Still further to strengthen himself, Zeus released the other Uranids
who had been imprisoned in Tartarus by their father,—the Cyclôpes and
the Centimanes,—and prevailed upon them to take part with him against
the Titans. The former supplied him with thunder and lightning, and the
latter brought into the fight their boundless muscular strength.[14]
Ten full years did the combat continue; Zeus and the Kronids occupying
Olympus, and the Titans being established on the more southerly
mountain-chain of Othrys. All nature was convulsed, and the distant
Oceanus, though he took no part in the struggle, felt the boiling,
the noise, and the shock, not less than Gæa and Pontus. The thunder
of Zeus, combined with the crags and mountains torn up and hurled by
the Centimanes, at length prevailed, and the Titans were defeated and
thrust down into Tartarus. Iapetos, Kronos, and the remaining Titans
(Oceanus excepted) were imprisoned, perpetually and irrevocably, in
that subterranean dungeon, a wall of brass being built around them by
Poseidôn, and the three Centimanes being planted as guards. Of the two
sons of Iapetos, Menœtius was made to share this prison, while Atlas
was condemned to stand for ever at the extreme west, and to bear upon
his shoulders the solid vault of heaven.[15]
[14] Hesiod, Theog. 140, 624, 657. Apollodôr. i. 2, 4.
[15] The battle with the Titans, Hesiod, Theog. 627-735. Hesiod
mentions nothing about the Gigantes and the Gigantomachia:
Apollodôrus, on the other hand, gives this latter in some detail,
but despatches the Titans in a few words (i. 2, 4; i. 6, 1). The
Gigantes seem to be only a second edition of the Titans,—a sort
of duplication to which the legendary poets were often inclined.
Thus were the Titans subdued, and the Kronids with Zeus at their head
placed in possession of power. They were not, however, yet quite
secure; for Gæa, intermarrying with Tartarus, gave birth to a new and
still more formidable monster called Typhôeus, of such tremendous
properties and promise, that, had he been allowed to grow into full
development, nothing could have prevented him from vanquishing all
rivals and becoming supreme. But Zeus foresaw the danger, smote him at
once with a thunderbolt from Olympus, and burnt him up: he was cast
along with the rest into Tartarus, and no further enemy remained to
question the sovereignty of the Kronids.[16]
[16] Hesiod, Theog. 820-869. Apollod. i. 6, 3. He makes Typhôn
very nearly victorious over Zeus. Typhôeus, according to Hesiod,
is father of the irregular, violent, and mischievous winds:
Notus, Boreas, Argestês and Zephyrus, are of divine origin (870).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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