14
votes
Accepted
Why didn’t Zeus withhold fire from humans the second time?
You can't just take it back after humans have it, unless you destroy all the humans. Zeus, of course, considered this option on a few occasions, such as after his deeply disturbing run in with Lycaon,...
- 14.1k
14
votes
Accepted
How did Cronos lose if he was god of time?
OK, so there are a couple of misconceptions here. First, as Codosaur has already pointed out, Cronus and Chronos aren't necessarily the same being -- they just have similar names.
On the other hand, ...
- 1,613
13
votes
Accepted
Is Chronos Kronos?
First of all, never get your mythology from Youtube comments.
Second, the second comment is the accurate one. Χ in Greek is transliterated as ch, and that's where we get our time words from (as they ...
- 7,156
11
votes
Accepted
What happened to Prometheus after Hercules freed him?
You are referring to the Aeschylus fragment "Prometheus Unbound". Unfortunately this play was mostly lost.
(The source text can be found here: "The Prometheus bound of Aeschylus and the fragments ...
- 14.1k
11
votes
Who held the celestial sphere before Atlas?
The following text is from the wiki:
Atlas and his brother Menoetius sided with the Titans in their war
against the Olympians, the Titanomachy. When the Titans were defeated,
many of them (...
- 299
10
votes
Who held the celestial sphere before Atlas?
According to the Theoi Project,
Hyperion, Krios, Koios and Iapetos--were posted at the four corners of the earth to hold Sky fast,
even though that was only for the murdering of their father, ...
- 6,719
8
votes
Titans as four corners of the Earth?
I gave an answer on this subject;
They held the corners of the earth originally, before Atlas did.
There are no primary sources from Theoi about his subject, which means, that, there are none.
They ...
- 6,719
7
votes
How could Heracles ensure the victory of the Olympians against the Titans if he was born mortal?
BRIEF
Herakles [Heracles] never engaged in combat against any Titan, neither before nor after his deification (his becoming a god).
The Olympians participated in two cosmic conflicts: Titanomakhia, ...
- 9,772
7
votes
Accepted
How could Heracles ensure the victory of the Olympians against the Titans if he was born mortal?
I apologize for the length of this answer, per the background--the two wars are indeed distinct, as Yannis points out. Your point about temporal contradiction is valid, (and in my experience, time can ...
- 14.1k
7
votes
Is Phoebus an alternate name for Apollo or is a description of Apollo?
It is used in both these ways.
Among the Ancient Greeks and Romans, just as in almost any other culture or language in the world, especially in the neighbourhood of the Mediterranean Basin, if a ...
- 9,772
7
votes
Accepted
Is Typhon a Gigante or god?
One might say that he is both, depending on a few different factors in question.
Classification Issues
In Greco-Roman mythology the "gods" are not a special category in the same sense that ...
- 9,772
6
votes
Accepted
Why does Atlas care about the golden apples?
It's not uncommon for Greek myths to have several variations, and it's not always possible to reconcile different versions of a myth.
The Atlas and Perseus story is a late variation of the myth of ...
- 17k
6
votes
Accepted
What Phoenician story could be the inspiration of the cosmic story of five Titanes?
As far as I can tell, the modern-day theory for the connection between Phoenician gods and the Greek Titans coms from Atlantis, the Antediluvian World, written in 1882 by Ignatius Donnelly. Donnelly ...
- 7,075
6
votes
How did Cronos lose if he was god of time?
Chronos and Cronus have often been confused in Greek Mythology. The first is the personification of time in pre-Socratic philosophy and later literature. The second is the Titan deity who was defeated ...
- 5,354
5
votes
In the battle between the Olympians and the Titans, how could any of them defeat the other one?
Well, they were forced into Tartarus.
And amongst the foremost Kottos (Cottus) and Briareos (Briareus) and Gyes insatiate for war raised fierce fighting : three hundred rocks, one upon another, they ...
- 6,719
5
votes
Accepted
Is Chiron older or younger than the Olympians?
