THE HEKATONKHEIRES

The Hecatoncheires were creatures of Greek Mythology. HEKATONKHEIRES (or Hecatoncheires) were three giant gods of violent storms and hurricanes . Literally, the word means "hundred-handed," and this is an accurate name for the things. Hecatoncheires were typically potrayed as gigantic beasts, with fifty heads and one hundred arms. There were three of them: Cottus, Gyges, also called Gyes, and Briareus, also called Aegaeon. Most writers mention the third Hekatokheires under the name of Briareus instead of Aegaeon, who says that men called him Aegaeon, but the gods Briareus.

According to the legends, they were born to Gaia and Uranus. It is said "Of all the children that were born of Gaia and Uranus, these were the most terrible, and they were hated by their own father from the first."(1) Uranus detested these of his children, and cast them, along with the Cyclopes (another group of his sons) into Tartarus, a particularly gloomy part of Hades.
In some versions Uranus saw how ugly the Hekatonkheires were at their birth and pushed them back into Gaia's womb.

Gaia, the mother of most of the pre-Olympian beings, did not like her children being cast into Hades by their father. She persuaded the Titans, more of her children who had been cast into Hades by Uranus, to overthrow their father. The Titans, the Hecatoncheires, and the Cyclopes, led by Cronus (a Titan), did just that, revolting and dethroning Uranus, castrating him .

After Using Hekatonkheires power in war Cronus again casted the Hecatoncheires back into Tartarus, now to be guarded by Campe, a massive jaileress covered in seamonster scales and with poisonous snake .
Years later, Cronus would be the victim of the same type of conspiracy that had brought down Uranus. In a ten-year battle called the Titanomachy, Cronus struggled against his own children, the Olympian gods, who were led in their uprising by Zeus. Gaia promised the Olympians victory if they would take the Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires as allies. Zeus agreed, and slew Campe, freeing her prisioners. The hundred-armed giants conquered the Titans by hurling at them three hundred rocks at once, and secured the victory to Zeus .

When Zeus brought the Titans to be imprisoned in Tartarus, he appointed the Hecatoncheires to be their guards.

Poseidon gave to Briareus his daughter Cymopolea as a wife, in reward for his assistance in the Titanomachy.

After the war, Kottos and Gyes were given palaces in the River Okeanos and, Briareos, a home in the depths of the Aegean Sea. Together they appear to have functioned as doorkeepers for the storms of Tartaros . Briareos is mentioned many times as the Zeus s bodyguard .

Briareos is mentioned in Book I of John Milton's Paradise Lost alongside Typhon as an analogue to the fallen Satan.

NAMES OF THE HECATONCHEIRES INDIVIDUAL HECATONCHEIRES

Greek Name Transliteration Latin Spelling Translation

Aigain Briares

Aegaeon Briareus

Goatish, or Stormy (aigis)

Strong, Stout
(briaros)

Kottos Gys

Cottus Gyes

Grudge, Rancour (kotos, kote) Land, Of the Land (gus)

The End
HEKATONKHEIRES