Page:Greek and Roman Mythology.djvu/31

THE GREEK GODS 17 as the battle ground ; by which, probably, the glowing, illuminated sky is to be understood; later the scene of combat was removed to the peninsula (or the Attic deme) Pallene ; finally, to Cumae, in Italy. 21. From a different point of view, however, the fall thunderstorms, breaking forth after the dry harvest time, were probably looked upon as a battle between the fructifying thunder god Zeus and his father, the sun god Cronus, who at the height of summer brought on the harvest and caused the luxuriant vegetation of spring to dry up. It is clear that Cronus was the sun god from his epithet, Titan; and as in this contest other gods, according to the poets, were ranged beside Zeus as comrades for the fight, so there appeared on the side of Cronus, under the term Titanes (' Titans '), a series of names of beings of light, the meaning of which names, though appreciated in early worship, after a while largely faded away. With the help of the Cyclops ('round- eyed') Arges (' bright lightning'), Brontes ( ( thunder') and Steropes ('dazzling -eyed'), whose single round eyes are the lightning, they were vanquished and hurled down into Tartarus, the deepest part of the lower world. 22. To these conflicts of Zeus was added, later, that against Typhoeus, or Typhon ('the smoking, steaming one'). In him we have an embodiment (perhaps origi- nating in Asia Minor) of the steam and smoke breaking from the earth in connection with earthquakes, and out of volcanoes, as well as of the mighty power working in those phenomena. Although he was armed with a hundred serpent heads darting forth fire, he, like the Titans, was cast down by Zeus into Tartarus. All this is a picture of the apparent conflict between the thunder-