If you read my blog regularly you noted references to Aaron
Atsma or more probably to his incredible website; www.theoi.com
. Atsma has all the primary source
materials linked to his site. He wrote
incredibly articles on every god, goddess, demi-god, daemon and divine monster
in Greek mythology. Each entry in his
encyclopedic effort is thoroughly referenced with the actual text, thoroughly
readable and effectively cross-referenced.
I don’t even have his website bookmarked. I visit it so often that my Google search
field automatically defaults to it. I am
hoping Atsma will accept an invitation from Hour 25 to be a visiting scholar.
I am sure Mr. Atsma’s finger tips are worn to the bone,
putting together this indispensible
site. Hence, he’s never written anything
else that I can find. I know he has more
to share and further insights. He offers off-handed little tidbits in his
introductions at the beginning of each article and often in the Notes section
at the end. (Can’t resist a few quotes here; “The story’s in the details” and
“It’s all in the footnotes.”) While
working on an article about “The
Combatants of the Titanomachy” I kept running across such interesting
things in the footnotes. I present those
“interesting things” here as “Atsma’s Titanic
Theories”. To be clear this is my
interpretation of what I believe is his concept of the first and second
generation Titans.
Introduction
The first generation
Titans were the sons of Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth). Hesiod named them Oceanus, Coeus, Crius,
Hyperion, Iapetus and the youngest Cronus.
Conveniently the primordial couple of Sky and Earth also produced six
daughters; the Titanesses. (None of the Titanesses
or goddesses actively participated in what happens next.)
“(Cronus) and his brothers
conspired against their father, laying an ambush for him as he descended to lie
with Earth. Four of the siblings were posted at the corners of the world, where
they seized hold of him and held him fast, while Cronus castrated him with a sickle.
In this myth the brothers apparently personified the great pillars … holding
heaven and earth apart, or sometimes the whole cosmos aloft.” “Hyperion in the east,
Iapetus in the west, Coeus in the north and Crius in the south. The fifth Cronus
(Time) stood in the centre, and the sixth, Oceanus, circled the world in the
form of the river Ocean.”
Not everyone agrees with the identification of Cronus with
Chronos but it has a certain logic. Time cannot begin until the sun (Hyperion)
rises for the first time. That can’t
happen until the Sky and Earth part on a more permanent basis.
“Individually they were apparently
responsible for the establishment of the portions of time: Cronus was time, the
destroyer; Crius, leader of the constellations, and so regulator of the seasons;
Coeus, lord of the axis of heaven, around which the constellations revolved
measuring the year; Hyperion, overlord of the day and night, father of sun,
moon and dawn; Iapetus Titan-god of mortal life-span and ancestor of man; and Oceanus
the earth-encircler, who oversaw the rising and setting of the heavenly bodies.
“
Cronus
Cronus was the Titan all-devouring
time. He was King of the Titans during the first age of man the Golden Age. “ In fear of a prophecy that he would be in
turn be overthrown by his own son, Cronus swallowed each of his children as
soon as they were born. His wife/sister Rhea
saved the youngest, Zeus, by hiding him and fed Cronus a stone wrapped
in the swaddling clothes. The godling grew up, forced Cronus to disgorge his
swallowed offspring, and led the Olympians in a ten year war against the Titans. Cronus’ nephew the Iapetides, took over the
leadership of the Titanic army.
Eventually the Titans were defeated and tossed into the pit of Tartarus.
Coeus
Atsma says that Coeus is also called Polos (of the northern
pole), suggesting he was the Titan of the pillar of the north and Titan of the axis of heaven around which the
constellations revolved. Atsma supposes
he was probably also a god of heavenly oracles, just as his wife Phoebe
presided over the oracle of the center of the earth; Delphi.
Their grandson Phoebus Apollo
eventually inherited the oracle. “ According
to Atsma; “in ancient times this point in the heavens was marked by the star
alpha Dra in the constellation Draco.” His wife/sister, Phoebe, was the complimentary
goddess of the navel of the earth; Delphi.
“Clearly Coeus functioned as the prophetic voice of his father Heaven,
just as Phoebe was the prophetic voice of her mother Earth. Like Delphi, navel
of the earth, the axis of heaven was also guarded by a Drakon: the
constellation Draco.”
“The daughters of Coeus appear to
have represented the two main branches of prophecy: Leto and her son Apollo presided
over the prophetic power of light and heaven, whereas Asteria (wife of Perses
below) and her daughter Hecate presided over the prophetic powers of night,
chthonian darkness and the ghosts of the dead.”
