Thursday, December 4, 2014

Moments In Greek Mythology-The Titanomachy Part 2 (Cannibal Parents, Stone Babies, and Goat Horns filled with food!)

So with the hierarchy of the first and second generation of Titans explained, lets look at how Cronus went with dealing with that prophecy his father told him after usurping the throne of control of the universe. Ouranos told his youngest son that he too would usurped by a coup d'etat from his youngest offspring. Cronus, despite ruling over a literal Golden Age, was greatly troubled about this since one of the defining features of Greek Mythology is: Fate is inevitable and fighting it will only lead to you speeding up your demise. (Much like trying to avoid taxes if you are not a rich person)

When he got the news from his wife that he was going to be a father, he already began thinking of ways of how to prevent his brood from usurping him from the throne. Now he could have gone with the normal way Greeks dealt with unwanted kids: leave the baby out in the wilderness to get eaten by wolves or die from exposure, but Cronus wasn't feeling that way. No Cronus must have been feeling mighty peckish when he came up with the solution to this destined downfall crap. (And as always the best ideas usually come after a good meal, not before it)



Would you be shocked that the painter who painted this on his bedroom wall in his Spanish Villa was going insane from sickness and depression

So yeah Cronus' grand plan at stopping his children from overthrowing him was to wait for Rhea to give birth and then immediately pick up the baby and eat it. Pretty simple and straight forward and doesn't give the child a chance to be raised by the wolves or farmers (Priam learned the hard way with the latter). What Cronus didn't seem to account for was his wife's approval for taking their children and immediately snatching it away from her hands to be devoured in his ravenous maw.

What Cronus also didn't account for was his mother being pissed that he didn't hold his end of the bargain in releasing his cyclops and hundred-handed brothers from Tartarus when he took the keys of the kingdom from Sky Dad. This would soon prove to be his undoing when after he ate the 5th kid, Rhea went "enough is enough!" (you'd think the straw would break earlier but whatever). When she found out she was going to have a sixth kid (Man and people think Catholics have a lot of kids), she went to her dear old mom who was biding her time for someone to knock off Cronus.



Hmmmm this one feels a little bit heavy and cold and spherical and looks like a rock, are you sure it's mine?

Rhea gave birth to her child on the island of Crete, before the days when people lived there to give birth to an unholy bovine abomination. Hiding the baby there, she came back with a foolproof plan to fool the Titan who was cunning enough to overthrow his father... she gave him a big rock covered in swaddling clothes. (I guess when you become paranoid enough to start eating your kids, you kind of lose your observation skills) He swallowed the fake baby and thus the seeds to his downfall were sown, for in cave in Crete, a young god would rise to overthrow his evil father and save his brothers and sisters that were still alive in their father's gut (Yeah I forgot to mention that apparently like Attack on Titan, Greek Mythology Titans also don't have a digestive system, lucky for kids though that's where the similarities end).


Oh god I can just tell that poor woman gets 2 hour sleep from the look of that baby

So who was this wonder kid that would defeat his evil father? His name was Zeus which according to my completely reliable sources (Wikipedia) means to shine. A more proper word to describe this baby would be loud since it took the efforts of nine Korybantes, a company of soldiers that venerated Rhea, to sing and dance and bang their shields to drown out the cries of baby Zeus.

Who was the poor foster-mother to deal with the demands of an immature Zeus (which is pretty scary seeing how "mature" he is when he gets older)? Why a goat, yes you heard me right, the person chosen for the job of raising the chosen one was a goat goddess. Her name was Amalthea and she provided nourishment with her's goat's milk. Now to be fair there was also a nymph by the name of Adamanthea helping out, but some versions of the story tell of how she was able to make Zeus invisible.

Thanks to the literal nature of things, Cronus ruled over the earth, the heavens and the sea, thus meaning that he was able to see all things that were in the Earth, the Heavens, and the Sea. So Adamanthea hid Zeus by dangling him on a rope from a tree, suspended between earth, sea and sky, ergo meaning he existed beyond Cronus' domain and therefore meaning he couldn't see his son no matter how much he cried. (But wait isn't he in the sky anyway because he's suspe... Shut up!!!)

And since last week was Thanksgiving, here is a timely fun fact! While the baby was growing up he was having fun with his goat nursemaid (not in that way!) and accidentally broke off one of her horns. Well this broken horn soon showed to have magical properties because out of the end of it food poured out and proved to be a source of infinite nourishment. This is where we get the cornucopia from which means "Horn of Plenty", so yeah even in modern times we still find ancient symbols and rituals in our holidays.

Now fast forward a decade or two (or less, maybe god's have different maturity rates) and Zeus is a young man ready to fulfill his destiny. He left that Cretan cave (of which there are many claimed to be the cave where Zeus was born because even in ancient times, tourist traps made good money), but he needed help, he needed to free his siblings from the stomach of his mad titan of a father. But how?


I'm sure this was not the only boulder that some shlub found at a high flow river and claimed to be the Zeus rock. 

Zeus found help with other Titans, showing that perhaps eating your children does not make you like a leader you want to follow, the Titaness Metis gave Zeus what was basically an ancient version of Ipecac (unfortunately Mike Patton was not involved). With the throwup juice in hand he went up to the palace of Cronus on Mt. Othrys (got to have those parallels!!) disguised as an old man/beggar. Because the Greeks took hospitality to guests VERY SERIOUSLY, Cronus welcomed the guest and offered him some food.

And like a teenage prankster from a movie in the 60s, Zeus sneaked in the Ipecac on whatever Cronus was eating (I don't know what he was eating... a gyro let's go with that). He eats it and like a *insert bad gas station chain here* egg salad sandwich, it immediately turns his stomach into a science fair volcano and causes him to projectile vomit his five kids and the fake rock baby. And because of the magic of being immortal all five of Cronus's kids were fully formed, perfectly fit, and somehow had clothes to wear (guess Rhea used Cronus as a laundromat in between letting him eat their kids).

Cronus was of course pretty pissed as Zeus revealed himself as his sixth son and the one who was going to overthrow him. But Cronus like any good video game villain, laughed at his son and summoned his Titan brethren who were on his side and immediately kicked these young gods off the mountain. The war of the Titans had begun and Zeus was going to need reinforcements.

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