Hyperion’s name means “he who watches from above” or more generally “he who goes above.”įrom his vantage point in the heavens and because he brought light to dark places, Hyperion could see everything that happened on the earth below. The twin Olympians shared many of the attributes of the other brother and sister pair, but Helios and Selene remained separate entities. Helios and Selene would later come to be associated with Apollo and Artemis. The counterpart to her brother, she travelled by night. Last there was Selene, the goddess of the moon. Hyperion is sometimes given as an epithet to Helios. Helios was often conflated with his father as a god of light. He was the god of the sun, who drove across the sky each day in a golden chariot drawn by three horses. It is unsurprising, then, that the pair produced three children who were all associated with the lights of the heavens.Įos represented the warm light that rises above the horizon before the sun appears. Thea was also the deity that gave gold, silver, and precious gems the luminescent radiance that made them so valued. Like him, she was a goddess of light and also came to represent the blue sky. His was the light of the heavens that illuminated the entire universe from all directions. Instead, he represented light in a more general sense. Those specific light sources had not been created yet. Unlike the sun or moon, the light of Hyperion was not fixed to any definite source. Hyperion was the primordial god of light. Chronos, for example, was the Titan god of time and Oceanus was the god of waters. The God of Heavenly LightĮach of the Titans had power over a particular aspect of the universe, just as their father had. He told Chronos that someday the same would happen to him, and he would be overthrown by his own son. The twelve siblings intermarried among each other and began to have many children.Īltogether, they had thousands of children that began to take on much more specific roles than their parents.Įventually, the six children of Chronos would bring an end to the Titans’ rule.Īccording to some legends, this was the result of a curse uttered by Uranus as the Titans dragged him to Tartarus. This began to change with the younger generations of Titans that were born from the original twelve. The world was still being made, so their domains were more far-reaching and general than those of later gods. While the later Olympians usually had very specifically delineated roles, the Titans were not as clearly defined. While the Titans were gods with great power, Chronus limited how much they were allowed to use it just as their father had. Uranus was locked away in the pit of Tartarus and the Titans took control of the universe.Ĭhronus became the new king of the Titans, and proved to be every bit as tyrannical as his father had been. He succeeded in taking away his father’s power by lying in wait until he had the opportunity to catch Uranus unaware and castrate him. According to most accounts, Chronos was the only one of the twelve who was willing to take the risk. She begged her children to help her overthrow their father. As a protective mother goddess, she was furious that six of her children had been so badly mistreated by their father and wanted nothing more than to see them freed. Gaia could not see where they were, but she could feel them clawing deep inside of her. While the Titans lived in splendor on Mount Othrys, the Cyclopes and Hecatonchieres were locked away in the dark. Uranos shunned them and imprisoned them deep within Gaia. The other six, the three Cyclopes and the three Hecatoncheires, were monsters. Their six daughters were the female Titans, called the Titanides by the Greeks.Īltogether they had twelve sons. Gaia, the earth mother, and Uranos, the heavens, had many children together. This first generation of gods served under their father when the universe was still new. Hyperion is named as one of the twelve Titans born to Gaia and Uranos. So who was Hyperion and what happened to him? The Titan god of light may have illuminated the universe, but his story is shrouded in mystery. As the first god of light, he was the father of the familiar forms of illumination that followed.Īfter the Titans lost power, the children of Hyperion continued to provide light to the world. While he was not the god of the sun, he was closely identified with it and other forms of light.īut before Apollo, there was another god who had the power of heavenly light. In Greek mythology, Apollo is the god most often associated with light.
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