Typhon

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This article is about Typhon in Greek mythology. For other uses, see Typhon (disambiguation).
Zeus throwing his thunderbolt at Typhon, Chalcidian black-figured hydria, c. 550 BC, Staatliche Antikensammlungen (Inv. 596)

Typhon (/ˈtaɪfɒn, -fən/; Greek: Τυφῶν, Tuphōn [typʰɔ̂ːn]), also Typhoeus (/taɪˈfiːəs/; Τυφωεύς, Tuphōeus), Typhaon (Τυφάων, Tuphaōn) or Typhos (Τυφώς, Tuphōs), was the most fearsome monster of Greek mythology. The last son of Gaia, fathered by Tartarus, Typhon was, with his mate Echidna, the father of many famous monsters.

In Greek myth

Birth

According to Hesiod's Theogony (c. 8th – 7th century BC), Typhon was the son of Gaia (Earth) and Tartarus: "when Zeus had driven the Titans from heaven, huge Earth bore her youngest child Typhoeus of the love of Tartarus, by the aid of golden Aphrodite".[1] The mythographer Apollodorus (1st or 2nd century AD) adds that Gaia bore Typhon in anger at the gods for their destruction of her offspring the Giants.[2]

Numerous other sources mention Typhon as being the offspring of Gaia, or simply "earth-born", with no mention of Tartarus.[3] However, according to the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (6th century BC), Typhon was the child of Hera alone. Hera, angry at Zeus for having given birth to Athena by himself, prayed to Gaia to give her a son as strong as Zeus, then slapped the ground, and became pregnant.[4] Hera gave the infant Typhon to the serpent Python to raise, and Typhon grew up to become a great bane to mortals.[5]

Depiction by Wenceslas Hollar

Several sources locate Typhon's birth and dwelling place in Cilicia, and in particular the region in the vicinity of the ancient Cilician coastal city of Corycus (modern Kızkalesi, Turkey). The poet Pindar (c. 470 BC) calls Typhon '"Cilician",[6] and says that Typhon was born in Cilicia and nurtured in "the famous Cilician cave",[7] an apparent allusion to the Corycian cave.[8] In Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, Typhon is called the "dweller of the Cilician caves",[9] and both Apollodorus and the poet Nonnus (4th or 5th century AD) have Typhon born in Cilicia.[10]

The b scholia to Iliad 2.783, preserving a possible Orphic tradition, has Typhon born in Cilicia, as the offspring of Cronus. Gaia, angry at the destruction of the Giants, slanders Zeus to Hera. So Hera goes to Zeus' father Cronus (whom Zeus had overthrown) and Cronus gives Hera two eggs smeared with his own semen, telling her to bury them, and that from them would be born one who would overthrow Zeus. Hera, angry at Zeus, buries the eggs in Cilicia "under Arimon", but when Typhon is born Hera, now reconciled with Zeus, informs him.[11]

Descriptions

According to Hesiod, Typhon was "terrible, outrageous and lawless",[12] and on his shoulders were one hundred snake heads, that emitted fire and every kind of noise:

Strength was with his hands in all that he did and the feet of the strong god were untiring. From his shoulders grew a hundred heads of a snake, a fearful dragon, with dark, flickering tongues, and from under the brows of his eyes in his marvellous heads flashed fire, and fire burned from his heads as he glared. And there were voices in all his dreadful heads which uttered every kind of sound unspeakable; for at one time they made sounds such that the gods understood, but at another, the noise of a bull bellowing aloud in proud ungovernable fury; and at another, the sound of a lion, relentless of heart; and at another, sounds like whelps, wonderful to hear; and again, at another, he would hiss, so that the high mountains re-echoed.[13]

The Homeric Hymn to Apollo describes Typhon as "fell" and "cruel", and neither like gods nor men.[14] Three of Pindar's poems have Typhon as hundred-headed (as in Hesiod),[15] while apparently a fourth gives him only fifty heads,[16] but a hundred heads for Typhon became standard.[17] A Chalcidian hydria (c. 540–530 BC), depicts Typhon as a winged humanoid from the waist up, with two snake tails below.[18] Aeschylus calls Typhon "fire-breathing".[19] For Nicander (2nd century BC), Typhon was a monster of enormous strength, and strange appearance, with many heads, hands, and wings, and with huge snake coils coming from his thighs.[20]

Apollodorus describes Typhon as a huge winged monster, whose head "brushed the stars", human in form above the waist, with snake coils below, and fire flashing from his eyes:

In size and strength he surpassed all the offspring of Earth. As far as the thighs he was of human shape and of such prodigious bulk that he out-topped all the mountains, and his head often brushed the stars. One of his hands reached out to the west and the other to the east, and from them projected a hundred dragons' heads. From the thighs downward he had huge coils of vipers, which when drawn out, reached to his very head and emitted a loud hissing. His body was all winged: unkempt hair streamed on the wind from his head and cheeks; and fire flashed from his eyes.

The most elaborate description of Typhon is found in Nonnus's Dionysiaca. Nonnus makes numerous references to Typhon's sepentine nature,[21] giving him a "tangled army of snakes",[22] snaky feet,[23] and hair.[24] Accoriding to Nonnus, Typhon was a "poison-spitting viper",[25] whose "every hair belched viper-poison",[26] and Typhon "spat out showers of poison from his throat; the mountain torrents were swollen, as the monster showered fountains from the viperish bristles of his high head",[27] and "the water-snakes of the monster's viperish feet crawl into the caverns underground, spitting poison!".[28]

Following Hesiod and others, Nonnus gives Typhon many heads (though untotaled), but in addition to snake heads,[29] Nonnus also gives Typhon many other animal heads, including leopards, lions, bulls, boars, bears, cattle, wolves, and dogs, which combine to make 'the cries of all wild beasts together',[30] and a "babel of screaming sounds".[31] Nonnus also gives Typhon "legions of arms innumerable",[32] and where Nicander had only said that Typhon had "many" hands, and Ovid had given Typhon a hundred hands, Nonnus gives Typhon two hundred.[33]

