TITANS (Τιτάνες). — From the union of Uranus and Gaia were born the T., beings of gigantic stature and prodigious strength.
The *Theogony* names 12 of them (v. 133), including the most well-known: Hyperion, Rhea, Iapetus (father of Prometheus and Atlas), Cronus, Atlas, and others. To these must be added two distinct groups of giants: the Cyclopes—Brontes, Steropes, and Arges—and the Hecatoncheires—Briareus, Cottus, and Gyges. Poetically, in reference to their vengeance against their own father, the *Theogony* connects the name of the T. to the root *tivâ-levv*. Diodorus, however, links it to *Titan*, an ancient name for the Earth (*Hist.*, III, 57; V, 66). Alternatively, drawing from a conception that saw the T. as gods of light (Empedocles uses *Titanes* to designate *aithēr* [38, Diels], and Nonnus of Panopolis, much later, calls the sun *Titan* [*Dion.* 19, 206]), some have sought in the Proto-Indo-European word «titan» the Indo-European synonym «deivo» = «god», just as «dyeus-div» in Latin becomes «dies». Under this appellation, the pre-Olympian gods would have been collectively called (v. A. Nehring, in *Glotta*, 14 [1924], pp. 167 ff; P. Kretschmer, *ibid.*, pp. 309 ff). Later, the T. waged war against Zeus, who, aided by the Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires—these last having been freed from imprisonment—after a furious ten-year struggle (*Th.* 635 ff.) that shook all the elements, succeeded in overcoming these monstrous beings and hurling them back into Tartarus.
While the Homeric poems contain only vague references to them (*Iliad* I, 399; VIII, 477; *Odyssey* VII, 59), in Hesiod’s *Theogony* these struggles against Zeus occupy a prominent place in the so-called *Titanomachy* (629 ff.), which some consider a later addition or a distinct composition (v. A. Koechly, *De diversi Hesiodaeae theogoniae partibus*, Turici 1860). Zeus’s battle against the T. symbolizes the triumph of Olympian religion over the ancient gods and seems to preserve, in poetic guise, the reflection of remote and profound seismic upheavals.
Titans — Gigantomachy. 2nd-century A.D. sarcophagus inspired by Hellenistic originals from the 2nd century B.C. — Vatican, Gallery of Statues.