Younger, but not by much.
Chiron was conceived when Zeus was still a baby, and while Cronus was hunting his youngest son by Rhea. Cronus and Rhea were still living together as husband and wife ...
- 9,772
4
votes
Accepted
How were children of Oceanus king and queen?
The story of Ophion being the first ruler of heaven is part of the Orphic tradition. Orphism stories may not always be 100% compatible with the more well known stories of Hesiod's theogony. In any ...
- 1,400
4
votes
Accepted
When and how did gigantic size become an attribute of the Titans?
Part of the confusion may derive from the "fuzziness" subject. Time is not strictly rational in the Greek myths, so why should proportion be firmly fixed? More confusion may be injected in ...
- 14.1k
4
votes
Accepted
What is the great gulf mentioned by Hesiod?
Yes, this "great gulf" (χάσμα μέγ') and chaos are one and the same. Gulf, chasm, abyss, void, or gap is an older meaning (LSJ; Wiki) for a term that in modern English has come to mean ...
- 1,307
3
votes
Which specific ancient sources did NOT consider Kronus and Chronos to be the same being?
Plutarch and Cicero were writing several hundred years after the earliest Greek poetry describing Cronus and Chronus. You can't really use what authors so late thought to argue what earlier authors ...
- 7,156
3
votes
Accepted
Do we know of any battles or other specific events that happened during the Titanomachy?
ACTION SCENES
We have several details connected with the part of the chronology in question, but as far as I've been able to find, beyond plain statements about there having been a cosmic conflict, ...
- 9,772
3
votes
What does Rome, Conquerors & Titans have in common?
Heracles supposedly conquered Rome and freed a Titan.
Hesiod's Theogony and Aeschylus' Prometheus Unbound both tell that Heracles shot and killed the eagle that tortured Prometheus (which was his ...
- 5,354
3
votes
When and how did gigantic size become an attribute of the Titans?
The Titanes and the Gigantes seem to have become one in people's minds over time, perhaps because both of them fought the Olympians.
While 6th century BCE writers like Homer and Hesiod don't ...
- 5,878
2
votes
Who held the celestial sphere before Atlas?
Before Atlas held up the sky Ouranos was still alive so basically he kept the sky from falling. But after Kronos over through, him Hyperion, Krios, Koios and Iapetos held up the sky from the 4 corners ...
- 21
2
votes
Is Phoebus an alternate name for Apollo or is a description of Apollo?
I was taught that there is a relationship between φοῖβος (brightness) and φόβος (fear). The idea is that Apollo's radiance is not gentle, but glaring like the sun.
Apollo is not typically ...
- 14.1k
2
votes
Accepted
Do any myths specify whether Zeus, Hades, Poseidon, Hera, Demeter, and Hestia were sextuplets or simply siblings?
As far as I have been able to find, no myth specifies anything tantamount to these siblings being sextuplets. There is, however, one ancient story which claims that four of them were twins, that is to ...
- 9,772
2
votes
Symbolism of Titans and Gods
A simple way to look at it is Titan are often associate with natural forces and phenomena, such as Eos, "Dawn".
The wiki for Eos may be confusing—there she is listed both as titan and god, ...
- 14.1k
1
vote
Why does Cronus have the power to cast hailstones, in the Dionysiaca of Nonnus?
The titans never really had specified "powers", per se. They were never worshipped as widely as the Olympians, and their role in mythology is mostly to be overthrown by their children. Since ...
- 1,278
1
vote
Why was Perse a Nymph and not a Titan like both of her parents?
My understanding is that the nymphs were offspring of Titans; hence, not Titans proper.
The nymphs were born of Oceanus and Tethys.
- 11
1
vote
Accepted
Which specific ancient sources did NOT consider Kronus and Chronos to be the same being?
The question is:
"Which specific ancient sources did NOT consider Kronus and Chronos to be the same being?"
As a Greek who has been taught Ancient Greek, i can assure you that modern Greek ...
- 159
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible