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Typhon (; , ), also Typhoeus (; ), Typhaon () or Typhos (), was a monstrous serpentine giant and one of the deadliest creatures in Greek mythology. According to Hesiod, Typhon was the son of Gaia and Tartarus. However, one source has Typhon as the son of Hera alone, while another makes Typhon the offspring of Cronus. Typhon and his mate Echidna were the progenitors of many famous monsters.
Typhon attempted to overthrow Zeus for the supremacy of the cosmos. The two fought a cataclysmic battle, which Zeus finally won with the aid of his thunderbolts. Defeated, Typhon was cast into Tartarus, or buried underneath Mount Etna, or in later accounts, the island of Ischia.
Typhon mythology is part of the Greek succession myth, which explained how Zeus came to rule the gods. Typhon's story is also connected with that of Python (the serpent killed by Apollo), and both stories probably derived from several Near Eastern antecedents. Typhon was (from ) also identified with the Egyptian god of destruction Set. In later accounts, Typhon was often confused with the Giants.
Numerous other sources mention Typhon as being the offspring of Gaia, or simply "earth-born", with no mention of Tartarus.Aeschylus, Seven Against Thebes 522–523; Aeschylus (?), Prometheus Bound 353; Nicander, apud Antoninus Liberalis 28; Virgil, Georgics 1. 278–279; Ovid, Metamorphoses 5.321–331; Marcus Manilius, Astronomica 2.874–875 (pp. 150, 153); Lucan, Pharsalia 4.593–595; Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.154–155 (I pp. 14–15). However, according to the Homeric Hymns (6th century BC), Typhon was the child of Hera alone.Homeric Hymns 305–355; Fontenrose, p. 72; Gantz, p. 49. Stesichorus ( – 555 BC), it seems, also had Hera produce Typhon alone to "spite Zeus", see Fragment 239 (Campbell, pp. 166–167); West 1966, p. 380; but see Fontenrose, p. 72 n. 5. Hera, angry at Zeus for having given birth to Athena by himself, prayed to Gaia, Uranus, and the Titans, to give her a son stronger than Zeus, then slapped the ground and became pregnant. Hera gave the infant Typhon to the serpent Python to raise, and Typhon grew up to become a great bane to mortals.As for Typhon being a bane to mortals, Gantz, p. 49, remarks on the strangeness of such a description for one who would challenge the gods. 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 () calls Typhon "Cilician",Pindar, Pythian 8.15–16. and says that Typhon was born in Cilicia and nurtured in "the famous Cilician cave",Pindar, Pythian 1.15–17. an apparent allusion to the Corycian cave in Turkey.Fontenrose, pp. 72–73; West 1966, p. 251 line 304 εἰν Ἀρίμοισιν ( c). In Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, Typhon is called the "dweller of the Cilician caves",Aeschylus (?), Prometheus Bound 353–356; Gantz, p. 49. and both Apollodorus and the poet Nonnus (4th or 5th century AD) have Typhon born in Cilicia.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).
The b scholia to Iliad 2.783, preserving a possibly 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 Cronus, her and Zeus' father (whom Zeus had overthrown), and Cronus gives Hera two eggs smeared with his own semen, telling her to bury them underground, 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.Kirk, Raven, and Schofield. pp. 59–60 no. 52; Ogden 2013b, pp. 36–38; Fontenrose, p. 72; Gantz, pp. 50–51, Ogden 2013a, p. 76 n. 46. Ogden 2013a, p. 150, n. 6, seems to conclude from the fact that the eggs were buried underground, that Earth (Gaia) was therefore considered to be the mother.
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 marvelous 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.Hesiod, Theogony 823–835.
The Homeric Hymns describes Typhon as "fell" and "cruel", and like neither gods nor men.Homeric Hymns 306, 351–352. Gantz, p. 49, speculates that Typhon being given to the Python to raise "might suggest a resemblance to snakes". Three of Pindar's poems have Typhon as hundred-headed (as in Hesiod),Pindar, Pythian 1.16, 8.16, Olympian 4.6–7. while apparently a fourth gives him only fifty heads,Pindar, fragment 93 apud Strabo, 13.4.6 (Race, pp. 328–329). but a hundred heads for Typhon became standard.Ogden 2013a, p. 71; e.g. Aeschylus (?), Prometheus Bound 355; Aristophanes, The Clouds 336; Hyginus, Fabulae 152, Oppian, Halieutica 3.15–25 (pp. 344–347) . A Chalcis hydria (–530 BC), depicts Typhon as a winged humanoid from the waist up, with Anguiped.Ogden 2013a, p. 69; Gantz, p. 50; Munich Antikensammlung 596 = LIMC Typhon 14 . Aeschylus calls Typhon "fire-breathing".Aeschylus, Seven Against Thebes 511. 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.Nicander, apud Antoninus Liberalis 28; Gantz, p. 50.
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 serpentine nature,Ogden 2013a, p. 72. giving him a "tangled army of snakes",Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.187 (I pp. 16–17). snaky feet,Nonnus, Dionysiaca 2.30, 36 (I pp. 46–47), 2.141 (I pp. 54–55). and hair.Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.173 (I pp. 16–17), 2.32 (I pp. 46–47) According to Nonnus, Typhon was a "poison-spitting viper",Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.218 (I pp. 18–19). whose "every hair belched viper-poison",Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.508–509 (I pp. 38–41). 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",Nonnus, Dionysiaca 2.31–33 (I pp. 46–47). and "the water-snakes of the monster's viperish feet crawl into the caverns underground, spitting poison!".Nonnus, Dionysiaca 2.141–142 (I pp. 54–55).
Following Hesiod and others, Nonnus gives Typhon many heads (though untotaled), but in addition to snake heads,Nonnus, Dionysiaca 2.243 (I pp. 62–63). 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',Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.154–162 (I pp. 14–15). and a "babel of screaming sounds".Nonnus, Dionysiaca 2.444–256 (I pp. 62–65). Nonnus also gives Typhon "legions of arms innumerable",Nonnus, Dionysiaca 2.381 (I pp. 72–73); also 2.244 (I pp. 62–63) ("many-armed Typhoeus"). and where Nicander had only said that Typhon had "many" hands, and Ovid had given Typhon a hundred hands, Nonnus gives Typhon two hundred.Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.301; Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.297 (I pp. 24–25), 2.343 (I pp. 70–71), 2.621 (I pp. 90–91).
While mentioning Cerberus and "other monsters" as being the offspring of Echidna and Typhon, the mythographer Acusilaus (6th century BC) adds the Caucasian Eagle that ate the liver of Prometheus.Acusilaus, fr. 13 Fowler (Fowler 2000, p. 11; Freeman, p. 15 fragment 6); Fowler 2013, p. 28; Gantz, p. 22; Ogden 2013a, pp. 149–150. The mythographer Pherecydes of Athens (5th century BC) also names Prometheus's eagle,Pherecydes of Athens, fr. 7 Fowler (Fowler 2000, p. 278); Fowler 2013, pp. 21, 27–28; Gantz, p. 22; Ogden 2013a, pp. 149–150. and adds Ladon (though Pherecydes does not use this name), the dragon that guarded the in the Garden of the Hesperides (according to Hesiod, the offspring of Ceto and Phorcys).Pherecydes of Athens, fr. 16b Fowler (Fowler 2000, 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. John Tzetzes, Chiliades 2.36.360 (Kiessling, p. 54; English translation: Berkowitz, p. 33), also has Typhon as Ladon's father. The lyric poet Lasus of Hermione (6th century BC) adds the Sphinx.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.
Later authors mostly retain these offspring of Typhon by Echidna, while adding others. Apollodorus, in addition to naming as their offspring Orthrus, the Chimera (citing Hesiod as his source) the Caucasian Eagle, Ladon, and the Sphinx, also adds the Nemean lion (no mother is given), and the Crommyonian Sow, killed by the hero Theseus (unmentioned by Hesiod).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).
Hyginus (1st century BC),Hyginus, Fabulae Preface, 151. 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, whereas Hesiod's three Gorgons, of which Medusa was one, were the daughters of Ceto and Phorcys), the Colchian dragon that guarded the Golden FleeceCompare with Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica, 2.1208–1215 (pp. 184–185), where the dragon is the offspring of Gaia by Typhon (Hošek, p. 678). and Scylla.See also Virgil, Ciris 67; Lyne, pp. 130–131. Others give other parents for Scylla. Several authors name Crataeis as the mother of Scylla, see Homer, Odyssey 12.124–125; Ovid, Metamorphoses 13.749; Apollodorus, E7.20; Servius on Virgil Aeneid 3.420; and schol. on Plato, Republic 9.588c. Neither Homer nor Ovid mention a father, but Apollodorus says that the father was Trienus (or Triton?) or Phorcus, similarly the Plato scholiast, perhaps following Apollodorus, gives the father as Tyrrhenus or Phorcus, while Eustathius on Homer, Odyssey 12.85 gives the father as Triton. The Hesiodic Megalai Ehoiai (fr. 262 MW = Most 200) gives Hecate and Phorbas as the parents of Scylla, while Acusilaus, fr. 42 Fowler (Fowler 2013, p. 32) says that Scylla's parents were Hekate and Phorkys (so also schol. Odyssey 12.85). Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 4. 828–829 (pp. 350–351) says that "Hecate who is called Crataeis," and Phorcys were the parents of Scylla. Semos of Delos ( FGrHist 396 F 22) says that Crataeis was the daughter of Hekate and Triton, and mother of Scylla by Deimos. Stesichorus, F220 PMG (Campbell, pp. 132–133) has Lamia as the mother of Scylla, possibly the Lamia who was the daughter of Poseidon. For discussions of the parentage of Scylla, see Fowler 2013, p. 32, Ogden 2013a, p. 134; Gantz, pp. 731–732; and Frazer's note to Apollodorus, E7.20. The Harpies, in Hesiod the daughters of Thaumas and the Oceanids Electra,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). in one source, are said to be the daughters of Typhon.Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica 4.428, 516.
The sea serpents which attacked the Trojan priest Laocoön, during the Trojan War, were perhaps supposed to be the progeny of Typhon and Echidna.Hošek, p. 678; 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". According to Hesiod, the defeated Typhon is the father of destructive storm winds.Hesiod, Theogony 869–880, which specifically excludes the winds Notus (South Wind), Anemoi (North Wind) and Anemoi (West Wind) which he says are "a great blessing to men"; West 1966, p. 381; Gantz, p. 49; Ogden 2013a, p. 226.
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.Hesiod, Theogony 839–852.
Zeus with his thunderbolt easily overcomes Typhon,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". 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.Hesiod, Theogony 853–867.
Defeated, Typhon is cast into Tartarus by an angry Zeus.Hesiod, Theogony 868.
Epimenides (7th or 6th century BC) seemingly 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.Epimenides fr. 10 Fowler (Fowler 2000, p. 97); Ogden 2013a, p. 74; Gantz, p. 49; Fowler 2013, p. 27 n. 93. Pindar apparently knew of a tradition which had the gods, in order to escape from Typhon, transform themselves into animals, and flee to Egypt.Griffiths, pp. 374–375; Pindar, fr. 91 SM apud Porphyry, On Abstinence From Animal Food 3.16 (Taylor, p. 111); Fowler 2013, p. 29; Ogden 2013a, p. 217; Gantz, p. 49; West 1966, p. 380; Fontenrose, p. 75. Pindar calls Typhon the "enemy of the gods",Pindar, Pythian 1.15–16. and says that he was defeated by Zeus' thunderbolt.Pindar, Pythian 8.16–17. In one poem Pindar has Typhon being held prisoner by Zeus under Etna,Pindar, Olympian 4.6–7. and in another says that Typhon "lies in dread Tartarus", stretched out underground between Mount Etna and Cumae.Pindar, Pythian 1.15–28; Gantz, p. 49. In Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, a "hissing" Typhon, his eyes flashing, "withstood all the gods", but "the unsleeping bolt of Zeus" struck him, and "he was burnt to ashes and his strength blasted from him by the lightning bolt. And now, a helpless and a sprawling bulk, he lies hard by the narrows of the sea, pressed down beneath the roots of Aetna; while on the topmost summit Hephaestus sits and hammers the molten ore. There, one day, shall burst forth 370 rivers of fire,1with savage jaws devouring the level fields of Sicily, land of fair fruit—such boiling rage shall Typho, although charred by the blazing lightning of Zeus, send spouting forth with hot jets of appalling, fire-breathing surge."Gantz, p. 49; Aeschylus (?), Prometheus Bound 356–370.
