Hey Everyone, Welcome to Mythology Explained. In today’s video we’re going to explore whether,
despite losing the war, it was the titans who were actually more powerful than the gods.
Let’s get into it.
The Greek creation myth was one defined by great conflicts. The primordial deities were
succeeded by the Titans, and subsequently, the Titans were then superseded by the gods,
who went on to trounce the giants in the Gigantomachy and to defeat Typhon,
unequivocally the most powerful monster in all of Greek mythology.
Yes, the titans were defeated by the gods, and yes, all of the belligerent titans - with the
exception of Atlas - were forever imprisoned in the great abyss beneath the earth,
forever banished in the infernal depths of Tartarus. At the same time, though,
it must be conceded that the strength of the gods
was augmented by weapons and reinforcements brought into the mix by way of outside forces.
Sometime after Zeus made his existence known and rescued his five brothers and sisters trapped
within Cronus, they took a trip down to Tartarus, slayed the dragon Campe, the jailor, and freed the
three Cyclopes and the three Hecatonchires. Both of these trios sided with the gods and
joined the war effort, but contributed in very different ways. The cyclopes were great craftsmen,
and so, they made three awesome weapons for the gods: Zeus received the lightning bolt, the most
powerful weapon in all of Greek mythology; Poseidon received the trident, which could
shake and sunder the earth; and Hades received the helm of darkness, which granted the wearer
perfect invisibility. These weapons outclassed any the Titans had enhancing their forces.
Then there were the Hecatonchires, colossal in size, unimaginably strong. 50 arms grew from each
shoulder, and 50 heads surmounted their bodies. Of the monsters, only Typhon was more powerful.
They joined the fray, unleashing a bombardment of projectiles, each one the size of a mountain,
so it was as if volleys comprising whole mountain ranges were raining down on the Titans. Working in
concert, the gods with their magnificent weapons, The Hecatonchires with their superlative strength,
the Titans were utterly overwhelmed and beaten into submission,
at which point they were wrangled up and heaved into the black pit of Tartarus.
Let’s pause for a moment and unpack this. On the one hand, it can be argued that the titans,
especially Cronus, by virtue of lacking the foresight to to ally themselves with the
Hecatonchires and the Cyclopes, committed a blunder of elephantine proportions that
undermined their overall power by eliminating potential allies from their ranks and,
not only that, but also effectively sowed the seeds of their own destruction,
as the door to making reign-ending alliances was left wide open; a wide open door - it should
be said - Zeus strolled right through. On the other hand, though, this war begs the question:
what if the cyclopes were neutral or, yet worse for the gods, sided with the titans.
If Atlas was running around invisible, his head clad in the helm of darkness, if Meneotius was
using his trident to create earthquakes, if Cronus was hurling lightning bolts, and compounding with
this, the three Hecatonchires were launching and onslaught of mountains, wave after wave,
it doesn’t sound like it could be reasonably argued that the gods would stand the slimmest
chance against an alliance forged by the titans, the cyclopes, and the hecatonchires teaming up.
Given that the Cyclopes and the Hecatonchires give which ever side they join an overwhelming
advantage that results in surety of victory, the only reasonably course is to make them neutral,
keeping them out of the war altogether - that is,
if we really want understand which group, gods or titans, is more powerful.
What’s interesting about sidelining the Cyclopes and the Hecatonchires
is that this iteration of the war actually played out; it’s not something that can only be grasped
through some abstract exercise of imaginary simulation. Per Apollodorus’ account, the gods
and the titans were at war for 10 long years. It was a protracted affair, a true battle attrition,
neither side able to capture a meaningful advantage against the other. It wasn’t until
the end that Gaia prophesied that the gods could claim victory if they travelled to Tartarus,
freed the Cyclopes and the Hecatonchires, and recruited them as allies. This proves that
the gods and the titans were evenly matched if other parties aren’t dragged into the conflict
With the cyclopes and the hecatonchires sidelined, the next point of consideration becomes numbers.
How many gods fought in the Titanomachy; how many titans? If the gods were able to fight the titans
to a draw with fewer combatants on their side, would that prove them to be more powerful? Would
the opposite be true? Unfortunately, as far as I know, this question can’t really be answered.
Some of the titans are known to have remained neutral, like Tethys and Oceanus. Some of the
titans defected, betraying their own kind and joining the gods, like Prometheus and
his half-wit brother Epimetheus. Then there’s the fact that none of the Titan Goddesses were
imprisoned in Tartarus, which either indicates that none of them fought for the Titans,
or that Zeus was magnanimous - at least, he potentially was to gods of the female variety
at the close of the war. Anyway, it’s all a muddled mess, a hodgepodge of disparate
accounts and information gaps. There isn’t some comprehensive account - at least,
none that I know of - that delineates the gods and titans that fought for each side.
If anyone has a good source for this information, please share it in the comments.
As to whether a definite statement can be made about either the gods or the titans being more
powerful, who can say. The gods won the war, so that has to count for something; but then
it looks as though the titans would have won the war if outfitted in the same cyclops-forged
weapons and bolstered by the same 300 arms worth of Hecatonchires mountain-hurling power.
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