“Crius' connection with the south
is found both in his name and family connections--he is "the Ram,"
the constellation Aries, whose springtime rising in the south marked the start
of the Greek year; his eldest son is Astraios, god of the stars; and his wife
is Eurybia, a daughter of the sea. .. Crius was in this sense also the
primordial god of the constellations who ordered the measures of the year, Crius'
other sons were Perses the Destroyer and the sometimes goat-skinned Titan Pallas
the spear-brandishing one, “
He supposes that the sons were totemic-gods. Pallas, whose
skin became Athena's aegis was goatish. Perses, father of the dog accompanied Hecate, was
perhaps dog-like. Astraios was father of
horse-shaped wind-gods.
Iapetus
“Iapetus himself was no doubt the
pillar of the west, a position which was later and more obviously held by his
son Atlas. Iapetus "the
piercer" may also have been regarded as the Titan god of the mortal
life-span. Indeed, his sons Prometheus and Epimetheus were represented as the
creators of mankind and other mortal creatures. Iapetus and his bride Clymene.”
Note; she was not his sister but rather a water nymph) might have been conceived with a variety of
functions” Atsma envisions Iapetus and
his sons as craftsmen. “The Awl” being
one interpretation of his name.
“The sons of Iapetus were also
described as possessing some of the worst of human traits : on an intellectual
level, Prometheus is overly sly and crafty, Epimetheus a guileless fool, Atlas
overly daring, and arrogant Menoitios prone to rash and violent actions. Iapetus
may be the same as Keuthonymos,
a mysterious underworld daemon named as the father of Menoites, herdsman of Hades.
It is reasonable to assume that this Menoites is identical to Menoitios, son of
Iapetus.”
Without being too clear about it Atsma is following Homer,
(Iliad 8. 479) in making Iapetus of the realm eventually called
Hades.
Hyperion
“He and his brothers also seem to
have been viewed as the ancient gods responsible for the creation of man, and
who each bestowed a quality. Hyperion as his name suggests ("he who
watches from above") was clearly associated with watching and observation,
just as his wife, Theia, was the goddess of sight (thea), and so theirs
was surely the gift of eyes and sight.” “Hyperion--father of
sun, dawn and moon--ordered the days and months. “
Hyperion was of course the elder Titan of the Sun and
represented the East. Hence, it is not
surprising that his son Helios’ primary residence is in the east and that his
grandson Aeetes rules the most easterly known human realm. Hyperion sired
Helios (the sun), Selene (the moon) and rosy-fingered Eos the Dawn.
Oceanus
“ Oceanus was the Titan … of the great
earth-encircling river Oceanus,
the font of all the earth's fresh-water: including rivers, wells, springs and
rain-clouds. Oceanus was also the god who regulated the rising and setting of
the heavenly bodies which were believed to emerge and descend into his watery
realm at the ends of the earth. .. Their children were the … River-Gods and Oceanides,
nymphs of springs and fountains. Unlike his brother Titans, Oceanus neither
participated in the castration of Uranus nor joined the battle against the
younger Olympian gods. ….
Oceanus was depicted in ancient
Greek vase painting as a bull-horned god with the tail of a serpentine fish in
place of legs, similar to his river-god sons. … His wife Tethys, shown seated
beside him, had wings on her brow, in the role of mother of rain-clouds.”
This pair who lived
outside of our known reality maintained their neutrality and offered shelter to
the goddesses and Titanesses during the water between the Titans and Cronus
children. Cronus’ children were of
course the Olympians led by Zeus.
Conclusion
“The Titans were eventually deposed
by Zeus and cast into the pit of Tartarus. Hesiod describes this as a void
located beneath the foundations of all, where earth, sea and sky have their
roots. Here the Titans shift in cosmological terms from being holders of heaven
to bearers of the entire cosmos. According to Pindar and Aeschylus the Titans
were eventually released from the pit through the clemency of Zeus.” “Many
human generations later, Zeus released Cronus and his brothers from this
prison, and made the old Titan king of the Elysian Islands, home of the blessed
dead.”
There is no Titan in charge of the sea! Curious. You may laugh at me for realizing this only now. It is difficult for me to fit into another worldview, even if it is described in detail. I know that Oceanus and Tethys are the Titans of a (non-existent) all-encompassing freshwater river, yet I keep associating them with the sea, the ocean as we use the world now. In fact, it seems that there were no Uranids in the sea until the era of Poseidon.
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