Offspring

According to Hesiod's Theogony, Typhon "was joined in love" to Echidna, a monstrous half-woman and half-snake, who bore Typhon "fierce offspring".[34] First, according to Hesiod, there was Orthrus,[35] the two-headed dog who guarded the Cattle of Geryon, second Cerberus,[36] the multiheaded dog who guarded the gates of Hades, and third the Lernaean Hydra,[37] the many-headed serpent who, when one of its heads was cut off, grew two more. The Theogony may also have meant Typhon as the father, by Echidna, of the Chimera, a fire-breathing beast that was part lion, part goat, and had a snake-headed tail,[38] though possibly the Hydra or even Ceto was meant as the mother of the Chimera instead.[39] To these offspring of Typhon and Echidna, the mythographer Acusilaus (6th century BC), along with mentions of Cerberus and "other monsters", adds the Caucasian Eagle, that every day ate the liver of Prometheus,[40] and the mythographer Pherecydes of Leros (5th century BC), also names Prometheus' eagle,[41] and adds Ladon (though Pherecydes does not use this name), the dragon that guarded the golden apples in the Garden of the Hesperides (according to Hesiod, the offspring of Ceto and Phorcys).[42] while the lyric poet Lasus of Hermione (6th century BC), adds the Sphinx.[43]

Later authors mostly retain these offspring of Typhon by Echidna, while adding others. Apollodorus, in addition to having as their offspring Orthrus, the Chimera (citing Hesiod as his source) the Caucasian Eagle, Ladon, and the Sphinx, also has the Nemean lion (no mother is given), and the Crommyonian Sow, killed by the hero Theseus (unmentioned by Hesiod).[44]

Hyginus (1st century BC),[45] in his list of offspring of Typhon (all by Echidna), retains from the above: Cerberus, the Chimera, the Sphinx, the Hydra and Ladon, and adds "Gorgon" (by which Hyginus means the mother of Medusa rather than Hesiod's three Gorgons, daughters of Phorcys and Ceto, of which Medusa was one), the Colchian Dragon that guarded the Golden Fleece[46] and Scylla.[47] The Harpies, in Hesiod the daughters of Thaumas and the Oceanid Electra,[48] in one source, are said to be the daughters of Typhon.[49]

The sea serpents which attacked the Trojan priest Laocoön, during the Trojan War, were perhaps supposed to be the progeny of Typhon and Echidna.[50]

According to Hesiod, the defeated Typhon is the source of destructive storm winds.[51]

Battle with Zeus

Typhon challenged Zeus for rule of the cosmos.[52] The earliest mention of Typhon, and his only occurrence in Homer, is a passing reference in the Iliad to Zeus striking the ground around where Typhon lies defeated.[53] Hesiod's Theogony gives us the first account of their battle. According to Hesiod, without the quick action of Zeus, Typhon would have "come to reign over mortals and immortals".[54] In the Theogony Zeus and Typhon meet in cataclysmic conflict:

[Zeus] thundered hard and mightily: and the earth around resounded terribly and the wide heaven above, and the sea and Ocean's streams and the nether parts of the earth. Great Olympus reeled beneath the divine feet of the king as he arose and earth groaned thereat. And through the two of them heat took hold on the dark-blue sea, through the thunder and lightning, and through the fire from the monster, and the scorching winds and blazing thunderbolt. The whole earth seethed, and sky and sea: and the long waves raged along the beaches round and about at the rush of the deathless gods: and there arose an endless shaking. Hades trembled where he rules over the dead below, and the Titans under Tartarus who live with Cronos, because of the unending clamor and the fearful strife.[55]

Zeus with his thunderbolt easily overcomes Typhon,[56] who is thrown down to earth in a fiery crash:

So when Zeus had raised up his might and seized his arms, thunder and lightning and lurid thunderbolt, he leaped from Olympus and struck him, and burned all the marvellous heads of the monster about him. But when Zeus had conquered him and lashed him with strokes, Typhoeus was hurled down, a maimed wreck, so that the huge earth groaned. And flame shot forth from the thunderstricken lord in the dim rugged glens of the mount, when he was smitten. A great part of huge earth was scorched by the terrible vapor and melted as tin melts when heated by men's art in channelled crucibles; or as iron, which is hardest of all things, is shortened by glowing fire in mountain glens and melts in the divine earth through the strength of Hephaestus. Even so, then, the earth melted in the glow of the blazing fire.[57]

Defeated, Typhon is cast into Tartarus by an angry Zeus.[58]

Epimenides (7th or 6th century BC) seeminly knew a different version of the story, in which Typhon enters Zeus' palace while Zeus is asleep, but Zeus awakes and kills Typhon with a thunderbolt.[59] Pindar calls Typhon the "enemy of the gods",[60] apparently knew of a tradition which had the gods transform into animals and flee to Egypt,[61] says that Typhon was defeated by Zeus' thunderbolt,[62] has Typhon being held prisoner by Zeus under Etna,[63] and in Tartarus stretched out under ground between Mount Etna and Cumae.[64] However, the historian Herodotus (5th century BC), equating Typhon with the Egyptian god Set, reports that Typhon was supposed to be buried instead under Lake Serbonis in Egypt, near the Egyptian Mount Kasios, (modern Ras Kouroun).[65]

According to Pherecydes of Leros, during his battle with Zeus, Typhon first flees to the Caucasus, which begins to burn, then to the volcanic island of Pithecussae (modern Ischia), off the coast of Cumae.[66] Apollonius of Rhodes (3rd century BC), like Pherecydes, presents a multi-stage battle, with Typhon being struck by Zeus' thunderbolt on mount Caucasus, before fleeing to the mountains and plain of Nysa, and ending up, as in Herodotus, buried under Lake Serbonis.[67]

