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In Greek Mythology , the Titans ( Greek Τιτάν, plural Τιτάνες) were a race of powerful deities that ruled during the legendary Golden Age . The Titans originally numbered twelve and were associated with various concepts, such as the ocean, memory, sight, and natural law; they later gave birth to other Titans, such as Prometheus and Atlas . They were led by the youngest first-generation Titan, Cronus , who overthrew their father, Uranus ("Heaven"), at the urgings of their mother, Gaia ("earth"). The Titans preceded the Twelve Olympians , but were eventually overthrown by them, led by Zeus , in the Titanomachy ("War of the Titans"), and many of them were imprisoned in Tartarus , the depths of the underworld. IN HESIOD In Hesiod 's '' Theogony '' the twelve Titans follow the Hundred-handers and Cyclopes as children of Ouranos , heaven, and Gaia , the Earth: :"Afterwards she lay with Heaven and bore deep-swirling Oceanus, Coeus and Crius and Hyperion and Iapetus, Theia and Rhea , Themis and Mnemosyne and gold-crowned Phoebe and lovely Tethys. After them was born Cronus the wily, youngest and most terrible of her children, and he hated his lusty sire." Uranus considered Cronos monstrous, and imprisoned him in the bowels of the Earth. Cronus, was aided by the Hecatonchires and Cyclopes , who then set upon his father, castrated him, and set himself as king of the gods, with Rhea as his wife and queen. Rhea gave birth to a new generation of gods to Cronos, but in fear that they too would eventually overthrow him, he swallowed them all one by one. Only Zeus was saved: Rhea gave Cronus a stone in swaddling clothes in his place, and placed Zeus in Crete to be guarded by the Kouretes . Once Zeus reached adulthood, he subdued Cronus by force. Using a potion concocted with the help of Gaia , his grandmother, to forcibly cause Cronus to vomit up Zeus's siblings. A war between the younger and many of older gods commences, in which Zeus is aided by the Hecatonchires , Gigantes , and Cyclopes , who have once again been freed from Tartarus . Zeus wins after a long struggle, and casts many of the Titans down into Tartarus . And yet the older gods leave their mark on the world. Some of them — like Mnemosyne , Gaia , Rhea , Hyperion , Themis and Metis — had not fought the Olympians, and become key players in the new administration. The Titans also leave behind a number of offspring, some of whom may also be counted as Titans, most notably the sons of Iapetus — Prometheus , Epimetheus , Atlas , and Menoetius . Many ancient sources follow Hesiod closely, with minor variations: Apollodorus adds Dione as a thirteenth Titan. TITANOMACHY Main article: Titanomachy Greeks of the Classical age knew of several Poem s about the war between the gods and many of the Titans, the Titanomachy ("War of the Titans"). The dominant one, and the only one that has survived, was in the '' Theogony '' attributed to Hesiod . A lost epic ''Titanomachy'' attributed to the blind Thracian bard Thamyris , himself a legendary figure, was mentioned in passing in an essay ''On Music'' that was once attributed to Plutarch . And the Titans played a prominent role in the poems attributed to Orpheus . Although only scraps of the Orphic narratives survive, they show interesting differences with the Hesiodic tradition. These Greek myths of the Titanomachy fall into a class of similar myths throughout Europe and the Near East, where one generation or group of gods by and large opposes the dominant one. Sometimes the Elder Gods are supplanted. Sometimes the rebels lose, and are either cast out of power entirely or incorporated into the Pantheon . Other examples might include the wars of the Æsir with the Vanir and Jotun s in Scandinavian Mythology , the Babylonian epic Enuma Elish , the Hittite "Kingship in Heaven" narrative, and the obscure generational conflict in Ugarit ic fragments. IN OTHER GREEK SOURCES Hesiod is not, however, the last word on the Titans. Surviving fragments of Orphic poetry in particular preserve some variations on the myth. In one Orphic text, Zeus does not simply set upon his father violently. Instead, Rhea spreads out a banquet for Kronos, so that he becomes drunk upon honey. Zeus chains him and castrates him. Rather than being consigned to Tartarus , Cronus is dragged – still drunk – to the cave of Night , where he continues to dream and prophesy throughout eternity. Another myth concerning the Titans that is not in Hesiod revolves around Dionysus . At some point in his reign, Zeus decides to give up the throne in favor of the infant Dionysus , who like the infant Zeus is guarded by the Kouretes . The Titans decide to slay the child and claim the throne for themselves; they paint their faces white with gypsum, distract Dionysus with toys, then dismember him and boil and roast his limbs. Zeus , enraged, slays the Titans with his thunderbolt; Athena preserves the heart in a gypsum doll, out of which a new Dionysus is made. This story is told by the poets Callimachus and Nonnus , who call this Dionysus " Zagreus ", and also in a number of Orphic texts, which do not. One iteration of this story, reported by the Neoplatonist philosopher Olympiodorus , writing in the Christian era, says that humanity sprung up out of the fatty smoke of the burning Titan corpses. Other earlier writers imply that humanity was born out of the blood shed by the Titans in their war against Zeus. Pindar , Plato and Oppian refer offhandedly to man's "Titanic nature". Whether this refers to a sort of "original sin" rooted in the murder of Dionysus is hotly debated by scholars. IN THE 20TH CENTURY Some scholars of the past century or so, most eloquently Jane Ellen Harrison , have argued that an initiatory or shamanic ritual underlies the myth of Dionysus 's dismemberment and cannibalism by the Titans. She also points out that the word "Titan", comes from the Greek τιτανος, meaning white earth, clay or gypsum, and that the Titans were "white clay men", or men covered by white clay or gypsum dust in their rituals. The scholar M.L. West also points this out in relation to shamanistic initiatory rites of early Greek religious practices. Harrison goes on to say that the meaning of a Titan, as a giant, is a mythologized usage and this wasn't the meaning originally. Out of confusion with the Gigantes , various large things have been named after the Titans, for example the RMS ''Titanic'' . IN NEOPAGANISM By and large Neopagan views of Titans can be considered New Age . Many of the ancient myths are often conveniently reinterpreted as metaphor or seen as man's account of the divine. As such, whether most modern beliefs regarding the Titans are grounded in actual mythology is often irrelevant to many Neopagans of today. In the United States ''Hellenistic'' Neopagan Sect s often have a special place for the Titan gods of ancient Greece, in particular Gaia , Cronus , Hecate , Hyperion , Theia , and Themis . It is sometimes argued that most of the beliefs regarding these Titan gods are inspired by popular fiction and entertainment media and not by actual mythology. NOTES Jane Ellen Harrison, ''Themis'', p.16,17, and on. "The Titans then, the white-clay-men, are real men dressed up as bogies to perform initiaion rites. It is only later when their meaning is forgotten that they are explained as Titanes, mythological giants." {Link without Title} cf. M.L. West, ''The Orphic Poems''. REFERENCES
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