Typhon (; , ), also known as 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.
Mythology Birth According to Hesiod's Theogony (–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".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 as the offspring of Tartarus and Tartara, where, according to Fontenrose, p. 77, Tartara was "no doubt [Gaia] herself under a name which designates all that lies beneath the earth." 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.Apollodorus, 1.6.3.
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; 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 Hymn to Apollo (6th century BC), Typhon was the child of Hera alone.Homeric Hymn to Apollo 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, the father of her and Zeus (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.
Descriptions According to Hesiod, Typhon was "terrible, outrageous and lawless",Hesiod, Theogony 306–307. immensely powerful, 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 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 Hymn to Apollo describes Typhon as "fell" and "cruel", and like neither gods nor men.Homeric Hymn to Apollo 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, Clouds 336; Hyginus, Fabulae 152, Oppian, Halieutica 3.15–25 (pp. 344–347) . A Chalcidian hydria (–530 BC), depicts Typhon as a winged humanoid from the waist up, with two snake tails for legs below.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).
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".Hesiod, Theogony 306–314. Compare with Lycophron, Alexandra 1351 ff. (pp. 606–607), which refers to Echidna as Typhon's spouse (δάμαρ). First, according to Hesiod, there was Orthrus,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. the two-headed dog who guarded the Cattle of Geryon, second Cerberus,Acusilaus, fr. 13 Fowler (Fowler 2000, 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. the multiheaded dog who guarded the gates of Hades, and third the Lernaean Hydra,Hyginus, Fabulae Preface, 30 (only Typhon is mentioned), 151 also has the Hydra and as the offspring of Echidna and Typhon. the many-headed serpent who, when one of its heads was cut off, grew two more. The Theogony next mentions an ambiguous "she", which might refer to Echidna, as the mother of the Chimera (a fire-breathing beast that was part lion, part goat, and had a snake-headed tail) with Typhon then being the father.Hesiod, Theogony, 319. The referent of the "she" in line 319 is uncertain, see Gantz, p. 22; Clay, p. 159, with n. 34.