According to Pherecydes of Athens, 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, where he is buried under the island.Pherecydes of Athens, fr. 54 Fowler (Fowler 2000, p. 307); Fowler 2013, p. 29; Lane Fox, pp. 298–299; Ogden 2013a, p. 76 n. 47; Gantz, p. 50. 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 already mentioned by the fifth-century BC Greek historian Herodotus) buried under Lake Bardawil in Egypt.Fowler 2013, p. 29; Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 2.1208–1215 (pp. 184–185); cf. Herodotus, 3.5.
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.Nicander, apud Antoninus Liberalis 28.
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 Mount Kasios (modern Jebel Aqra), while fleeing from Zeus,Strabo, 16.2.7; Ogden 2013a, p. 76. and some placed the battle at Catacecaumene ("Burnt Land"),Strabo, 12.8.19, compare with Diodorus Siculus 5.71.2–6, which says that Zeus slew Typhon in Phrygia. a volcanic plain, on the upper Gediz River, between the ancient kingdoms of Lydia, Mysia and Phrygia, near Mount Tmolus (modern Bozdağ) and Sardis the ancient capital of Lydia.Lane Fox, pp. 289–291, rejects Catacecaumene as the site of Homer's "Arimoi".
In the versions of the battle given by Hesiod, Aeschylus and Pindar, Zeus' defeat of Typhon is straightforward; however, a more involved version of the battle is given by Apollodorus.Fontenrose, pp. 73–74; Lane Fox, pp. 287–288; 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. No early source gives any reason for the conflict, but Apollodorus's account 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, Typhon, "hurling kindled rocks", attacked the gods, "with hissings and shouts, spouting a great jet of fire from his mouth." Seeing this, the gods transformed into animals and fled to Egypt (as in Pindar and Nicander). However "Zeus pelted Typhon at a distance with thunderbolts, and at close quarters struck him down with an adamantine sickle".Perhaps this was supposed to be the same sickle which Cronus used to castrate Uranus, see Hesiod, Theogony 173 ff.; Lane Fox, p. 288. 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 bearskin. But Hermes and Aegipan (possibly another name for Pan)Gantz, p. 50; Fontenrose, p. 73; Smith, "Aegipan". 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.Oppian, Halieutica 3.15–25 (pp. 344–347); Fontenrose, p. 74; Lane Fox, p. 287; Ogden 2013a, p. 74.
Now Zeus' sinews had somehow – Nonnus does not say how or when — fallen to the ground during their battle, and Typhon had taken them also.Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.510–512 (I pp. 40–41). Nonnus' account regarding the sinews is vague and not altogether sensible since as yet Zeus and Typhon have not met, see Fontenrose, p. 75 n. 11 and Rose's note to Nonnus, Dionysiaca 510 pp. 40–41 n. b. But Zeus devises a plan with Cadmus and Pan to beguile Typhon.Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.363–407 (I pp. 28–33). Cadmus, disguised as a shepherd, enchants Typhon by playing the panpipes, and Typhon entrusting the thunderbolts to Gaia, sets out to find the source of the music he hears.Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.409–426 (I pp. 32–35). Finding Cadmus, he challenges him to a contest, offering Cadmus any goddess as wife, excepting Hera whom Typhon has reserved for himself.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). 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.Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.481–481 (I pp. 38–39). So Typhon retrieves the sinews and gives them to Cadmus, who hides them in another cave, and again begins to play his bewitching pipes, so that "Typhoeus yielded his whole soul to Cadmos for the melody to charm".Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.507–534 (I pp. 38–41).
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 waste".Nonnus, Dionysiaca 2.1–93 (I pp. 44–51).
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.Nonnus, Dionysiaca 2.163–169 (I pp. 56–57). Victory "reproaches" Zeus, urging him to "stand up as champion of your own children!"Nonnus, Dionysiaca 2.205–236 (I pp. 60–63). Dawn comes and Typhon roars out a challenge to Zeus.Nonnus, Dionysiaca 2.244–355 (I pp. 62–71). And a cataclysmic 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."Nonnus, Dionysiaca 2.356–539 (I pp. 72–85). Gaia tries to aid her burnt and frozen son.Nonnus, Dionysiaca 2.540–552 (I pp. 84–85). 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".Nonnus, Dionysiaca 2.553–630 (I pp. 84–91).