Like Pindar, Nicander has all the gods but Zeus and Athena, transform into animal forms and flee to Egypt: Apollo became a hawk, Hermes an ibis, Ares a fish, Artemis a cat, Dionysus a goat, Heracles a fawn, Hephaestus an ox, and Leto a mouse.[68]

The geographer Strabo (c. 20 AD) gives several locations which were associated with the battle. According to Strabo, Typhon was said to have cut the serpentine channel of the Orontes River, which flowed beneath the Syrian Mount Kasios (modern Jebel Aqra), while fleeing from Zeus,[69] and some placed the battle at Catacecaumene ("Burnt Land"),[70] a volcanic mountainous area between the ancient kingdoms of Lydia, Mysia and Phrygia, near Mount Tmolus (modern Bozdağ) and Sardis the ancient capital of Lydia.[71]

No early source gives any reason for the conflict, but Apollodorus' account[72] seemingly implies that Typhon had been produced by Gaia to avenge the destruction, by Zeus and the other gods, of the Giants, a previous generation of offspring of Gaia. According to Apollodorus "Zeus pelted Typhon at a distance with thunderbolts, and at close quarters struck him down with an adamantine sickle"[73] Wounded, Typhon fled to the Syrian Mount Kasios, where Zeus "grappled" with him. But Typhon, twining his snaky coils around Zeus, was able to wrest away the sickle and cut the sinews from Zeus' hands and feet. Typhon carried the disabled Zeus across the sea to the Corycian cave in Cilicia where he set the she-serpent Delphyne to guard over Zeus and his severed sinews, which Typhon had hidden in a bear skin. But Hermes and Aegipan (possibly another name for Pan)[74] stole the sinews and gave them back to Zeus. His strength restored, Zeus chased Typhon to mount Nysa, where the Moirai tricked Typhon into eating "ephemeral fruits" which weakened him. Typhon then fled to Thrace, where he threw mountains at Zeus, which were turned back on him by Zeus' thunderbolts, and the mountain where Typhon stood, being drenched with Typhon's blood, became known as Mount Haemus (Bloody Mountain). Typhon then fled to Sicily, where Zeus threw Mount Etna on top of Typhon burying him, and so finally defeated him.

Oppian (2nd century AD) says that Pan helped Zeus in the battle by tricking Typhon to come out from his lair, and into the open, by the "promise of a banquet of fish", thus enabling Zeus to defeat Typhon with his thunderbolts.[75]

Nonnus

The longest and most involved account of the battle appears in Nonnus's Dionysiaca.[76] Zeus hides his thunderbolts in a cave, so that he might seduce the maiden Plouto, and so produce Tantalus. But smoke rising from the thunderbolts, enables Typhon, under the guidance of Gaia, to locate Zeus's weapons, steal them, and hide them in another cave.[77] Immediately Typhon extends "his clambering hands into the upper air" and begins a long and concerted attack upon the heavens.[78] Then "leaving the air" he turns his attack upon the seas.[79] Finally Typhon attempts to wield Zeus' thunderbolts, but they "felt the hands of a novice, and all their manly blaze was unmanned."[80]

Now Zeus' sinews had somehow – Nonnus does not say how or when — fallen to the ground turing their battle, and Typhon had taken them also.[81] But Zeus devises a plan with Cadmus and Pan to beguile Typhon.[82] Cadmus, desguised as a shepherd, enchants Typhon by playing the panpipes, and Typhon entrusting the thuderbolts to Gaia, sets out to find the source of the music he hears.[83] Finding Cadmus, he challenges him to a contest, offering Cadmus any goddess as wife, excepting Hera whom Typhon has reserved for himself.[84] Cadmus then tells Typhon that, if he liked the "little tune" of his pipes, then he would love the music of his lyre – if only it could be strung with Zeus' sinews.[85] So Typhon retrieves the sinews and gives them to Cadmus, who hides them in another cave, and again begins to play his bewiching pipes, so that "Typhoeus yielded his whole soul to Cadmos for the melody to charm".[86]

With Typhon distracted, Zeus takes back his thunderbolts. Cadmus stops playing, and Typhon, released from his spell, rushes back to his cave to discover the thunderbolts gone. Incensed Typhon unleashes devastation upon the world: animals are devoured, (Typhon's many animal heads each eat animals of its own kind), rivers turned to dust, seas made dry land, and the land "laid waist".[87]

The day ends with Typhon yet unchallenged, and while the other gods "moved about the cloudless Nile", Zeus waits through the night for the coming dawn.[88] Victory "reproaches" Zeus, urging him to "stand up as champion of your own children!"[89] Dawn comes and Typhon roars out a challenge to Zeus.[90] And a catyclismic battle for "the sceptre and throne of Zeus" is joined. Typhon piles up mountains as battlements and with his "legions of arms innumerable", showers volley after volley of trees and rocks at Zeus, but all are destroyed, or blown aside, or dodged, or thrown back at Typhon. Typhon throws torrents of water at Zeus' thunderbolts to quench them, but Zeus is able to cut off some of Typhon's hands with "frozen volleys of air as by a knife", and hurling thunderbolts is able to burn more of typhon's "endless hands", and cut off some of his "countless heads". Typhon is attacked by the four winds, and "frozen volleys of jagged hailstones."[91] Gaia tries to aid her burnt and frozen son.[92] Finally Typhon falls, and Zeus shouts out a long stream of mocking taunts, telling Typhon that he is to be buried under Sicily's hills, with a cenotaph over him which will read "This is the barrow of Typhoeus, son of Earth, who once lashed the sky with stones, and the fire of heaven burnt him up".[93]

Burial under Etna and Ischia

Most accounts have the defeated Typhon buried under either Mount Etna in Sicily, or the volcanic island of Ischia, the largest of the Phlegraean Islands off the coast of Naples, with Typhon being the cause of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.

