Dark Titanic Powers and the Origins of Humanity
The Other Side of The Divine
Famously, the Titans are the enemies of the Olympian gods. In the mainstream version of Greek mythology they are defeated by the Olympians at the dawn of time. They are then cast down into the hellish pits of Tartarus, deep in the bowels of the Earth so that they may never again return and threaten the Olympian order. This Hesiodic tale is a small part of a very complex tradition. In fact, there are a number of Titans who are crucial in the workings of the Cosmos itself and the creation of humanity, as I intend to show in this post.
Last week I wrote about the myth of Prometheus and Pandora, mostly drawing on Jean-Pierre Vernant’s interpretation. This has provoked mixed reactions, most of them positive I am glad to say, though one of the negative ones included one of the foundational supporters unsubscribing. I should be glad I wasn’t banished to the Black Sea, as the poet Ovid was in the time of Augustus. Ovid said that even Homer had his detractracts and continued writing whole books in exile. What is a lesser man to do then but crack on relentlessly for those of you that are still with my mythic soul?
Prometheus was a Titan, not a human, when he dealt with Zeus at Mekone and severed the thread connecting mortals and immortals. His status as a Titan gave him a unique position as a mediator between humans and the Olympian gods. He was able to do much more than any human could by deceiving Zeus and stealing fire from heaven.
What does it mean to be a Titan? Is it different from being a god? And what do Titans have to do with the origins of humans? To answer these question we must go back to the beginning of the Theogony. This exploration will take us through a number of curious myths.