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.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.
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,Pindar, Olympian 4.6–7.
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.Pindar, Pythian 1.15–28.
Thus Pindar has Typhon in Tartarus, and buried under not just Etna, but under a vast volcanic region stretching from Sicily to Cumae (in the vicinity of modern Naples), a region which presumably also included Mount Vesuvius, as well as Ischia.Strabo, 5.4.9, 13.4.6; Lane Fox, p. 299, Ogden 2013a, p. 76; Gantz, p. 49. 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.
Many subsequent accounts mention either EtnaAeschylus (?), Prometheus Bound 353–374; Nicander, apud Antoninus Liberalis 28; Ovid, Fasti 4.491–492 (pp. 224–225), Metamorphoses 5.346 ff.; Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica 2.23 ff.; Marcus Manilius, Astronomica 2.879–880 (pp. 152, 153); Seneca, Hercules Furens 46–62 (pp. 52–53), Thyestes 808–809 (pp. 298–299) (where the Chorus asks if Typhon has thrown the mountain (presumably Etna) off "and stretched his limbs"); Apollodorus, 1.6.3; Hyginus, Fabulae 152; 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); Nonnus Dionysiaca 2.622–624 (I pp. 90–91) (buried under Sicily). or Ischia.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). 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 Lilybaeum, 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."Strabo, 5.4.9.
In addition to Typhon, other mythological beings were also said to be buried under Mount Etna and the cause of its volcanic activity. Most notably the Giant Enceladus was said to be entombed under Etna, 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.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. Also said to be buried under Etna were the Hundred-hander Briareus,Callimachus, Hymn 4 (to Delos) 141–146 (pp. 96, 97); Mineur, p. 153. and Asteropus who was perhaps one of the Cyclopes.Euphorion of Chalcis, fr. 71.11.
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 its possible location, has been, since ancient times, the subject of speculation and debate.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.
Strabo discusses the question in some detail.Strabo, 13.4.6. 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",Pindar, fragment 93 apud Strabo, 13.4.6 (Race, pp. 328–329). 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.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 Hittites place names "Erimma" and "Arimmatta" which he associates with the Corycian cave. The b scholia to Iliad 2.783, mentioned above, says Typhon was born in Cilicia "under Arimon",Kirk, Raven, and Schofield. pp. 59–60 no. 52; Ogden 2013b, pp. 36–38; Gantz, pp. 50–51, Ogden 2013a, p. 76 n. 46. and Nonnus mentions Typhon's "bloodstained cave of Arima" in Cilicia.Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.140. (I pp. 12–13).
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,Strabo, 16.2.7; Apollodorus, 1.6.3; Ogden 2013a, p. 76. and according to Strabo, the historian Posidonius (c. 2nd century BC) identified the Arimoi with the Aramaeans of Syria.Strabo, 16.4.27. According to West 1966, p. 251, "This identification Arimoi 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 Hittites place names "Erimma" and "Arimmatta".
Alternatively, according to Strabo, some placed the Arimoi at Catacecaumene,Strabo, 12.8.19. while Xanthus of Lydia (5th century BC) added that "a certain Arimus" ruled there.Strabo, 13.4.11. 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".Strabo, 13.4.6. For Hyde see also Homer, Iliad 20.386. The 3rd-century BC poet Lycophron placed the lair of Typhon's mate Echidna in this region.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.
Another place, mentioned by Strabo, as being associated with Arima, is the island of Ischia, where according to Pherecydes of Athens, 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.Strabo, 13.4.6; Lane Fox, pp. 298–301; Ogden 2013a, p. 76 n. 47; Fowler 2013, p. 29.
Though several possible derivations of the name Typhon have been suggested, the derivation remains uncertain.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". 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".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. Other theories include derivation from a Greek root meaning "smoke" (consistent with Typhon's identification with volcanoes),Fontenrose, p. 546 with n. 2; Lane Fox, p. 298, which offers the derivation of Typhon from the Greek τῡφῶν 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?" from an Indo-European root (* dhuH-) meaning "abyss" (making Typhon a "Serpent of the Deep"),Watkins, pp. 460–463; Ogden 2013a, pp. 152–153.R. S. P. Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Brill, 2009, p. 1522. and from Sapõn the Phoenician name for the Ugaritic god Baal's holy mountain Jebel Aqra (the classical Mount Kasios) associated with the epithet Baal-zephon.Supported, with caveats, by West 1997, p. 303: "Here, then, we have a divinity Baʿal 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.