Though Hesiod has Typhon simply cast into Tartarus by Zeus, some have read a reference to Mount Etna in Hesiod's description of Typhon's fall:

And flame shot forth from the thunderstricken lord in the dim rugged glens of the mount when he was smitten. A great part of huge earth was scorched by the terrible vapor and melted as tin melts when heated by men's art in channelled crucibles; or as iron, which is hardest of all things, is shortened by glowing fire in mountain glens and melts in the divine earth through the strength of Hephaestus. Even so, then, the earth melted in the glow of the blazing fire.[94]

The first certain references to Typhon buried under Etna, as well as being the cause of its eruptions, occur in Pindar:

Son of Cronus, you who hold Aetna, the wind-swept weight on terrible hundred-headed Typhon,[95]

and:

among them is he who lies in dread Tartarus, that enemy of the gods, Typhon with his hundred heads. Once the famous Cilician cave nurtured him, but now the sea-girt cliffs above Cumae, and Sicily too, lie heavy on his shaggy chest. And the pillar of the sky holds him down, snow-covered Aetna, year-round nurse of bitter frost, from whose inmost caves belch forth the purest streams of unapproachable fire. In the daytime her rivers roll out a fiery flood of smoke, while in the darkness of night the crimson flame hurls rocks down to the deep plain of the sea with a crashing roar. That monster shoots up the most terrible jets of fire; it is a marvellous wonder to see, and a marvel even to hear about when men are present. Such a creature is bound beneath the dark and leafy heights of Aetna and beneath the plain, and his bed scratches and goads the whole length of his back stretched out against it.[96]

Thus Pindar has Typhon in Tartarus, and buried under not just Etna, but under a vast volcanic region stretching from Sicily to modern Naples, a region which presumably also included Mount Vesuvius,[97] as well as Ischia, where Pherecydes of Leros said Typhon had fled.[98]

Many subsequent accounts mention either Etna[99] or Ischia.[100] In Prometheus Bound, Typhon is imprisoned underneath Etna, while above him Hephaestus "hammers the molten ore", and in his rage, the "charred" Typhon causes "rivers of fire" to pour forth. Ovid has Typhon buried under all of Sicily, with his left and right hands under Pelorus and Pachynus, his feet under Lilybaeus, and his head under Etna; where he "vomits flames from his ferocious mouth". And Valerius Flaccus has Typhon's head under Etna, and all of Sicily shaken when Typhon "struggles". Lycophron has both Typhon and Giants buried under the island of Ischia. Virgil, Silius Italicus and Claudian, all calling the island "Inarime", have Typhon buried there. Strabo, calling Ischia "Pithecussae", reports the "myth" that Typhon lay buried there, and that when he "turns his body the flames and the waters, and sometimes even small islands containing boiling water, spout forth."[101]

Others said to be buried under Etna were the Giant Enceladus, the volcano's eruptions being the breath of Enceladus, and its tremors caused by the Giant rolling over from side to side beneath the mountain,[102] and the Hundred-hander Briareus.[103]

"Couch of Typhoeus"

Homer describes a place he calls the "couch [or bed] of Typhoeus", which he locates in the land of the Arimoi (εἰν Ἀρίμοις), where Zeus lashes the land about Typhoeus with his thunderbolts.[104] Presumably this is the same land where, according to Hesiod, Typhon's mate Echida keeps guard "in Arima" (εἰν Ἀρίμοισιν).[105]

But neither Homer nor Hesiod say anything more about where these Arimoi or this Arima might be. The question of whether an historical place was meant, and if so, its possible location, has been, since ancient times, the subject of speculation and debate.[106]

Strabo discusses the question in some detail.[107] Several locales, Cilicia, Syria, Lydia, and the island of Ischia, all places associated with Typhon, are given by Strabo as possible locations for Homer's "Arimoi".

Pindar has his Cilician Typhon slain by Zeus "among the Arimoi",[108] and the historian Callisthenes (4th century BC), located the Arimoi and the Arima mountains in Cilicia, near the Calycadnus river, the Corycian cave and the Sarpedon promomtory.[109] The b scholia to Iliad 2.783, mentioned above, says Typhon was born in Cilicia "under Arimon",[110] and Nonnus mentions Typhon's "bloodstained cave of Arima" in Cilicia.[111]

Just across the Gulf of Issus from Corycus, in ancient Syria, was Mount Kasios (modern Jebel Aqra) and the Orontes River, sites associated with Typhon's battle with Zeus,[112] and according to Strabo, the historian Posidonius (c. 2nd century BC) identified the Arimoi with the Aramaeans of Syria.[113]

Alternatively, according to Strabo, some placed the Arimoi at Catacecaumene,[114] while Xahthus of Lydia (5th century BC) added that "a certain Arimus" ruled there.[115] Strabo also tells us that for "some" Homer's "couch of Typhon" was located "in a wooded place, in the fertile land of Hyde", with Hyde being another name for Sardis (or its acropolis), and that Demetrius of Scepsis (2nd century BC) thought that the Arimoi were most plausibly located "in the Catacecaumene country in Mysia".[116] The 3rd-century BC poet Lycophron placed the lair of Typhons' mate Echidna in this region.[117]

Another place, mentioned by Strabo, as being associated with Arima, is the island of Ischia, where according to Pherecydes of Leros, Typhon had fled, and in the area where Pindar and others had said Typhon was buried. The connection to Arima, comes from the island's Greek name Pithecussae, which derives from the Greek word for monkey, and according to Strabo, residents of the island said that "arimoi" was also the Etruscan word for monkeys.[118]

Etymology and origins

Typhon's name has a number of variants.[119] The earliest forms of Typhoeus and Typhaon, occur prior to the 5th century BC. Homer uses Typhoeus, Hesiod and the Homeric Hymn to Apollo use both Typhoeus and Typhaon. The later forms Typhos and Typhon occur from the 5th century BC onwards, with Typhon becoming the standard form by the end of that century.

