Talk:Titans

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Proposal: Make this the Titan page
Currently, Titan is a disambiguation page. This makes no sense to me. This article, about the Titans of Greek mythology, is the standard, original, foundational meaning of the term. All other uses and meanings derive from this one. I propose that the current disambiguation page be renamed 'Titan (disambiguation)' (and the current 'Titan (disambiguation)', which is a redirect, be deleted), and this page be renamed 'Titan'. Thanks! 68.100.231.72 (talk) 01:37, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Gonna agree with this, makes total sense. JadeMatrix (talk) 12:50, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Titans and gods
Hey, are the titans considered to be gods? What is the difference between a god and a titan???


 * Titans were indeed gods. Please sign yourself. ICE77 (talk) 02:08, 16 March 2011 (UTC)


 * But Titans were evil and wanted to rule.....while the Gods were of a good kind and had defeated the Titans — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.149.91.69 (talk) 15:24, 10 November 2014 (UTC)


 * What you are stating does not make sense and it sounds very superficial. Gods is a general term and it does not just include Zeus, his five siblings or anybody that came after his generation. Good or bad is relative. Zeus, if you think of him as being the kind guy, did atrocious things like punish Prometheus by chaining him to a rock while a giant eagle would eat his liver every day.
 * ICE77 (talk) 05:57, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Comments
Why does the introduction mention 14 titans? 140.247.28.111 03:50, 7 June 2006 (UTC) The fourteen Titans include the 12 children and their two parents. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.247.190.250 (talk) 14:37, 29 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Good point. They are twelve from their earliest mention (Hesiod). Cronos is not Chronos (Time). There are other misconceptions. --Wetman 16:58, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Could the Titans be considered to be cultural cousins of the Giants of Teutonic mythology? Crusadeonilliteracy

Absolutely. The two mythologies are closely related and should go back to an earlier Indo-European mythology. I removed the claim that Giants and Titans are distinct in origin. How on earth is that possible to know? Wiglaf
 * I rephrased your version and the originals. It was comparing them to the Gigantes, but using a vague word -- Titans and Gigantes are very distinct. Tuf-Kat 09:39, Feb 22, 2004 (UTC)

I agree on your changes. The term "giant" is a bit too vague in this domain. In Norse mythology Jotuns (giants) correspond both to Titans and Gigantes, but the similarities between the two mythologies are too interesting to be left out. I think it is fine now.Wiglaf

Metis is not one of the original 12 titans
Metis is mentioned in the sidepanel as one of the 12 titans. But the text by Hesiodos (and my danish mythologies and encyclopedias) dont mention her.

"afterwards she lay with Heaven and bore deep-swirling Oceanus, Coeus and Crius and Hyperion and Iapetus, Theia and Rhea, Themis and Mnemosyne and gold-crowned Phoebe and lovely Tethys. After them was born Cronos the wily, youngest and most terrible of her children, and he hated his lusty sire."

It is Cronos who is the no. 12 titan! Not Metis.

From denmark --217.116.235.34 16:42, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

War between elder and younger gods
An anonymous vandal, User:198.93.113.49, is apparently unwilling to see mentioned in this context of similar "Wars in Heaven" the battle between El and Baal, mentioned in the Ugarit libraries, and the later characterization of Yahweh and Lucifer. Is there an issue here I'm unaware of? Some kind of contention? Does anyone doubt that this is a theme running through multiple mythologies? Should this section be expanded to make it clearer? --Wetman 20:28, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Brief references to Titanomachy
An article on Titans that doesn't briefly discuss the battle of the Titans with the Olympic gods, the Titanomachy, is clearly incomplete. A single linked reference, lost in a sea of blue links, is insufficient. Thinking of what the Wikipedia reader requires will often save editors from such gaffes. It seems proposterous to have these two brief paragraphs deleted, and to have to explain why they are required here. --Wetman 18:20, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Last sentence of Titanomachy
What does that sentence even mean? "Some of them had not fought the Olympians and became key players in the new administration: Mnemosyne as a Muse, Rhea, Hyperion, Themis, or the "right ordering" of things and Metis. Is it just me, or is that gibberish?75.82.153.250 20:34, 20 February 2007 (UTC)Anonymous, 2/20/07

In the Article it references the "Christian Mythology" That would mean that no one believes in it and it is a myth. Christianity is a major world religion having over 2 billion members. It is properly classified as a theology, or theocracy. It is as much a myth as a belief in evolution. [Preator1]

Vandalism
this isn't even an article anymore. It's been totally destroyed by that stuff at the top —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.177.220.1 (talk) 23:49, 27 March 2007 (UTC).

