(Τίτανες), a race of deities placed beneath Tartarus by the might of Zeus, consisting, according to Hesiod, of six sons and six daughters of Uranos and Gaid, namely Oceanos, Coios, Creios, Hyperion, Iapetos, Cronos, Theid, Rheid, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, and Tethys. Hesiod (Th. 207), gives the oldest derivation of the word, as strikers or stretchers. Passow conjectures, that it is the same with king (Βασιλεύς), but the most plausible derivation is from two Eastern words, ti=bright, and tan=a country, which would make the word originally indicate the sun.

The Titans were originally called 'Ουρανίοι, or dwellers in heaven, but after their struggle with Zeus, they were hurled down to nether darkness, and were known by their present denomination. This superhuman fight, or Titanomachia, as it was called, is reported to have lasted for ten years, during which time Zeus (who was a nephew of the Titans, being a son of the Titan Cronos, and who had been spared from destruction by the entreaties of Rhea, his mother), assisted by the hundred-handed Cottos, Briareus, and Gyes, ceased not to wage war, both by night and day, from the top of Mount Olympus, against their foes the Titans, who occupied Mount Othrys. At last Zeus gained the victory by a stratagem, when he flung down his rebellious uncles, aunts, and cousins, into a horrible cave beneath the lowest recesses of the Tartarean Gulf. This