Bethnal Green

Ancient Greek Mythology

Hesiod: Theogony

8th century BC, ancient Greek, composed (reputedly) at the base of Mount Helicon, Boeotia, Greece.

The titans on Mount Othrys and the gods on Mount Olympus fought for ten long years.

Uranus tied up his three sons Kottos, Gyes and Briareus, the hundred-handed ones, and set them in the underworld to live there, at the furthest reaches of the Earth. But Zeus and all the other children of Chronos, upon the advice of Gaia, removed them from the afterlife and set them in the glare of the sun. For the children of Chronos were fighting a war against the titans, and Gaia predicted victory for Zeus if he removed the presence of these three from the underworld, that is, from the afterlife.

[The titans were brothers to Kottos, Gyes and Briareus. Atlas was a titan. Prometheus was a titan. They were giants. And as Zeus’s uncles, they represented the old generation, the old gods, whom Zeus was fighting against.]

The titans on Mount Othrys and the new gods on Mount Olympus fought for ten long years, with no significant gains on either side...

An 8th century BC account of the gods in Hesiod's Theogony from: Wender, Dorethea Schmidt, 1973. Hesiod: Theogony · Works and Days. Theognis: Elegies. Translated from ancient Greek with an introduction. Penguin Books Limited. Theogony, pp 23–57. Kottos, Gyes, Briareus and the war between Zeus and the Titans, pp 43–6 [602–725].