The link to Menoetius in the sidebar leads to a disambiguation page. I want to change the link so that it leads to the actual article on that Titan, but I don't know how. T@nn 15:38, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Titanides
I think there is a misstatement in the intro: "Titanides" would refer to the offspring of the titans. The same way that Agamemnon and Menelaos are referred to as "atreides": Sons of Atreas. Can someone confirm that the nomenclature was different for the titans? Otherwise I am going to delete that line. Lorangriel 14:05, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Titans and Nephilim
Famed Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus considered the Greek Titans and Giants as equivalent to the Hebrew Nephilim and Rephaim.--71.222.54.25 06:02, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion
i am recently trying to understand more of the greek mythology and it would be helpful to mention every name in both greek and roman versions.

Answer
http://www.geocities.com/athens/troy/2774/mythgods.html has that list Aphrodite=Venus Ares=Mars Artemis=Diana Athena=Minerva Demeter=Ceres Dionysus=Bacchus Erinyes=Furiae(Furies) Kharites=Charities or Graces Hades=Pluto Hephaestos=Vulcan Hera=Juno Herakles=Hercules Hermes=Mercury Hestia=Vesta Kronos=Saturn Ouranos=Uranus Pan=Faunus Persephone=Proserpina Poseidon=Neptune Zeus=Jupiter —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.235.178.56 (talk) 21:33, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Difference between titan and a god
I have read through this article and many other websites but I cant find the difference between a titan and a god except titans were large and strong. Could somebody please help me? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Funymoose (talk • contribs) 02:04, 5 October 2007 (UTC) why arnt the elder titans mentiomd the sibling of gia such as tarturus or nynx


 * The Titans had been worshiped as gods before the arrival of the Olympian pantheon. The "difference between a titan and a god" from the point-of-view of sixth-century and later Greeks was that sacrifices were made to the gods, but the Titans had become vague ancient creatures of myth, who existed mostly for the gods to overcome. --Wetman (talk) 22:37, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Missing Links
All the refferences and external links went missing. I tried to pasted them from earlier version, but my knowledge of wiki was not good enough to accomplish this...72.29.240.25 (talk) 14:48, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
 * It's been restored. I removed some vandalism but hadn't noticed that the refs and external links had been deleted as well. Cheers.  freshacconci  speak to me  14:54, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Page disappeared
Where has it all gone! I was researching and stumbled across this page, and there's nothing here! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Brocky9 (talk • contribs) 17:46, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Removal of External Link
I had re-added an external link "The Titians: An Astro-Mythological Tale of Creation and Mortality" that was removed last night without explanation. I would like to know why it was removed, and on what grounds? If there is some wiki violation that has been committed what is it and what are the criteria that is needed to include it. Thank you.--74.229.102.208 (talk) 14:26, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * The link, to www.amengansie.com/titans.html Astro-Mythological [sic Tale of Creation and Mortality] bears no perceivable relation to the subject of this article. Wikipedia is a readers' service, not a hobby-horse for passers-by who don't bother to log in. Removed again. Please explain your insertion of this web link.--Wetman (talk) 15:45, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

== Very well.

I will not even attempt to argue or allow this topic to degenerate into another arrogant, hegemonic attempt at maintaining the increasingly fragile myth of Greek predominance in the ancient world. It is understandable, but unrealistic to believe that this version of history can continue to withstand historical scrutiny and re-interpretation based on omitted historical evidence concerning what is actually a more ancient origin of the Titans that pre-dates Greek arrival.

Nearly all of what the West has classified as Greek Mythology is categorized as such because for them, that is what it was. When the Dorian Greeks invaded the Ionian Islands in the 6th century, there was already a thriving, sophisticated Ionian civilization, composed of cities, villages, libraries,theatre, universities, mystery schools, etc. The Greeks, who were largely ignorant of this culture, language and religions, destroyed nearly all of it before they were eventually subsumed into the culture long enough to finally learn from them.

Unfortunately, the Greeks never fully understood the theological and exisential religions, and social customs very well. As they learned from the Ionians, they could only classify this oral history and culture as mythology. For the Ionians, and for the rest of the ancient world, this was not mythology. From their view, it was literally their experiential history in which their experiences in being civilized by their gods and ancestors taught and revealed moral truths to them. For the Ionians, the stories of Meda, Pelops, Atreus, Agamennon, Clytaemnestra, Heracules, Orestes, Thespius, Augeias and a host of other “Greek” protagonists' were not Greek at all. They were stories based on their own Gods, ancestors and religious figures whose history and culture has now been claimed by the Greeks and hailed as the cornerstone of Western Civilization.

