100-Armed, 50-Headed Giants Who Defeat the TITANS & Terrify the GODS - Hecatonchires Greek Mythology

Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today's video, we're going to discuss the Hecatonchires, a monstrous trio of giants boasting superlative size and strength, each of them with 50 heads and 100 arms. Their names were Briareus ("The Mighty One"), Cottus ("Wrathful One"), and Gyges ("Son of the Earth"). They were imprisoned deep within Gaia for an age, were instrumental in bringing about the defeat of the Titans, and became the guardians of Tartarus. Let's get into it.Beyond their father imprisoning them and their fighting alongside Zeus to defeat the Titans, both of which we'll get to shortly, the Hecatonchires seldom feature in Greek mythology. One of the only occasions any of them make an appearance is recounted in the Iliad. Thetis, the mother of Achilles, stumbled upon a coup. Hera, Poseidon, and Athena joined their strength to supplant Zeus. Thetis came upon them while they were shackling him, so she went and fetched Briareus, one of the hundred-handers, here said to be the Sea-god's son. No fighting ensued, for the mere presence of the Hecatonchires was enough to cow the gods and have them abandon their play for power; even Poseidon, the sovereign of the sea, was intimidated into inaction, utterly overcome by the air of power that emanated from the giant. Here's the passage:"That day the Olympians tried to chain him down, Hera, Poseidon lord of the sea, and Pallas Athena... [You] quickly ordered the hundred-hander to steep Olympus, that monster whom the immortals call Briareus but every mortal calls the Sea-god's son, Aegeon, though he's stronger than his father. Down he sat, flanking Cronus' son, gargantuan in the glory of it all, and the blessed gods were struck with terror then, they stopped shackling Zeus."Briareus, called Aegaeon by hu manity, was the only Hecatonchires to have a personal mythology that went beyond the tragedy and triumph of the Hecatonchires as a group, this evidenced in part by him coming alone to rescue Zeus. As time went on, passing from the Greek era to the Roman era, he became confused and conflated by later writers. Ovid described him as a sea deity, perhaps a characterization derived from the Iliad calling him "the Sea-god's son", and Virgil made him a fire-breathing monster of the same ilk as the race of giants who assailed Olympus. There is also a story In which Briareus acts as arbiter in settling a land dispute between Poseidon and Helios.