In Homer, then, we find nothing beyond the simple fact that Zeus thrust his father Kronos together with the remaining Titans into Tartarus; an event to which he affords us a tolerable parallel in certain occurrences even under the presidency of Zeus himself. For the other gods make more than one rebellious attempt against Zeus, and are only put down, partly by his unparalleled strength, partly by the presence of his ally the Centimane Briareus. Kronos, like Laërtes or Pêleus, has become old, and has been supplauted by a force vastly superior to his own. The Homeric epic treats Zeus as present, and, like all the interesting heroic characters, a father must be assigned to him: that father has once been the chief of the Titans, but has been superseded and put down into Tartarus along with the latter, so soon as Zeus and the superior breed of the Olympic gods acquired their full development.
That antithesis between Zeus and Kronos—between the Olympic gods and the Titans—which Homer has thus briefly brought to view, Hesiod has amplified into a theogony, with many things new, and some things contradictory to his predecessor; while Eumêlus or Arktinus in the poem called Titanomachia (now lost) also adopted it as their special subject.[1] As Stasinus, Arktinus, Lêsches, and others, enlarged the Legend of Troy by composing poems relating to a supposed time anterior to the commencement, or subsequent to the termination of the Iliad,—as other poets recounted adventures of Odysseus subsequent to his landing in Ithaka,—so Hesiod enlarged and systematized, at the same time that he corrupted, the skeleton theogony which we find briefly indicated in Homer. There is violence and rudeness in the Homeric gods, but the great genius of Grecian epic is no way accountable for the stories of Uranos and Kronos,—the standing reproach against Pagan legendary narrative.
- ↑ See the few fragments of the Titanomachia, in Düntzer, Epic. Græc. Fragm. p. 2; and Hyne, ad Apollodor. I. 2. Perhaps there was more than one poem on the subject, though it seems that Athenaeus had only read one (viii. p. 277).
In the Titanomachia, the generations anterior to Zeus were still further lengthened by making Uranos the son of Æthêr (Fr. 4. Düntzer). Ægæon was also represented as son of Pontus and Gæa, and as having fought in the ranks of the Titans: in the Iliad he (the same who is called Briareus) is the fast ally of Zeus.
A Titanographia was ascribed to Musæus (Schol. Apollon. Rhod iii. 1178 compare Lactant. de Fals. Rel. i. 21).