To maintain this myth, Western revisionists have nearly written these people and their culture out of their own history, and any attempt to either re-introduce or to re-institute their history is met with your kind of cold, arrogant and hostile resistance. However, I am neither intimidated nor disuaded by this perdictable reaction.

Today, in the face of powerful technologies, information is much more accessible, according the opportunity to present history much more objectively with the goal of not maintaining a particular cultural-supremist point of view, but for the mere sake of historical accuracy and truth.

In viewing nearly all of the information on “Greek” culture on Wiki,“artist renditions” and euro-erotic sculptures are still being prompted in lieu of crediable archeology, to support a legitmate claim of Greek origin--none of them dating no earlier than 600 B.C. Further, many of these images are merely based on spectualtive fantasy-- few of the artists having ever lived during the time period in question. Shockingly, in this day and age, these historical and academic injustices are still being done by a new generation, who should know better- especially in the face of undeniable, historical, legitimate archeological evidence that proves their claims to the contrary.

A case in point, when viewing the images utilized on the Wiki version of the goddess Artemis, her actual archeological images are completely omitted, being subverted by a series of unconvincing and misleading “artist renderings” that have neither a resemblance nor basis in historical reality. Artemis' worship pre-dates the arrival of the Greeks by thousands of years. This speaks volumes to the point being made by me and others.

Again, I will not argue with you. I am making this rebuttal merely for the record. I know in time, this disingenuous historical travesty will indict and reveal. What I have contributed in my own article will be just as competitive in the search engines as is the Wiki version. That is the power and egalitarian spirit of the internet. Those that are seeking a more comprehensive, as opposed to a state culturally-supremists supported explanation of history, will find my information a godsend.

Peace to you. Anagossii--74.229.102.208 (talk) 15:34, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Standardization of names of Cronus
Is there an accepted standard for the spelling of the youngest Titan? This article lists him as both "Kronos" and "Cronus" (and once as "Saturn"). I suspect "Cronus" is preferred, since that's the title of the main article, but either way it would be nice to decide on one. Vogelfrei (talk) 16:31, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Alexander
What is this?

Quote: "There was also a great titan named Alexander who was king of all."

Is there any refernece to him whatsoever? 220.244.143.54 (talk) 13:39, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

12 vs 13 Titans
The opening text says there are 12 titans. 13 are listed in the opening paragraph, while the sidebar has 12 of them. Atlas is the extra one not in the sidebar but in the opening paragraph. I don't know enough about the subject to say whether he was or was not one of the original 12. Should this be edited? Dexeron (talk) 13:52, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The confusion seems to be between the "Twelve Titans", the sons and daughters of Gaia and Uranus, and their children, of whom Atlas is one. The Titans' children seem to be also considered Titans, going by their articles.  See what you think of forthcoming edit. &mdash;chaos5023 (talk) 16:55, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Atlas is a son of Iapetus not Gaia and Uranus therefore Atlas is not one of the original titans 184.101.38.32 (talk) 02:25, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Citation needed
What I want to see here especially is at least one Jewish source that describes a battle involving Lucifer. My Tannakh, Talmud and Midrash studies haven't turned one up so far. 4.249.63.217 (talk) 18:36, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah. What with its utter absence from actual primary sources, Lucifer's rebellion is pretty much the canonical example of what the Christian mythology article is talking about.  I dropped the editor a note. &mdash;chaos5023 (talk) 18:57, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Re-added Titanomachy section
Whoever removed it did a really clumsy job. The article essentially opened with the phrase "Hesiod does not, however, have the last word on the Titans," which is problematic because it is the first reference to Hesiod in the article. Someone appears to have just excised it without bothering to look at the results. If you re-remove it, please make sure to edit the next section so that the article remains coherent. Zoweee (talk) 06:49, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Strange section
In the Ciris cave section I read "4 Crassus first". Should that 4 be there? Something doesn't look right. Is that LI meant to be 51AD?