Though several possible derivations of the name Typhon have been suggested, the derivation remains uncertain.[120] Consistent with Hesiod's making storm winds Typhon's offspring, some have supposed that Typhon was originally a wind-god, and ancient sources associated him with the Greek words tuphon, tuphos meaning "whirlwind".[121] Other theories include derivation from a Greek root meaning "smoke" (consistent with Typhon's identification with volcanoes),[122] from an Indo European root meaning "abyss" (making Typhon a "Serpent of the Deep"),[123] and from Sapõn the Phoenician name for the Ugaritic god Baal's holy mountain Jebel Aqra (the classical Mount Kasios) associated with the epithet Baʿal Zaphon.[124]

As noted by Herodotus, Typhon was traditionally identified with the Egyptian Set, who was also known to the Greeks as Typhon. As early as pre-dynastic Egypt, Set's mascot or emblem was the Set animal; the Greeks and later classicists referred to this unidentified aardvark-like creature as the Typhonic beast. In the Orphic tradition, just as Set is responsible for the murder of Osiris, Typhon leads the Titans when they attack and kill Dionysus, who also became identified with the earlier Osiris.

Mythologist Joseph Campbell also makes parallels to the slaying of Leviathan by YHWH, about which YHWH boasts to Job.[125] Ogden calls the Typhon myth "the only Graeco-Roman drakōn-slaying myth that can seriously be argued to exhibit the influence of Near Eastern antecedents", connecting it in particular with Baʿal Zaphon's slaying of Yammu and Lotan, as well as with the Hittite myth of Illuyankas.[126] From its first reappearance, this latter myth has been seen as a prototype of the battle of Zeus and Typhon.[127] Walter Burkert and Calvert Watkins each note the close agreements.

Comparisons can also be drawn with the Mesopotamian monster Tiamat and her slaying by Babylonian chief god Marduk. The similarities between the Greek myth and its earlier Mesopotamian counterpart do not seem to be merely accidental. A number of west Semitic (Ras Shamra) and Hittite sources appear to corroborate the theory of a genetic relationship between the two myths.[128]

Watkins' How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics (Oxford University Press) 1995, reconstructs in disciplined detail the flexible Indo-European poetic formula that underlies myth, epic and magical charm texts of the lashing and binding of Typhon.

In works of culture

  • Dante Alighieri's Inferno mentions him amongst the Biblical and mythological giants frozen onto the rings outside of Hell's Circle of Treachery. Dante and Virgil threatened to go to Tityos and Typhon unless Antaeus lowers them into the Circle of Treachery.
  • Typhon (as Typhoeus) appears in Gustav Klimt's 1902 Beethoven Frieze as one of "the Hostile Forces".
  • Typhon is a recurring character in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, where he is a friend and ally to Hercules, and a calming influence on Echidna and their children.
  • Typhon appears in the 2007 video game, God of War II where the main character Kratos tries to enlist his aide. The Titan refuses and Kratos blinds Typhon and takes his magical bow, Typhon's Bane.