The name may have influenced the Persian word tūfān which is a source of the meteorological term typhoon.The Arabic Contributions to the English Language: An Historical Dictionary by Garland Hampton Cannon and Alan S. Kaye considers typhoon "a special case, transmitted by Cantonese, from Arabic, but ultimately deriving from Greek. ... The Chinese applied the Greek concept to a rather different wind ..."
Although the Delphic monster killed by Apollo is usually said to be the male serpent Python, in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, the earliest account of this story, the god kills a nameless she-serpent ( drakaina), subsequently called Delphyne, who had been Typhon's foster-mother. Hymn to Apollo (3) 300–306, 349–369; Ogden 2013a, pp. 40 ff.; Gantz, p. 88; Fontenrose, pp. 14–15; p. 94. Apollodorus, 1.6.3, for example, calls her Delphyne. Delphyne and Echidna, besides both being intimately connected to Typhon—one as mother, the other as mate—share other similarities.Fontenrose, pp. 94–97 argues that Echidna and Delphyne (along with Ceto and possibly Scylla) were different names for the same creature. Both were half-maid and half-snake,Apollodorus, 1.6.3 calls Delphyne both a drakaina and a "half-bestial maiden"; see Ogden 2013a, p. 44, Fontenrose, p. 95. a plague to men, Hymn to Apollo (3) 300–304; see Fontenrose, p. 14. and associated with the Corycian cave in Cilicia.According to Apollodorus, 1.6.3, Typhon set Delphyne as guard over Zeus' severed sinews in the Corycian cave; see Ogden, 2013a, p. 42; Fontenrose, p. 94.
Python was also perhaps connected with a different Corycian Cave than the one in Cilicia, this one on the slopes of Parnassus above Delphi, and just as the Corycian cave in Cilicia was thought to be Typhon and Echidna's lair, and associated with Typhon's battle with Zeus, there is evidence to suggest that the Corycian cave above Delphi was supposed to be Python's (or Delphyne's) lair, and associated with his (or her) battle with Apollo.Fontenrose, pp. 78; 407–412.
These stories particularly resemble details found in the accounts of the Typhonomachy of Apollodorus, Oppian and Nonnus, which, though late accounts, possibly preserve much earlier ones:West 1966, pp. 21–22, 391–392 line 853; Penglase, p. 164 (who calls Tarhunna by his Hurrian name Teshub); Lane Fox, pp. 286–287; Ogden 2013a, pp. 77–78 The storm-god's initial defeat (Apollodorus, Nonnus), the loss of vital body parts (sinews: Apollodorus, Nonnus), the help of allies (Hermes and Aegipan: Apollodorus; Cadmos and Pan: Nonnus; Pan: Oppian), the luring of the serpentine opponent from his lair through the trickery of a banquet (Oppian, or by music: Nonnus).
While distinct in early accounts, in later accounts Typhon was often considered to be one of the Giants.Rose, The Oxford Classical Dictionary s.v. "Typhon, Typhoeus"; Fontenrose, p. 80. The Fabulae (c. 2nd century AD), a Latin handbook of mythology, includes Typhon in its list of Giants,Hyginus, Fabulae Preface. while the Roman poet Horace (65 – 8 BC), mentions Typhon, along with the Giants Mimas, Porphyrion, and Enceladus, as together battling Athena, during the Gigantomachy.Horace, Odes 3.4.53. The Astronomica, attributed to the 1st-century AD Roman poet and astrologer Marcus Manilius,Marcus Manilius, Astronomica 2.874–880 (pp. 150–151). and the late 4th-century early 5th-century Greek poet Nonnus, also consider Typhon to be one of the Giants.Ogden 2013b, p. 33. See for example Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1.176 (I pp. 16–17), 1.220 (I pp. 18–19), 1.244 (I pp. 20–21), 1.263 (I pp. 22–23), 1.291 (I pp. 24–25).
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