ICE77 (talk) 02:10, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Size
I'm uncomfortable with the following assertion in the In Popular Culture section:
 * Out of conflation with the Gigantes, various large things have been named after the Titans, for their "titanic" size, for example the RMS Titanic

Given that there were 3 ships built, the Titanic, the Gigantic and the Olympic, it's just not feasible that there was conflation here. And the Titanic article never mentions it. It's true (though not easily sourced from a wiki point of view) that people now mis-understand the meaning of the name RMS Titanic, but there's no evidence I've seen that the people who named it then got it wrong. Kayman1uk (talk) 09:34, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Titans in popular culture
I edited the sentence regarding moons of Saturn. I wanted to make it clear that many (though not all) of Saturn's moons were named after Titans, not just it's largest moon, Titan. If anything, the article implied Titan was the only such-named moon. I tried to word it appropriately. 163.41.136.11 (talk) 20:39, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure the manga reference is valid, since the original Japanese text doesn't use the term “titan”, and the word kyojin doesn't really imply any connection to mythologic titans. Maybe phrase it something like, “The manga series Shingeki no Kyojin has adopted Attack on Titan as its official English title. The word Titan is used for the main antagonists, giant humanoid creatures that feed on humans, although Kyojin literally means giant, and no connection to mythologic titans is implied in the manga.” Or remove it altogether; why is this more relevant than, say, the Teen Titans? --Lalo Martins (talk) 07:59, 5 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Actually I just went ahead and removed it; it's not only of dubious relevance, but also unsourced. If you feel differently, please discuss here, and if you want to put it back, please add a reference. --Lalo Martins (talk) 08:10, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 08:53, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Unclear sentence
The sentence "This story is told by the poets Callimachus and Nonnus, who call this Dionysus "Zagreus", and in a number of Orphic texts, which do not" does not make much sense to me. It should be revised.

ICE77 (talk) 20:51, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

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Question and comments
1. The Wikipedia article on the Giants is entitled "Giants (Greek mythology)". I do not see why this article is different and it's entitled "Titan (mythology)" instead of "Titans (Greek mythology)".

2. Did the Titanomachy happen before or after the Gigantomachy?

3. The section on the "Orphic sources" says "Zeus, enraged, slays the Titans with his thunderbolt; Athena preserves the heart in a gypsum doll, out of which a new Dionysus is made." However, the article on Dionysus, his heart was saved by either Athena, Rhea or Demeter.

4. The section on "Popular culture" could at least have a few lines.

ICE77 (talk) 06:02, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
 * 1. The Titans and the Gigantes are two completely different races in Greek mythology; they are not the same thing. To address the other concern under this number, the reason why this article is titled "Titan (mythology)" is because the Titans only appear in Greek mythology, which means there is no need to specify which mythology the article is referring to. The vast majority of the mythology artilces only say "(mythology)" after the title because this is simpler and easier than calling them anything else. The only reason why the "Giants (Greek mythology)" article is any different is because giants of some kind appear in many different mythologies around the world and the article needs to distinguish which set of giants it is talking about. Honestly, I think that the "Giants (Greek mythology)" article should be entitled "Gigantes," which is the Greek name for them, but I did not name the article and I imagine "Giants (Greek mythology)" probably gets more hits than "Gigantes" anyway.
 * 2. The Gigantomachy happened after the Titanomachy, usually long after, since Heracles is often said to have helped fight off the Gigantes.
 * 3. The Orphic sources we have are extremely fragmentary and often contradictory, meaning that any scholarly reconstruction of them is likely to contradict other ones. --Katolophyromai (talk) 11:08, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

1. Yes, Titans and Giants are different entities. That is clear. I had the feeling that Titans are unique to Greek mythology but since I read quite a bit about Greek mythology but not necessarily about Norse, Japanese or Egyptian mythologies or other mythologies, I had to ask. This entry is in the English language so I think it's natural that the Giants article should be entitled the way it is (just like this article).

2. What's a source in literature that implies Titanomachy happened first and Gigantomachy last other than Heracles fighting the Giants?

ICE77 (talk) 06:26, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Titan cult
I have so many questions about the Titans that are not reflected in the text of this article.

1. I know of some worship of Titans as syncretized gods in the Roman period, like Saturn/Baal-Hammon in Roman Carthage, or Rhea/Cybele all over the empire. But were Titans worshipped on their own in other ways? Were there Titan temples or cult centers anywhere?

2. If so, is there any evidence that the story of the overthrow of the Titans by Zeus and the other Olympians reflects a religious revolution? That is, a change of pantheon at some early point in Greek history?