Notes

  1. ↑ Hesiod,Theogony 820–822. Apollodorus, 1.6.3, and Hyginus, Fabulae Preface also have Typhon as the offspring of Gaia and Tartarus, however Hyginus, Fabulae 152 has Typhon the offspring of Tartarus and Tartara.
  2. ↑ Apollodorus, 1.6.3.
  3. ↑ Aeschylus, Seven Against Thebes 522–523; Aeschylus (?), Prometheus Bound 353; Antoninus Liberalis 28; Virgil, Georgics 1. 278–279; Ovid, Metamorphoses 321–331; Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.154–155 (I pp. 14–15).
  4. ↑ Homeric Hymn to Apollo 306–348. Stesichorus, Fragment 239 (Campbell, pp. 166–167) also has Hera produce Typhon alone to "spite Zeus".
  5. ↑ Gantz, p. 49, remarks on the strangeness of such a description for one who would challenge the gods.
  6. ↑ Pindar, Pythian 8.15–16.
  7. ↑ Pindar, Pythian 1.15–17.
  8. ↑ Fontenrose, pp. 72–73; West 1966, pp. 250–251 line 304 εἰν Ἀρίμοισιν.
  9. ↑ Aeschylus (?), Prometheus Bound 353–356; Gantz, p. 49.
  10. ↑ Apollodorus, 1.6.3; Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.140. (I pp. 12–13), 1.154. (I pp. 14–15), 1.258–260 (I pp. 20–23), 1.321 (I pp. 26–27), 2.35 (I pp. 46–47), 2.631 ff. (I pp. 90–91).
  11. ↑ Kirk, Raven, and Schofield. pp. 59–60 no. 52; Ogden 2013b, pp. 36–38; Gantz, pp. 50–51, Ogden 2013a, p. 76 n. 46.
  12. ↑ Hesiod, Theogony 306–307.
  13. ↑ Hesiod, Theogony 823–835.
  14. ↑ Gantz, p. 49, speculates that Typhon being given to the Python to raise "might suggest a resemblance to snakes".
  15. ↑ Pindar, Pythian 1.16, 8.16, Olympian 4.6–7.
  16. ↑ Pindar, fragment 93 apud Strabo, 13.4.6 (Race, pp. 328–329).
  17. ↑ Ogden 2013a, p. 71; e.g. Aeschylus (?), Prometheus Bound 355; Aristophanes, Clouds 336; Hyginus, Fabulae 152, Oppian, Halieutica 3.15–25 (pp. 344–347) .
  18. ↑ Ogden 2013a, p. 69; Gantz, p. 50; Munich Antikensammlung 596 = LIMC Typhon 14.
  19. ↑ Aeschylus, Seven Against Thebes 511.
  20. ↑ Antoninus Liberalis 28; Gantz, p. 50.
  21. ↑ Ogden 2013a, p. 72.
  22. ↑ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.187 (I pp. 16–17).
  23. ↑ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 2.30, 36 (I pp. 46–47), 2.141 (I pp. 54–55).
  24. ↑ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.173 (I pp. 16–17), 2.32 (I pp. 46–47)
  25. ↑ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.218 (I pp. 18–19).
  26. ↑ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.508–509 (I pp. 38–41).
  27. ↑ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 2.31–33 (I pp. 46–47).
  28. ↑ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 2.141–142 (I pp. 54–55).
  29. ↑ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 2.243 (I pp. 62–63).
  30. ↑ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.154–162 (I pp. 14–15).
  31. ↑ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 2.444–256 (I pp. 62–65).
  32. ↑ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 2.381 (I pp. 72–73); also 2.244 (I pp. 62–63) ("many-armed Typhoeus").
  33. ↑ Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.301; Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.297 (I pp. 24–25), 2.343 (I pp. 70–71), 2.621 (I pp. 90–91).
  34. ↑ Hesiod, Theogony 306–314. Compare with Lycophron, Alexandra 1351 ff. (pp. 606–607), which refers to Echidna as Typhon's spouse (δάμαρ).
  35. ↑ Apollodorus, Library 2.5.10 also has Orthrus as the offspring of Typhon and Echidna. Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica (or Fall of Troy) 6.249–262 (pp. 272–273) has Cerberus as the offspring of Typhon and Echidna, and Orthrus as his brother.
  36. ↑ Acusilaus, fr. 13 Fowler (Fowler 2001, p. 11; Freeman, p. 15 fragment 6), Hyginus, Fabulae Preface, 151, and Quintus Smyrnaeus, loc. cit., also have Cerberus as the offspring of Typhon and Echidna. Bacchylides, Ode 5.62, Sophocles, Women of Trachis 1097–1099, Callimachus, fragment 515 Pfeiffer (Trypanis, pp. 258–259), Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.500–501, 7.406–409, all have Cerberus as the offspring of Echidna, with no father named.
  37. ↑ Hyginus, Fabulae Preface, 151 also has the Hydra and as the offspring of Typhon and Echidna.
  38. ↑ Hesiod, Theogony, 319
  39. ↑ The referent of the "she" in line 319 is uncertain, see Gantz, p. 22; Clay, p. 159, with n. 34.
  40. ↑ Acusilaus, fr. 13 Fowler (Fowler 2001, p. 11; Freeman, p. 15 fragment 6); Fowler 2013, p. 28; Gantz, p. 22; Ogden 2013a, pp. 149–150.
  41. ↑ Pherecydes of Leros, fr. 7 Fowler (Fowler 2001, p. 278); Fowler 2013, p. 28; Gantz, p. 22; Ogden 2013a, pp. 149–150.
  42. ↑ Pherecydes of Leros, fr. 16b Fowler (Fowler 2001, p. 286); Hesiod, Theogony 333–336; Fowler 2013, p. 28; Ogden 2013a, p. 149 n. 3; Hošek, p. 678. The first to name the dragon Ladon is Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 4.1396 (pp. 388–389), which makes Ladon earthborn, see Fowler 2013, p. 28 n. 97.
  43. ↑ Lasus of Hermione, fragment 706A (Campbell, pp. 310–311). Euripides, The Phoenician Women 1019–1020; Ogden 2013a, p. 149 n. 3 has Echidna as her mother, without mentioning a father. Hesiod mentions the Sphinx (and the Nemean lion) as having been the offspring of Echidna's son Orthrus, by another ambiguous "she", in line 326 (see Clay, p.159, with n. 34), read variously as the Chimera, Echidna herself, or even Ceto.
  44. ↑ Apollodorus, Library 2.5.10 (Orthrus), 2.3.1 (Chimera), 2.5.11 (Caucasian Eagle), 2.5.11 (Ladon), 3.5.8 (Sphinx), 2.5.1 (Nemean lion), Epitome 1.1 (Crommyonian Sow).
  45. ↑ Hyginus, Fabulae Preface, 151.
  46. ↑ Compare with Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica, 2.1208–1215 (pp. 184–185), where the dragon is the offspring of Gaia by Typhon (Hošek, p. 168).
