Hecatonchires

Sweet size of 1793, work by Tommaso Piroli (1752 – 1824) from a drawing of John Flaxman, employed in an edition of the Iliad of 1795: Tetis invokes Briareo.

In Greek mythology, the Hecatonchires —also Hecatonchires or Hecatonchires— (in Greek, Ἑκατόγχειρες Hekatonkheires or Ἑκατόνταχειρας Hekatóntakheiras: “one hundred hands”), they were giants with one hundred arms and fifty heads. Also known as Centimanos or Centímanos (from the Latin Centimani), these three brothers are the offspring of Urano and Gaea.

They have their most prominent role in Theogony, where they are the last to be born among their siblings; First the Titans came into the world and then the Cyclops. «Also from Gea and Urano were born three other huge and violent children whose name should not be pronounced: Coto, Briareo and Giges, monstrous monstrosities. A hundred shapeless arms fluttered from his shoulders, and each one grew fifty heads from his shoulders, on robust limbs. A terrifyingly powerful force was housed in his enormous body. Hesiod never mentions them as Hecatonchires; this denomination began to be used by some late authors, beginning with Apolodoro. He also calls them individually as Briareo, Gies and Coto, and says instead that they were the first children conceived by Gaia and Urano. Hyginus, who confuses the lineages of the Uranids, calls Briareo and Gyges titans.

As Uranus is famous, fearing being dethroned according to Acusilaus, he confined his children in Tartarus: "every time one of them was about to be born, Uranus kept them all hidden in the bosom of Gaia without letting them come to light". The Mythological Library tells us that after Crono's castration of Uranus and his rise to power, the new ruler of the world once again imprisoned the Hecatonchires in Tartarus. He also adds the fact that he bet the monstrous Campe as jailer. However, in the Hesiodic story we are told that the three centimanos remained chained until their release by Zeus. The author specifies that Urano had locked them up because he felt threatened by the strength, beauty, and stature of the three brothers; meanwhile they remained anguished and with hearts full of pain. Gea, prophesying the battle in favor of Zeus and the other Olympians, ordered them to end the captivity of her children. Zeus accepted the advice and asked the hundred-handed for help in exchange for freedom; they accepted in the words of Coto, and Zeus fed them with nectar and ambrosia to restore their vigor. In this way the centímanos participated in the Titanomachy in favor of Zeus: «in the vanguard they provoked a violent combat. Three hundred rocks were thrown breathlessly with their powerful hands and completely covered the titans with these projectiles. They sent them under the broad earth and bound them in inexorable chains." At the end of the war, the Hecatonchires established themselves in palaces on the roots of the Ocean River, becoming the guardians of the gates of Tartarus, where Zeus had imprisoned the Titans..

Virgil also describes Briareo dwelling in Tartarus. Later he quotes him again: "like the giant Aegeon, who, according to what they say, had a hundred arms and a hundred hands and vomited flames from his fifty breasts from his fifty mouths when he roared against the lightning of Jupiter".

In the Homeric poems, only the term ἑκατόγχειρος (hekatónjeiros) is used to describe Briareo, whom men call Aegeon. In the Iliad there is a story, found nowhere else, that at some point the gods were trying to overthrow Zeus, and he became chained by Hera, Athena and Poseidon, but they failed when Thetis invoked Briareo, who came to the aid of Zeus. The author, extolling its power, specifies that "Briareo is stronger than his father."

According to an euhemerist story, cited by Paléfatos, Coto and Briareo, instead of being monstrous giants, they were mortal men. These were called Hecatonchires because they lived in a city called Hecatonquiria. They helped the inhabitants of Olympia (the Olympians) to drive the Titans out of their city.

The Hecatonchires are sometimes considered to be deities of the sea, and may have come from the pentekonter, ships with fifty oarsmen. Others interpret the Centímanos as the personifications of sea storms.

Fonts

• Mythological Library I, 1.
  • I, 1 - 7: French text, with electronic index.
    • English text, with electronic index, in the Perseus Project; ed. of 1921 by James Frazer. At the top right are the active labels "focus"(to change the Greek text) and "load" (for the bilingual text).
      • Greek text on Wikisource.