Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In  today’s video, we’re going to discuss the all-out  

war between the gods and the titans, a war so  devastating that it remade the face of the earth,  

a war so important that it decided who  would sit highest and rule the cosmos.

Let’s get into it.

Just as important as the war itself  were the events that lead up to it,  

so we’re going to spend a little time setting the  stage by exploring the preamble. First there were  

the primordial deities, who were succeeded by the  Titans, who were, in turn, superseded by the gods.

Cronus, the youngest and boldest of the  titans, learnt of a prophecy that foretold his  

downfall at the hands of one of his children, and  he must have been especially paranoid of such an  

eventuality; for it was he who overthrew his own  father, Uranus, the personification of the sky,  

by castrating him. The strategy Cronus employed  was to swallow his children whole as soon as  

they were born, but his consort, the titan  goddess rhea, grew more distraught with each  

She swaddled a stone in baby’s wrappings  and proffered it to Cronus in Zeus’ stead,  

and Cronus, not suspecting even an inkling  of trickery, promptly swallowed the stone.

Unbeknownst to Cronus, though, Zeus was whisked  away and raised in secret, where he grew into a  

paragon of power, strong of body and keen of  mind. Once the bloom of manhood was upon him,  

he made a triumphant return with the goal of  casting his father down from his lofty seat,  

but to accomplish this, he would need allies,  so Zeus’ first move was to free his siblings.

Now, there are multiple accounts  that detail exactly how Zeus  

was able to force Cronus to disgorge the  five gods - Zeus’ five siblings - he had  

swallowed. Per Apollodorus’ account,  Zeus enlisted the aid of Metis,  

who contrived for Cronus to imbibe an emetic,  which purged the titan’s stomach and brought  

up all who were imprisoned within. First came  the stone, which was swallowed in Zeus’ stead,  

then the gods in this order: Poseidon,  Hades, Hera, Demeter, and finally, Hestia.

Far from concluding quickly, the war raged for  ten long years. The pillars of the earth shook  

and the heavens trembled. Creation was the  anvil, and the war was the smith’s hammer;  

and each blow was cataclysm unleashed upon the  land. The topography of the world was remade a  

hundred times over as whole mountain ranges  tumbled and the seas roiled. It was as if an  

all-consuming tempest enveloped the earth in a  cloud of destruction. Perpetual fire and flood  

replaced the intermittency of sun and rain that  blessed gentler times free of strife and sunder.

The gods were formidable, but alone against  the titans, they could not secure victory.  

Neither side could strike a blow from which the  other could not recover, nor could either side  

capture a meaningful advantage. Fortunately,  the gods, due to the maltreatment suffered by  

some under the yoke of the titans, were  able to rally others to their cause.

Gaia prophesied that the gods would end the war  

if they travelled to Tartarus  and freed her other children.

In addition to the titans, Gaia and Uranus had  six other children, three cyclopes and three  

hecatonchires. Uranus found these six to be  abominations, so he imprisoned them within the  

earth; and Cronus, once he had risen to power,  also kept them imprisoned, perpetuating their  

incarceration in the deep dark beneath the  earth. Well, as you can imagine, Neither the  

Cyclopes nor the Hecatonchires were ecstatic about  being trapped underground for years uncounted.

Lead by Zeus, the gods traveled to Tartarus,  slayed the dragon Campe, and rescued both the  

Cyclopes and the Hecatonchires, all of whom were  eager for there to be a new king of the cosmos,  

one who wouldn’t condemn them to an eternity  in the black caverns below the earth.

The Cyclopes joined the war effort by  crafting awesome weapons, weapons of  

unsurpassed power, for the gods. Zeus was given  the thunderbolt, Poseidon, a trident that could  

shake the earth, and Hades, a cap of darkness  that granted the wearer perfect invisibility.

The Hecatonchires contributed by joining the fray.  They were among the mightiest monsters in Greek  

mythology, peerless in both size and strength. 50  arms grew from each shoulder, and 50 heads crowned  

the breadth of their shoulders. They were heavy  artillery. It was as if all the world was their  

quiver. They plucked mountains from the face of  the earth, and bombarded the titans with them;  

and with 100 arms a piece, waves of 300 enormous  projectiles crashed over the titans, again, again,  

and again, almost like the fragments of some  destroyed planet were raining down from the sky.

Coinciding with this was Zeus’ decision to shed  all restraint and finally unleash his unbridled  

power. The mountain volleys were joined by an  onslaught of thunderbolts. The combined force  

of this attack overwhelmed the titans, who were  beaten into submission and imprisoned in Tartarus.

And it should be mentioned that another  factor that worked heavily in the gods’ favour  

was that not all of the titans actually fought  for the titans; some remained impartial and  

others even betrayed their own kind and joined  the gods. Though information here is sparse,  

there are sources that recount neither the Titan  Oceanus nor the Titan Goddesses participating,  

and this loss for the Titan forces was exacerbated  by the decision of Prometheus and Epimetheus  

to break faith with their own ilk and become  turncoats, throwing their lots in with the gods.

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