Hecatoncheires

Lore & Background

The Hundred-Handers, Cottus, Briareus and Gyges, were three monstrous giants, of enormous size and strength, with fifty heads and one hundred arms. They were among the eighteen offspring of Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth), which also included the twelve Titans, and the three one-eyed Cyclopes. According to the Theogony of Hesiod, they were the last of these children of Uranus to be born, while according to the mythographer Apollodorus they were the first. In the Hesiodic tradition, they played a key role in the Greek succession myth, which told how the Titan Cronus overthrew his father Uranus, and how in turn Zeus overthrew Cronus and his fellow Titans, and how Zeus was eventually established as the final and permanent ruler of the cosmos. According to the standard version of the succession myth, given in the accounts of Hesiod and Apollodorus, the Hundred-Handers, along with their brothers the Cyclopes, were imprisoned by their father Uranus. Gaia induced Cronus to castrate Uranus, and Cronus took over the supremacy of the cosmos. With his sister the Titaness Rhea, Cronus fathered several offspring, but he swallowed each of them at birth. However, Cronus' last child Zeus was saved by Rhea, and Zeus freed his brothers and sisters, and together they (the Olympians) began a great war, the Titanomachy, against the Titans, for control of the cosmos. Gaia had foretold that, with the help of the Hundred-Handers, the Olympians would be victorious, so Zeus released them from their captivity and the Hundred-Handers fought alongside the Olympians against the Titans and were instrumental in the Titans' defeat. The Titans were then imprisoned in Tartarus with the Hundred-Handers as their guards. The lost epic poem the Titanomachy, although probably written after Hesiod's Theogony, perhaps preserved an older tradition in which the Hundred-Handers fought on the side of the Titans, rather than the Olympians. According to a euhemeristic rationalized account, given by Palaephatus, Cottus and Briareus, rather than being hundred-handed giants, were instead men, who were called the Hundred-Handers because they lived in a city called Hecatoncheiria ('Hundredarm'). They came to the aid of the residents of the city of Olympia (that is, the mortal Olympians) in driving away the Titans from their great city.

Reader's Guide

The Hecatoncheires are notable primarily for their decisive role in the Titanomachy, where they fought alongside Zeus and the Olympians and were instrumental in the Titans' defeat, after which they became the guards of the imprisoned Titans in Tartarus. Their name derives from the Greek ἑκατόν (hekaton, 'hundred') and χείρ (cheir, 'hand' or 'arm'), though the Theogony never uses the collective name Hecatoncheires, referring to them individually. The Iliad does not use the name either, but uses the adjective hekatoncheiros ('hundred-handed') to describe Briareus. The first certain usage of the name Hecatoncheires is found in the works of mythographers such as Apollodorus. Briareus is the most prominent of the three; in Homer's Iliad, he is given a second name, Aegaeon, which the gods call Briareus but men call Aegaeon. The lost epic Titanomachy reflected a different tradition, where Aegaeon was the son of Gaia and Pontus (Sea) and fought on the side of the Titans. For Latin poets Virgil and Ovid, Briareus was also an enemy of the gods. Briareus/Aegaeon's association with the sea is seen in the name Aegaeon, whose root αἰγ- appears in words associated with the sea, and in later writers such as Aelian, who reports Aristotle saying the Pillars of Heracles had been previously named the Pillars of Briareus. According to the sixth-century-BC lyric poet Ibycus, the belt that Heracles was sent to fetch in his ninth labour belonged to Oeolyca, the daughter of Briareus.

Did You Know?

• In Homer's Iliad, Briareus is called Aegaeon by mortals, while the gods call him Briareus.
• According to the lost epic Titanomachy, Aegaeon fought on the side of the Titans, not the Olympians.
• The sixth-century-BC poet Ibycus said the belt Heracles fetched in his ninth labour belonged to Oeolyca, daughter of Briareus.