Hyperion (Titan)

In Greek mythology, Hyperion (/haɪˈpɪəriən/; Greek: Ὑπερίων, 'he who goes before')[1] was one of the twelve Titan children of Gaia (the Earth) and Uranus (the Sky).[2] With his sister, the Titaness Theia, Hyperion fathered Helios (the Sun), Selene (the Moon) and Eos (the Dawn).[3]

Hyperion
Member of the Titans
Bronze figurine of Hyperion by Vladlen Babcinetchi
Ancient GreekὙπερίων
BattlesTitanomachy
Personal information
ParentsUranus and Gaia
Siblings
  • Briareos
  • Cottus
  • Gyges
Cyclopes
  • Arges
  • Brontes
  • Steropes
Other siblings
Half-siblings
ConsortTheia
OffspringHelios, Eos and Selene

Hyperion was, along with his son Helios, a personification of the sun, with the two sometimes identified.[4] John Keats's abandoned epic poem Hyperion is among the literary works that feature the figure.

Etymology

"Hyperion" means "he that walks on high" or simply "the god above", often joined with "Helios".[5] There is a possible attestation of his name in Linear B (Mycenaean Greek) in the lacunose form ]pe-rjo-[ (Linear B: ]𐀟𐁊-[), found on the KN E 842 tablet (reconstructed [u]-pe-rjo-[ne])[6][7] though it has been suggested that the name actually reads "Apollo" ([a]-pe-rjo-[ne]).[8][9]

Mythology

Hyperion is one of the twelve or thirteen Titans, the children of Gaia and Uranus. In the Theogony, Uranus imprisoned all the children that Gaia bore him, before he was overthrown.[10] According to pseudo-Apollodorus, Uranus only imprisoned the Hecatoncheires and the Cyclopes but not the Titans, until Gaia persuaded her six Titan sons to overthrow their father Uranus and "they, all but Ocean, attacked him" as Cronus castrated him.[11] Afterwards, in the words of Hesiod, Hyperion subjected his sister Theia to his love, and fathered on her three children, the lights of heaven; Helios (Sun), Selene (Moon) and Eos (Dawn). As is the case for most of the Titans, there are no myths or functions for Hyperion.[12] He seems to exist only to provide a father for the three celestial deities.[13] As a Titan, one of the oldest generation of gods, Hyperion was a fitting father for these three sky-gods who, as elements of the natural world, must have been conceived of as having come into being near the beginning of the cosmos.[14]

Helios

Hyperion and Helios were both sun-gods. In early sources sometimes the two were considered to be distinct, with Hyperion being the father of Helios, but sometimes they were apparently identified, with Hyperion being simply a title of, or another name for, Helios himself.[15] Hyperion is Helios' father in Homer's Odyssey, Hesiod's Theogony, and the Homeric Hymn to Demeter.[16] But in the Iliad and elsewhere in the Odyssey, Helios is also called "Helios Hyperion" with Hyperion here either being used as a patronymic or other epithet, while also in the Homeric epics, and in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, besides being called Helios, he is sometimes also called simply Hyperion.[17] In later sources the two sun-gods are distinctly father and son.[18] In literature, the Sun is often referred to as "Hyperion's bright son."[19]

Diodorus Siculus

According to the rationalizing historian Diodorus Siculus, Hyperion was the name of the first person to understand the movement of the sun and moon, and their effect on the seasons, and explains that, because of this, he was said to be their "father":

Of Hyperion we are told that he was the first to understand, by diligent attention and observation, the movement of both the sun and the moon and the other stars, and the seasons as well, in that they are caused by these bodies, and to make these facts known to others; and that for this reason he was called the father of these bodies, since he had begotten, so to speak, the speculation about them and their nature.[20]

Diodorus also recorded an unorthodox version of the myth, in which Hyperion married his sister Basileia and had two children by her, Helios and Selene; their brothers, envious of their happy issue and fearful that Hyperion would divert the royal power to himself, conspired and killed Hyperion along with his two children (which then went on to transform into the Sun and the Moon), leaving Basileia in great distress.[21]

Legacy

Hyperion, one of the moons of Saturn, is named after this god. Saturn itself is named after Hyperion's brother, Cronus. Roman equivalent, Saturnus.