  47. ↑ See also Virgil, Ciris 67; Lyne, pp. 130–131.
  48. ↑ Hesiod, Theogony, 265–269; so also Apollodorus, 1.2.6, and Hyginus, Fabulae Preface (though Fabulae 14, gives their parents as Thaumas and Oxomene). In the Epimenides Theogony (3B7) they are the daughters of Oceanus and Gaia, while in Pherecydes of Syros (7B5) they are the daughters of Boreas (Gantz, p. 18).
  49. ↑ Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica 4.428, 516.
  50. ↑ Hošek, p. 168; see Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica (or Fall of Troy) 12.449–453 (pp. 518–519), where they are called "fearful monsters of the deadly brood of Typhon".
  51. ↑ Hesiod, Theogony 869-880, which specifically excludes the winds Notus (South Wind), Boreas (North Wind) and Zephyr (West Wind) which he says are "a great blessing to men"; West 1966, 381; Gantz, p. 49; Ogden 2013a, p. 226.
  52. ↑ Fontenrose, pp. 70–76; West 1966, pp. 379–383; Lane Fox, pp. 283–301; Gantz, pp. 48–50; Ogden 2013a, pp. 73–80.
  53. ↑ Homer, Iliad 2.780–784, a reference, apparently, not to their original battle but to an ongoing "lashing" by Zeus of Typhon where he lies buried, see Fontenrose, pp. 70–72; Ogden 2013a, p. 76.
  54. ↑ Hesiod, Theogony 836–838.
  55. ↑ Hesiod, Theogony 839–852.
  56. ↑ Zeus' apparently easy victory over Typhon in Hesiod, in contrast to other accounts of the battle (see below), is consistent with, for example, what Fowler 2013, p. 27 calls "Hesiod's pervasive glorification of Zeus".
  57. ↑ Hesiod, Theogony 853–867.
  58. ↑ Hesiod, Theogony 868.
  59. ↑ Ogden 2013a, p. 74; Gantz, p. 49.
  60. ↑ Pindar, Pythian 1.15–16.
  61. ↑ Fowler 2013, p. 29; Ogden 2013a, p. 217; Gantz, p. 49; West 1966, p. 380; Fontenrose, p. 75.
  62. ↑ Pindar, Pythian 8.16–17.
  63. ↑ Pindar, Olympian 4.6–7.
  64. ↑ Pindar, Pythian 1.15–28; Gantz, p. 50.
  65. ↑ Herodotus, 3.5; Lane Fox, pp. 254ff., 288, 289; Fowler 2013, p. 28;
  66. ↑ Pherecydes of Leros, fr. 54 Fowler (Fowler 2001, p. 307); Fowler 2013, p. 29; Gantz, p. 50.
  67. ↑ Fowler 2013, p. 29; Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 2.1208–1215 (pp. 184–185).
  68. ↑ Antoninus Liberalis 28.
  69. ↑ Strabo, 16.2.7; Ogden 2013a, p. 76.
  70. ↑ Strabo, 12.8.19, compare with Diodorus Siculus 5.71.2–6, which says that Zeus slew Typhon in Phrygia.
  71. ↑ Lane Fox, pp. 289–291, rejects Catacecaumene as the site of Homer's "Arimoi".
  72. ↑ Apollodorus, 1.6.3. Though a late account, Apollodorus may have drawn upon early sources, see Fontenrose, p. 74; Lane Fox, p. 287, Ogden 2013a, p. 78.
  73. ↑ Perhaps this was supposed to be the same sickle which Cronus used to castrate Uranus, see Hesiod, Theogony 173 ff.; Lane Fox, p. 288.
  74. ↑ Gantz, p. 50; Fontenros, p. 73; Smith, "Aegipan".
  75. ↑ Oppian, Halieutica 3.15–25 (pp. 344–347); Lane Fox, p. 287; Ogden 2013a, p. 74.
  76. ↑ Fontenrose, pp. 74–75; Lane Fox, pp. 286–287; Ogden 2013a, pp. 74– 75.
  77. ↑ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.145–164 (I pp. 12–15).
  78. ↑ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.164–257 (I pp. 14–21).
  79. ↑ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.258–293 (I pp. 20–25).
  80. ↑ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.294–320 (I pp. 24–27).
  81. ↑ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.510–512 (I pp. 40–41). Nonnus' account regarding the sinews is vauge and not altogether sensible since as yet Zeus and Typhon have not met, see Fontenrose, p. 75 n. 11
  82. ↑ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.363–407 (I pp. 28–33).
  83. ↑ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.409–426 (I pp. 32–35).
  84. ↑ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.427–480 (I pp. 34–37). For Typhon's plans to marry Hera see also 2.316–333 (I pp. 68–69), 1.581–586 (I pp. 86–87).
  85. ↑ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.481–481 (I pp. 38–39).
  86. ↑ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.507–534 (I pp. 38–41).
  87. ↑ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 2.1–93 (I pp. 44–51).
  88. ↑ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 2.163–169 (I pp. 56–57).
  89. ↑ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 2.205–236 (I pp. 60–63).
  90. ↑ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 2.244–355 (I pp. 62–71).
  91. ↑ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 2.356–539 (I pp. 72–85).
  92. ↑ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 2.540–552 (I pp. 84–85).
  93. ↑ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 2.553–630 (I pp. 84–91).
  94. ↑ Hesiod, Theogony 859–867. The reading of Etna here is doubted by West 1966, p. 393 line 860 ἀιδνῇς, though see Lane Fox, p. 346 with n. 63.
  95. ↑ Pindar, Olympian 4.6–7.
  96. ↑ Pindar, Pythian 1.15–28.
  97. ↑ Gantz, p. 49; Ogden 2013a, p. 76.
  98. ↑ So Strabo, 5.4.9, 13.4.6; Lane Fox, p. 299, Ogden 2013a, p. 76. Though Pindar doesn't mention the island by name, Lane Fox, p. 299, argues that the "sea-girt cliffs above Cumae" mentioned by Pindar refer to the island cliffs of Ischia.
  99. ↑ Aeschylus (?), Prometheus Bound 353–374; Ovid, Metamorphoses 5.346 ff.; Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica 2.23 ff.; Apollodorus, 1.6.3; the b scholia to Iliad 2.783 (Kirk, Raven, and Schofield. pp. 59–60 no. 52); Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana 5.16 (pp.498–501); Philostratus the Elder, Imagines 2.17.5 (pp. 198–201).
