Hecatoncheires

The Hecatoncheires, or Hundred-Handers, were three giant sons of Uranus and Gaea named Cottus, Briareus, and Gyes. Each had a hundred arms and fifty heads. They were imprisoned beneath the earth, released by Zeus, and decided the war against the Titans by hurling rocks, after which they became the guards of the Titans in Tartarus.

Hecatoncheires’ Family and Role

Hesiod says that Gaea and Uranus had three more sons, great and doughty beyond telling, Cottus, Briareus, and Gyes, “presumptuous children.” From the shoulders of each sprang a hundred arms, and each had fifty heads growing from his shoulders on strong limbs, with irresistible strength to match their huge size (Hesiod, Theogony 147–153). Apollodorus gives the same names, Briareus, Gyes, and Cottus, and says they were unsurpassed in size and might, each having a hundred hands and fifty heads (Library 1.1.1). Hesiod calls the third brother Gyes. The Greek word hekatoncheir (plural hekatoncheires) means “hundred-handed”; Homer uses the adjective of Briareus (Iliad 1.402).

Hecatoncheires’ imprisoned

All the children of Gaea and Uranus were hateful to their father from the beginning. As each was born, Uranus hid it away in a hollow of Gaea and would not let it come up into the light, and Gaea groaned within, straitened (Theogony 154–160). Hesiod adds that when Uranus became angry at Briareus, Cottus, and Gyes, he bound them in strong chains because of their overweening strength, form, and size, and settled them under the broad-pathed earth. There they lived in pain at the edge of the great earth, grieving for a long time (Theogony 617–623).

The Library of Apollodorus tells it with the Cyclopes. Uranus bound the Cyclopes and cast them into Tartarus, and Gaea, grieved by the loss of her children, persuaded the Titans to attack their father. After Cronus mutilated Uranus, the Titans brought up their brothers who had been thrown into Tartarus and gave the sovereignty to Cronus. But Cronus again bound them and shut them up in Tartarus (Library 1.1.2–5). In Hesiod, no such second imprisonment is told, and it is Uranus who binds the Hundred-Handers.

Hecatoncheires in Titanomachy

When Zeus and his brothers and sisters fought the Titans, the war lasted ten years without result. Hesiod says that Zeus and the other gods, on the advice of Gaea, brought the Hundred-Handers back up to the light from under the earth, for she had told them everything: with these allies they would win victory. Zeus fed them nectar and ambrosia, the food of the gods, and their proud spirit grew. Then he asked them to remember the kindness that had brought them back from their harsh bonds. Cottus answered for the three: Zeus was the saviour of the immortals, and by his counsel they had come back from the murky darkness, and they would defend his power in the dreadful fight (Theogony 624–663).

The three took their stand against the Titans with huge rocks in their strong hands. Hesiod says that Cottus, Briareus, and Gyes, insatiate of war, were among the first to raise bitter fighting and sent three hundred rocks one after another from their strong hands, shadowing the Titans with missiles. They defeated the Titans, sent them beneath the broad-pathed earth, and bound them in painful bonds (Theogony 665–720). In Hesiod’s description of the place where the Titans are held, Gyes, Cottus, and great-hearted Obriareus (Briareus) dwell as the faithful guardians of Zeus (Theogony 734–735). Elsewhere he says that Zeus’s renowned helpers have their houses on the foundations of Ocean, and that Poseidon made Briareus his son-in-law by giving him his daughter Cymopolea as a wife (Theogony 815–819). Apollodorus says that Zeus and his brothers overcame the Titans, shut them up in Tartarus, and appointed the Hundred-Handers their guards (Library 1.2.1).

Briareus and Zeus

Briareus appears alone in the Iliad. Achilles reminds his mother Thetis that she once helped Zeus when Hera, Poseidon, and Pallas Athena wanted to bind him. She called the hundred-handed one to high Olympus, “whom the gods call Briareus, but all men Aegaeon, for he is mightier than his father.” He sat beside the son of Cronus rejoicing in his glory, and the blessed gods feared him and did not bind Zeus (Homer, Iliad 1.396–406). Aegaeon is therefore the name men use for Briareus in Homer. In Latin poetry Briareus, hundred-fold, stands among the monsters at the entrance to the Underworld (Virgil, Aeneid 6.287), and Aegaeon is the figure with a hundred arms and hands and fifty mouths breathing fire, who clashed with the thunderbolts of Jupiter using as many shields and swords (Aeneid 10.565–568).

Hecatoncheires Sources

Hesiod, Theogony 147–160, 617–720, 734–735, and 815–819; Homer, Iliad 1.396–406; Apollodorus, Library 1.1.1–5 and 1.2.1; Virgil, Aeneid 6.287 and 10.565–568.

See Also: Uranus, Gaia, Cronus, Zeus, Cyclopes, Titans, Tartarus, Titanomachy