Titan
One of the twelve children of Earth and Heaven whom Hesiod names — Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus, Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Tethys and Cronus — and, by extension, their children such as Atlas and Prometheus. Heaven called them "Titans (Strainers) in reproach"; they ruled before Zeus and were bound in Tartarus after the ten-year war.
Why this wins its question: Gives the list with the line, the etymology Hesiod himself offers, and the one place where Apollodorus's roster differs.
Key takeaways
- Twelve in Hesiod (Theog. 132–138), thirteen in Apollodorus (Dione added); the name means 'Strainers' and is Heaven's insult (Theog. 207–210).
- They fight from Othrys, the Olympians from Olympus; after ten years they are bound in Tartarus (Theog. 630–735), where Homer also puts Iapetus and Cronus.
- Atlas, Prometheus, Hecate and Themis are called Titan by descent; the word is a lineage, not only the twelve.
Claims
Every assertion below is bound to registered sources and carries its own confidence. Weight them; do not treat the page as uniformly authoritative.
Hesiod names twelve: Earth "lay with Heaven and bore deep-swirling Oceanus, Coeus and Crius and Hyperion and Iapetus, Theia and Rhea, Themis and Mnemosyne and gold-crowned Phoebe and lovely Tethys. After them was born Cronos the wily, youngest and most terrible of her children" (Theog. 132–138).
The name is a reproach: "these sons whom he begot himself great Heaven used to call Titans (Strainers) in reproach, for he said that they strained and did presumptuously a fearful deed, and that vengeance for it would come afterwards" (Theog. 207–210).
They are the losing side of the Titanomachy: "the Titan gods and as many as sprang from Cronos had long been fighting together …, the lordly Titans from high Othrys, but the gods … from Olympus", "for ten full years" (Theog. 630–638), until the Hundred-handers "hurled them beneath the wide-pathed earth, and bound them in bitter chains" in Tartarus, with Poseidon's bronze gates (Theog. 713–735).
Homer places them there too: Zeus tells Hera she may go "to the nethermost bounds of earth and sea, where abide Iapetus and Cronos, and have joy neither in the rays of Helios Hyperion nor in any breeze, but deep Tartarus is round about them" (Il. 8.478–481).
Apollodorus's list is thirteen, not twelve: "the Titans as they are named: Ocean, Coeus, Hyperion, Crius, Iapetus, and, youngest of all, Cronus; also daughters, the Titanides as they are called: Tethys, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Dione, Thia" (Apollod. 1.1.3) — Dione is added, whom Hesiod lists among the Oceanids (Theog. 353).
The word extends to the next generation: Prometheus speaks of "the Titans, children of Heaven and Earth" whom he could not persuade (PV 205–207), calls Atlas "one other Titan god" (PV 427) and his mother "Titan Themis" (PV 874); Hesiod likewise counts Hecate's portion "among the former Titan gods" (Theog. 424).