  100. ↑ Lycophron, Alexandra 688–693 (pp. 550–551); Virgil, Aeneid 9.715–716; Silius Italicus, Punica 8.540–541 (I pp. 432–433) (see also Punica 12.148–149 (II pp. 156–157), which has the Titan Iapetus also buried there); Claudian, Rape of Proserpine 3.183–184 (pp. 358–359); Strabo, 5.4.9 (Ridgway, David, pp. 35–36).
  101. ↑ Strabo, 5.4.9.
  102. ↑ Callimachus, fragment 117 (382) (pp. 342–343); Statius, Thebaid 11.8 (pp. 390–391); Aetna (perhaps written by Lucilius Junior), 71–73 (pp. 8–9); Apollodorus, 1.6.2; Virgil, Aeneid 3.578 ff. (with Conington's note to 3.578); Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana 5.16 (pp. 498–501); Claudian, Rape of Proserpine 1.153–159 (pp. 304–305), 2.151–162 (pp. 328–331), 3.186–187 (pp. 358–359); Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica (or Fall of Troy) 5.641–643 (pp. 252–253), 14.582–585 (pp. 606–607). Philostratus the Elder, Imagines 2.17.5 (pp. 198–201) has Enceladus buried in Italy rather than Sicily.
  103. ↑ Callimachus, Hymn 4 (to Delos) 141–146 (pp. 96–97); Mineur. p. 153.
  104. ↑ Homer, Iliad 2.783.
  105. ↑ Hesiod, Theogony 295-305. Fontenrose, p. 72; West 1966, p. 251 line 304 εἰν Ἀρίμοισιν; Lane Fox, p. 288; Ogden 2013a, p. 76; Fowler 2013, p. 28. West, notes that Typhon's "couch" appears to be "not just 'where he lies', but also where he keeps his spouse"; compare with Quintus Smyrnaeus, 8.97–98 (pp. 354–355).
  106. ↑ For an extensive discussion see Lane Fox, especially pp. 39, 107, 283–301; 317–318. See also West 1966, pp. 250–251 line 304 εἰν Ἀρίμοισιν; Ogden 2013a, p. 76; Fowler 2013, pp. 28–30.
  107. ↑ Strabo, 13.4.6.
  108. ↑ Pindar, fragment 93 apud Strabo, 13.4.6 (Race, pp. 328–329).
  109. ↑ Callisthenes FGrH 124 F33 = Strabo, 13.4.6; Ogden 2013a, p. 76; Ogden 2013b, p. 25; Lane Fox, p. 292. Lane Fox, pp. 292–298, connects Arima with the Hittite place names "Erimma" and "Arimmatta" which he associates with the Corycian Cave.
  110. ↑ Kirk, Raven, and Schofield. pp. 59–60 no. 52; Ogden 2013b, pp. 36–38; Gantz, pp. 50–51, Ogden 2013a, p. 76 n. 46.
  111. ↑ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.140. (I pp. 12–13).
  112. ↑ Strabo, 16.2.7; Apollodorus, 1.6.3; Ogden 2013a, p. 76.
  113. ↑ Strabo, 16.4.27. According to West 1966, p. 251, "This identification [Arimoi as Aramaeans] has been repeated in modern times." For example for Fontenrose, p. 71, the "Arimoi, it seems fairly certain, are the Aramaeans, and the country is either Syria or Cilicia, most likely the latter, since in later sources that is usually Typhon's land." But see Fox Lane, pp. 107, 291–298, which rejects this identification, instead arguing for the derivation of "Arima" from the Hittite place names "Erimma" and "Arimmatta".
  114. ↑ Strabo, 12.8.19.
  115. ↑ Strabo, 13.4.11.
  116. ↑ Strabo, 13.4.6. For Hyde see also Homer, Iliad 20.386.
  117. ↑ Lycophron, Alexandra 1351 ff. (pp. 606–607) associates Echidna's "dread bed" with a lake identified as Lake Gygaea or Koloe (modern Lake Marmara), see Robert, pp. 334 ff.; Lane Fox, pp. 290–291. For Lake Gygaea see Homer, Iliad 2.864–866; Herodotus, 1.93; Strabo, 13.4.5–6.
  118. ↑ Strabo, 13.4.6; Lane Fox, pp. 298–301; Ogden 2013a, p. 76 n. 47; Fowler 2013, p. 29.
  119. ↑ Ogden 2013a, p. 152.
  120. ↑ Fontenrose, p. 546; West 1966, p. 381; Lane Fox, 298, p. 405, p. 407 n. 53; Ogden 2013a, pp. 152–153. Fontenrose: "His name is very likely not Greek; but though non-Hellenic etymologies have been suggested, I doubt that its meaning is now recoverable"; West: "The origin of the name and its variant forms is unexplained"; Lane Fox: "a name of uncertain derivation". Given that Typhoeus and Typhaon are apparently the earlier forms, Ogden, suggests that theories based upon the assumption that "Typhon" is the primary form "seem ill-founded", and says that it "seems much more likely" that the form Typhon arose from "the desire to assimilate this drakōn's name to the name shape of other drakontes, perhaps Python in particular".
  121. ↑ West 1966, pp. 252, 381; Ogden 2013a, p. 152, both citing Worms 1953. But according to West "it is far from certain that there is any real etymological connection ... [Typhon's] association with the tornado is secondary, and due to popular etymology. It may have already influenced Hesiod, for there is at present no better explanation of the fact that irregular stormwinds (especially those met at sea) are made the children of [Typhon]." For the use of the words τῡφώς, τῡφῶν meaning "whirlwind" see LSJ, Τυ_φώς , ῶ, ὁ; Suda s.v. Tetuphômai, Tuphôn, Tuphôs; Aeschylus, Agamemnon 656; Aristophanes, Frogs 848, Lysistrata, 974; Sophocles, Antigone 418.
  122. ↑ Fontenrose, p. 546 with n. 2; Lane Fox, p. 298, which offers the derivation of Typhon from the Greek tūphōn ("smoking", "smouldering"), though Ogden 2013a, p. 153, while conceding that such a derivation "fits Typhon's nature and condition in life and death so perfectly", objects (n. 23) "why would the participle-style declension in –ων, –οντος have been substituted with one in –ῶν, –ῶνος?"
  123. ↑ Watkins, pp. 460–463; Ogden 2013a, pp. 152–153.
  124. ↑ Supported by West 1997, p. 303: "Here, then, we have a divinity [Baʿal Zaphon] with a name which might indeed have become "Typhon" in Greek", but rejected by Lane Fox, p. 298. See also Fontenrose, p. 546 n. 2; West 1966, p. 252; Ogden 2013a, p. 153, with n. 22.
  125. ↑ The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology, Joseph Campbell; P.22.
  126. ↑ Ogden 2013a, pp. 14–15.
  127. ↑ W. Porzig, "Illuyankas und Typhon", Kleinasiatische Forschung I.3 (1930) pp 379–86
  128. ↑ Jean-Pierre Vernant, The Origins of Greek Thought. Cornell University Press, 1982. https://books.google.com/books?id=KktoPGN4JaoC

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