Genealogy
Hyperion's family tree, according to Hesiod's Theogony[22]
UranusGaiaPontus
OceanusTethysHYPERIONTheiaCriusEurybia
The RiversThe OceanidsHeliosSelene[23]EosAstraeusPallasPerses
CronusRheaCoeusPhoebe
HestiaHeraHadesZeusLetoAsteria
DemeterPoseidon
IapetusClymene (or Asia)[24]Mnemosyne(Zeus)Themis
Atlas[25]MenoetiusPrometheus[26]EpimetheusThe MusesThe Horae

See also
  • List of solar deities

Notes
  1. Grimal, s.v. Hyperion; Smith, s.v. Hyperion.
  2. Grimal, s.v. Hyperion; Tripp, s.v. Hyperion; Morford, p. 40; Keightley, p. 47; Smith, s.v. Hyperion; Hesiod, Theogony 131–136; Homeric Hymn 2 to Demeter, 26, 74; Apollodorus, 1.1.3.
  3. Hesiod, Theogony 371–374; Apollodorus, 1.2.2. The Homeric Hymn 31 to Helios 1–8 calls Hyperion's sister and mate "Euryphaëssa" probably, an epithet of Theia, see Morford, p. 40; West 2003b, p. 215 n. 61; Tripp, s.v. Hyperion. Other accounts make Selene the daughter of the Titan Pallas (Homeric Hymn 4 to Hermes, 99–100) or of Helios (Euripides, The Phoenician Women 175 ff.; Nonnus, Dionysiaca 44.191). For a genealogical table of the descendants of Hyperion and Theia see Grimal, p. 535, Table 14, see also Tables 5 and 12.
  4. Tripp, s.v. Hyperion; Grimal, s.v. Hyperion.
  5. See Ὑπερίων in An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon.
  6. Logozzo and Poccetti, p. 644
  7. "KN 842 E", DĀMOS: Database of Mycenaean at Oslo, University of Oslo. Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas
  8. R. S. P. Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Brill, 2009, p. 118.
  9. Herda, Alexander (2008). "Apollon Delphinios – Apollon Didymeus: Zwei Gesichter eines milesischen Gottes und ihr Bezug zur Kolonisation Milets in archaischer Zeit". Internationale Archäologie (in German). Arbeitsgemeinschaft, Symposium, Tagung, Kongress. Band 11: Kult(ur)kontakte. Apollon in Milet/Didyma, Histria, Myus, Naukratis und auf Zypern. Akten des Table Ronde in Mainz vom 11.–12. März 2004: 16. ISBN 978-3-89646-441-5.
  10. Hesiod, Theogony 155
  11. Apollodorus, 1.1.4
  12. Gantz, p. 30; Hard, p. 43.
  13. Hard, pp. 37, 43; West 1966, pp. 36, 157–158 (on line 18).
  14. Hard, p. 37.
  15. Hard, p. 32; Gantz, p. 30; Tripp, s.v. Hyperion.
  16. Gantz, p. 30; Homer, Odyssey 12.176; Hesiod, Theogony 371–374, 1011; Homeric Hymn 2 to Demeter, 26, 74.
  17. Gantz, p. 30. Helios called Helios Hyperion: Homer, Iliad 8.480, Odyssey 1.8, 12.133, 12.263, 346, 374; called simply Hyperion: Homer, Iliad 19.398, 1.24; Homeric Hymn 3 to Apollo, 369.
  18. Gantz, p. 30; Eumelus fr. 17 West; Mimnermus fr. 12 Gerber; Stesichorus fr. S 17 Campbell [= 185 Poetae Melici Graeci]; Pindar, Olympian 7.39.
  19. Homeric Hymn 2 to Demeter 26; Homeric Hymn 28 to Athena 14; Eumelus of Corinth, Corinthiaca frag 18
  20. Diodorus Siculus, 5.67.1.
  21. Diodorus Siculus, 3.57.2-8
  22. Hesiod, Theogony 132–138, 337–411, 453–520, 901–906, 915–920; Caldwell, pp. 8–11, tables 11–14.
  23. Although usually the daughter of Hyperion and Theia, as in Hesiod, Theogony 371–374, in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes (4), 99–100, Selene is instead made the daughter of Pallas the son of Megamedes.
  24. According to Hesiod, Theogony 507–511, Clymene, one of the Oceanids, the daughters of Oceanus and Tethys, at Hesiod, Theogony 351, was the mother by Iapetus of Atlas, Menoetius, Prometheus, and Epimetheus, while according to Apollodorus, 1.2.3, another Oceanid, Asia was their mother by Iapetus.
  25. According to Plato, Critias, 113d–114a, Atlas was the son of Poseidon and the mortal Cleito.
  26. In Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 18, 211, 873 (Sommerstein, pp. 444–445 n. 2, 446–447 n. 24, 538–539 n. 113) Prometheus is made to be the son of Themis.

References
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