Characters
- Briareos — warder; made son-in-law of Poseidon
- Brontes — prior forge-givers of Zeus’s thunder-weapons essential to the victory
- Cottus — trusty warder of Zeus in Tartarus; dwells upon Ocean’s foundations
- Cymopolea — daughter of Poseidon; wife of Briareos
- Gaia — had hidden the thunder-weapons until the Cyclopes’ liberation
- Gyes — trusty warder; dwells upon Ocean’s foundations
- Olympian gods — bound in bitter chains under misty gloom
- Poseidon — fixes bronze gates on Tartarus; gives daughter Cymopolea to Briareos
- Zeus — counsels the Titans’ hiding; aegis-holder whose warders the Hundred-Handers become
Places
- Bronze gates — Poseidon’s barrier; Titans may not go out
- Earth — midpoint of the anvil measure; roots grow above Tartarus
- Ends of the huge earth — dank region of the Titans’ confinement
- Gloomy Chaos — region beyond which the Titans live, away from all the gods
- Heaven — starting point of the falling-anvil measure
- Ocean’s foundations — dwelling of Cottus and Gyes as Zeus’s allies
- Tartarus — deep prison as far below earth as earth is below heaven; bronze fence; triple night
- Unfruitful sea — roots grow above Tartarus with those of earth
Themes
Narrative
When Cottus, Briareos, and Gyes had overshadowed the Titans with their missiles and conquered them, they bound them in bitter chains and sent them as far beneath the earth as Tartarus—for all the Titans’ great spirit.
Hesiod measures that depth by a famous image: a brazen anvil falling down from heaven would take nine nights and days to reach the earth upon the tenth; and again, a brazen anvil falling from earth would take nine nights and days to reach Tartarus upon the tenth. Round Tartarus runs a fence of bronze, and night spreads in triple line all about it like a neck-circlet, while above grow the roots of the earth and unfruitful sea.
There, by the counsel of Zeus who drives the clouds, the Titan gods are hidden under misty gloom, in a dank place where are the ends of the huge earth. They may not go out; for Poseidon fixed gates of bronze upon it, and a wall runs all round it on every side. There Gyes and Cottus and great-souled Obriareus live, trusty warders of Zeus who holds the aegis.
Later in the cosmography Hesiod repeats that beyond, away from all the gods, live the Titans, beyond gloomy Chaos. But the glorious allies of loud-crashing Zeus have their dwelling upon Ocean’s foundations—even Cottus and Gyes; while Briareos, being goodly, the deep-roaring Earth-Shaker made his son-in-law, giving him Cymopolea his daughter to wed.
**Role of the Cyclopes:** Though the Hundred-Handers are the jailers and the rock-hurlers of victory, the Cyclopes’ earlier gift of thunder, glowing thunderbolt, and lightning is what arms Zeus for the decisive phase of the war. Earth had hidden those weapons until the Cyclopes, freed, bestowed them. Apollodorus likewise has the Cyclopes arm Zeus, Poseidon, and Pluto before the gods overcome the Titans and appoint the Hundred-Handers as guards.
Thus the old order is locked below: bronze gates, Poseidon’s craft, Zeus’s counsel, and the grateful Hundred-Handers as eternal warders—while Briareos receives an additional honourable tie to Poseidon’s house.