,
Hundred-Handers, the three cyclopes, one-eyed giants, and the 12 first-generation titans.
Uranus enveloped Gaia in a smothering embrace so that there was no separation between them. Because
of this, there wasn’t any room for Gaia’s children to be born. This was a source of great anguish for
Gaia, as her children, all of prodigious size, especially the Hecatonchires, were trapped inside
her. Gaia supplicated the Titans to champion her by overthrowing Uranus, their father. Cronus,
the youngest of the titans, and the most ambitious and audacious of them, came to his mother’s aid,
though his intentions weren’t purely altruistic - after all, the crown of creation was up for grabs.
He lay in wait, a sickle of grey adamant in hand, and he ambushed Uranus, castrating him,
then tossing the severed genitals into the sea. Thus he supplanted his father,
and a new age began, the age of Titan rule. The Hecatonchires and the Cyclopes were freed,
but their time in the sun would prove ephemeral, for Cronus quickly reimprisoned them in Tartarus.
The reason this weapon makes the list is because it castrated the sky itself,
effectively functioning as the tool that initially separated both earth and sky. True,
there are other weapons credited with wounding gods in Greek mythology, but this one is the most
iconic; and it was created by Gaia herself, who produced the element of adamant for the
purpose of freeing herself, as is explained in Hesiod’s Theogony. Here’s the passage:
“Without delay she created the element of grey adamant, and made a great reaping hook,
and showed it to her dear children, and spoke to them courage, sore at heart as she was.”
And that’s it for this video! If you enjoy the content please LIKE the video
and SUBSCRIBE to the channel. As always, leave your video suggestions down below