Typhon

Typhon is the most fearsome monster of Greek myth, a giant with a hundred serpent heads who challenged Zeus for rule of the cosmos and was struck down by thunderbolts.

The Story

After Zeus and the Olympian gods defeated the Titans, Earth (Gaia) had one more challenger to throw at them. She lay with Tartarus, the abyss beneath the world, and gave birth to Typhon. In Hesiod's Theogony, written around 700 BCE, Typhon nearly became king of gods and men. Zeus met him with thunder and lightning. The earth, sky, and sea boiled, and the ground shook all the way down to the underworld. Zeus burned every one of Typhon's heads with his thunderbolts and hurled him into Tartarus.

Later versions add a dramatic twist. In Apollodorus's Library, the gods are so terrified that they flee to Egypt and hide in the shapes of animals. Zeus fights alone, but Typhon wraps him in coils, cuts the sinews from his hands and feet with Zeus's own sickle, and hides them in the Corycian Cave in Cilicia, guarded by the she-dragon Delphyne. Hermes and Aegipan steal the sinews back, Zeus recovers, and he chases Typhon across the world. Finally he throws Mount Etna in Sicily on top of him. The poet Pindar had already placed Typhon under Etna, and its eruptions were explained as the monster's fiery breath.

Appearance and Powers

Hesiod says a hundred snake heads grew from Typhon's shoulders, with dark flickering tongues and eyes that flashed fire. Each head had its own voice: sometimes speech the gods could understand, sometimes the bellow of a bull, the roar of a lion, the yelping of puppies, or a hiss that echoed off the mountains. Apollodorus adds that he was human-shaped down to the thighs and taller than any mountain, with coils of vipers in place of legs, wings over his whole body, and fire flashing from his eyes. The wings come from this later source.

Origins and Sources

Homer's Iliad already mentions Typhoeus, lying in the land of the Arimoi where Zeus lashes the ground around him. Scholars have long compared Typhon to Near Eastern storm-god myths, especially Hittite stories in which the storm god fights the serpent Illuyanka or the stone giant Ullikummi near Mount Kasios on the Syrian coast. Apollodorus sets part of the battle at the same mountain. Typhon also connects to the wider family of chaos monsters such as the Babylonian Tiamat.

Legacy

With his mate Echidna, half woman and half serpent, Typhon fathered many of Greece's famous monsters, including the Hydra, the Chimera, Cerberus, and Orthus. Hesiod says the harmful, unpredictable winds that wreck ships came from him. The resemblance between his name and the word "typhoon" has often been noted, though the English word probably owes as much to Arabic and Chinese words for great storms as to the Greek monster.

Related

• Lernaean Hydra: The Lernaean Hydra is a many-headed water serpent of Greek myth that grew new heads when one was cut off, killed by Heracles and Iolaus as his second labor.
• Chimera: The Chimera is a fire-breathing monster of Greek myth with the body of a lion, a goat's head rising from its back, and a serpent for a tail, killed by Bellerophon riding Pegasus.
• Python: Python is the giant serpent of Greek myth that lived at Delphi until the god Apollo shot it with arrows, took over the site, and founded his famous oracle there.
• Tiamat: Tiamat is the primordial salt-water sea goddess of the Babylonian creation epic Enūma Eliš, who raised an army of monsters against the gods and was split in two by Marduk to make heaven and earth.
• Ladon: Ladon is the serpent-dragon of Greek myth that coiled around the tree of golden apples in the Garden of the Hesperides, guarding it until Heracles came for the apples.
• Dragons Across Cultures
• The History of Dragons
• Chimera

Sources and Further Reading

• Hesiod, Theogony and Works and Days, trans. M. L. West (Oxford World's Classics, 1988)
• Apollodorus, The Library of Greek Mythology, trans. Robin Hard (Oxford World's Classics, 1997)
• Joseph Fontenrose, Python: A Study of Delphic Myth and Its Origins (University of California Press, 1959)
• Daniel Ogden, Drakōn: Dragon Myth and Serpent Cult in the Greek and Roman Worlds (Oxford University Press, 2013)

Cite this entry: “Typhon,” Draconika Encyclopedia of Dragons, https://www.draconika.com/dragons/typhon.