Titanomachy: The War Between The Titans And Olympians

Cronus ready to take and devour Zeus from his mother Rhea

In Greek mythology, the Titanomachy, or War of the Titans (Greek: Τιτανομαχία), was the ten-year series of battles fought in Thessaly between the two races of deities long before the existence of mankind: the Titans, based on Mount Othrys and the Olympians, who would come to reign on Mount Olympus. This Titanomachia is also known as the Battle of the Titans, Battle of Gods, or just the Titan War.

The stage for this important battle was set after the youngest Titan, Cronus, overthrew his own father, Uranus (Ουρανός - the Heaven itself and ruler of the cosmos), with the help of his mother, Gaia (Γαία - the earth).

Uranus drew the enmity of Gaia when he imprisoned her children the Hecatonchires and Cyclopes in Tartarus. Gaia created a great sickle and gathered together Cronus and his brothers to persuade them to castrate Uranus. Only Cronus was willing to do the deed, so Gaia gave him the sickle and placed him in ambush. When Uranus met with Gaia, Cronus attacked Uranus with the sickle and cut off his genitals, and cast the severed member into the sea. From the blood that spilled out from Uranus and fell upon the earth, the Gigantes, Erinyes, and Meliae were produced, and from the spume from his cut genitalia, Aphrodite rose from the sea:

"...so soon as he had cut off the members with flint and cast them from the land into the surging sea, they were swept away over the main a long time: and a white foam spread around them from the immortal flesh, and in it there grew a maiden..."

Cronus took his father's throne after dispatching Uranus. He then secured his power by re-imprisoning his siblings the Hecatonchires and Cyclopes, and his (newly-created) siblings the Gigantes, in Tartarus.

Gaia, angry at Cronus for keeping his brothers in the same pit Uranus locked them in, made a prophecy that Cronus' own children would rebel against his rule just as he had done to his own father. For fear of his unborn children rising against him, Cronus now turned into the terrible king his father Uranus had been, swallowing each of his children whole as they were born from his sister-wife Rhea. Rhea, however, managed to hide her child Zeus, by tricking Cronus into swallowing a rock wrapped in a blanket instead.

Rhea brought Zeus to a cave in Crete, where he was raised to adulthood. Later, Metis gave Zeus a mixture of mustard and wine for Cronus which would cause him to vomit up his swallowed children. Zeus then led his released brothers and sisters in rebellion against the Titans.

Zeus and his brothers and sisters, with the help of the Gigantes, Hecatonchires, and Cyclopes, overthrew Cronus and the other Titans. Afterwards, many of the Titans were confined in Tartarus. Some Titans were not banished to Tartarus. Atlas, Epimetheus, Menoetius, Oceanus and Prometheus are examples of Titans who were not imprisoned in Tartarus following the Titanomachy. Gaia bore the monster Typhon to claim revenge for the imprisoned Titans, though Zeus was victorious. Accounts of the fate of Cronus after the Titanomachy differ. In Homeric and other texts he is imprisoned with the other Titans in Tartarus. In Orphic poems, he is imprisoned for eternity in the cave of Nyx. Pindar describes his release from Tartarus, where he is made King of Elysium by Zeus. In another version, the Titans released the Cyclopes from Tartarus, and Cronus was awarded the kingship among them, beginning a Golden Age.

Cronus devouring one of his children, Poseidon

Sources from Wikipedia