The most important tales of the Titans involve the overthrow of their father Uranus and their own battle against the Olympian gods. Uranus hated the children born from his wife Gaia, so he forced her to keep the Titans in Tartarus (pronounced TAR-tur-uhs), a dismal pit deep within Gaia’s bowels. This caused Gaia much pain, and she asked her sons to help her defeat Uranus by cutting off his genitals with a sickle. Only her youngest son, the Titan Cronus, was willing to do it. After he was successful, the Titans were freed from Tartarus and ruled the heavens. Cronus, with his sister Rhea at his side, was their leader.
However, Cronus was told that when he had children, one ofhis sons would overthrow him—just as he had done to his own father. To avoid this fate, Cronus swallowed each of his children as soon as they were born. Rhea managed to save only one child, Zeus, by hiding him and feeding Cronus a stone in the baby’s place. When Zeus grew older, he gave his father a potion that made him vomit out his other siblings. These children, known as the Olympians, then waged an eleven-year war against the Titans. The Olympians eventually won and cast many of the Titans back into Tartarus, where Uranus had imprisoned them long before. However, several of the Titans—including Oceanus and all the female Titans—did not participate in the war against the Olympians, and therefore were able to remain free.
Oceanus was one of six male Titans—-giant, powerful, and primeval beings that were overthrown by the Greek gods. VANNI/ART RESOURCE, NY.
World History