Thanks. --ESP (talk) 19:17, 3 March 2019 (UTC)


 * It might be worth mentioning that I am not asking about the supposed worship of Titans during the fictional Golden Age, but about archaeology or history of Titan worship. -ESP (talk) 19:24, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Recent citation style changes
Hi Tom, thanks for your edits to this article (by the way I see that you are a math PHD, as it happens, so am I ;-). I've undone some of the changes you've made, in particuluar, your changes separating the combined cites, and your separating out the some explanatory notes into its own section, since I see no good reason to change the established citation style for this article (you might also want to take a look at WP:CITEVAR for the established policy in this regard). I'd be happy to further discuss your proposed changes here. Regards, Paul August &#9742; 14:21, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Lead section
Hi. What are objections to changing the lead sentence from the current In Greek mythology, the Titans were the pre-Olympian gods to the more precise In Greek mythology, the Titans were the second generation of gods, in power after the Greek primordial deities and before the Olympian deities? Thanks. Wolfdog (talk) 03:45, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for discussing your proposed changes here. The best way to understand the Titans is that they were the "former gods", the gods which came before the Olympian gods (please see the section "Former gods" for more on this). What number generation they were is not precisely clear (Was Chaos the "first generation"? And Gaia, Tartarus and Eros the "second"? Were Uranus, the Ourea, and Pontus the "third"?), and incidental in any case. The important thing is their relationship to the Olympians, for whom they provide a backstory (called the "succession myth"), which explains where the Olympians came from and how they became the rulers of the cosmos (please see the section "Overthrown" for more on this). Regards, Paul August &#9742; 15:37, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I see your logic here on the murkiness of the term "generations". I suppose you have a point. I made some other changes too, if you look back on my edit (some involving a cleaning-up of punctuation or grammar). Do you mind if I at least restore these elements? Wolfdog (talk) 16:56, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Well why don't you list your proposed changes here and we can discuss them? Paul August &#9742; 15:15, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Again, it's mostly about punctuation and reducing minor clutter, replacing the original text... According to the Theogony of Hesiod, they were the twelve children of the primordial parents Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth), with six male Titans: Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus, and Cronus, and six female Titans, called the Titanides (Greek: Τιτανίδες, Titanídes; also Titanesses): Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, and Tethys. Cronus mated with his older sister Rhea and together they became the parents of the first generation of Olympians – the six siblings Zeus, Hades, Poseidon, Hestia, Demeter, and Hera. Some descendants of the Titans, such as Prometheus, Helios, and Leto, are sometimes also called Titans. [PARAGRAPH] The Titans were the former gods – the generation of gods preceding the Olympians. They were overthrown as part of the Greek succession myth, which told how Cronus seized power from his father Uranus and ruled the cosmos with the Titans as his subordinates, and how Cronus and the Titans were in turn defeated and replaced as the ruling pantheon of gods by Zeus and the Olympians in a ten-year war called the Titanomachy.


 * ...with this new text... According to the Theogony of Hesiod, they were the twelve children of the primordial parents Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth), with six male Titans&mdash;Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus, and Cronus&mdash;and six female Titans, called the Titanides (Greek: Τιτανίδες, Titanídes; also Titanesses)&mdash;Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, and Tethys. Cronus mated with his older sister Rhea, who bore the first generation of Olympians: the six siblings Zeus, Hades, Poseidon, Hestia, Demeter, and Hera. Certain descendants of the Titans, such as Prometheus, Helios, and Leto, are sometimes also called Titans. [PARAGRAPH] The Titans were overthrown as part of the Greek succession myth, which told how Cronus seized power from his father Uranus and ruled the cosmos with the his fellow Titans. Cronus and the Titans were in turn defeated and replaced as the ruling pantheon of gods by Zeus and the Olympians in a ten-year war called the Titanomachy. Wolfdog (talk) 21:05, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the belated response, I've been out of action for awhile. I'm fine with your proposed punctuation, and minor rewordings. However I'd be opposed to the removal of the first and last sentences in the second paragraph. Is that what your proposing? Paul August &#9742; 13:25, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I've decided to just make the changes to the page and leave it up to you to tweak any part (just don't revert the whole thing). Thanks. Wolfdog (talk) 20:23, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Ok. However, as I wrote above, the most important thing about the Titans is their relationship to the Olympians, consequently I've restored this sentence:
 * "The Titans were the former gods – the generation of gods preceding the Olympians."
 * As the first sentence of the second paragraph. Paul August &#9742; 21:36, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Titanium
I think it would be a good idea to mention that the element "titanium" is named after the Titans. kupirijo (talk) 21:48, 29 November 2022 (UTC)