The One Monster Who Could Have Killed Zeus - Greek Mythology Explained

Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. Today, we’re discussing Typhon. The son of Gaia, the personification of the earth, and of Tartarus, the personification of the great abyss deep beneath the earth, Typhon was the most powerful monster in all of Greek mythology, even more powerful, perhaps - if you remove weapons from the equation - than all of the gods too.

In the Greek creation myth, there was a sequence of three great conflicts, each of which entailed a powerful enemy the gods had to overcome: there was the war against the titans; there was the war against the giants; and lastly, there was the battle against Typhon. As Apollodorus tells it, Gaia was the driving force behind most of these conflicts. She created the giants to attack the gods after the titans were imprisoned in Tartarus, and then after the giants were destroyed, she created Typhon to attack the gods. This version portrays Gaia as some wrathful brood mother that keeps pumping out new batches of monsters to avenge older batches of monsters. But I digress.

Typhon was, unequivocally, the gravest threat Olympus faced, and his appearance makes this easy to understand.

He was terrible to behold, even the boldest were stricken with fear by him, and his awesome strength was unmatched by any other. Even mighty Zeus, if not for the blazing bolts he wielded, likely would have fallen.

Typhon was half man and half beast. In size and strength he eclipsed all of Gaia’s other children. 100 snakes twisted out of his shoulders where arms should have been, but aside from his arms, his body was human-like until his thighs, below which was a multitude of coiled vipers. Wings grew all over his body, and his eyes were two merciless pits of fire, almost like the mouths of two volcanoes. The sounds of every fierce animal thundered from him. Wings of every sort grew all over his body, and foul hair grew from his head and cheeks. He dwarfed the mountains as he strode across the land, and his head brushed the stars. It was said that if he extended his arms, he could grasp the farthest Western and Eastern points at the same time.

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