Hecatoncheires
In Greek mythology, the Hecatoncheires, also called Hundred-Handers or Centimanes, were three monstrous giants, of enormous size and strength, each with fifty heads and one hundred arms. They were individually named Cottus, Briareus and Gyges. In the standard tradition, they were the offspring of Uranus and of Gaia, and helped Zeus and the Olympians to overthrow the Titans in the Titanomachy.
Names
The three Hundred-Handers were named Cottus, Briareus and Gyges. Cottus is a common Thracian name, and is perhaps related to the name of the Thracian goddess Kotys. The name Briareus was probably formed from the Greek βριαρός meaning "strong". Hesiod's Theogony also calls him "Obriareus". The name Gyges is possibly related to the mythical Attic king Ogyges. "Gyes", rather than Gyges, is found in some texts.Homer's Iliad gives Briareus a second name, saying that Briareus is the name the gods call him, while Aegaeon is the name that men call him. The root αἰγ- is found in words associated with the sea: αἰγιαλός "shore", αἰγες and αἰγάδες "waves". The name suggests a connection with the Aegean Sea. Poseidon was sometimes called Aegaeon or Aegaeus. Aegaeon could be a patronymic, i.e. "son of Aegaeus", or it could instead mean "the man from Aegae".
The name Hecatoncheires derives from the Greek ἑκατόν and χείρ. Although the Theogony describes the three brothers as having one hundred hands, the collective name Hecatoncheires, i.e. the Hundred-Handers, is never used. The Theogony once refers to the brothers collectively as "the gods whom Zeus brought up from the dark", otherwise it simply uses their individual names: Cottus, Briareus and Gyges.
The Iliad does not use the name Hecatoncheires either, although it does use the adjective hekatoncheiros, i.e. "hundred-handed", to describe Briareus. It is possible that Acusilaus used the name, but the first certain usage is found in the works of the mythographers such as Apollodorus.
Mythology
The Hundred-Handers
The Hundred-Handers, Cottus, Briareus and Gyges, were three monstrous giants, of enormous size and strength, with fifty heads and one hundred arms. They were among the eighteen offspring of Uranus and Gaia, which also included the twelve Titans, and the three one-eyed Cyclopes. According to the Theogony of Hesiod, they were the last of these children of Uranus to be born, while according to the mythographer Apollodorus they were the first. In the Hesiodic tradition, they played a key role in the Greek succession myth, which told how the Titan Cronus overthrew his father Uranus, and how in turn Zeus overthrew Cronus and his fellow Titans, and how Zeus was eventually established as the final and permanent ruler of the cosmos.According to the standard version of the succession myth, given in the accounts of Hesiod and Apollodorus, the Hundred-Handers, along with their brothers the Cyclopes, were imprisoned by their father Uranus. Gaia induced Cronus to castrate Uranus, and Cronus took over the supremacy of the cosmos. With his sister the Titaness Rhea, Cronus fathered several offspring, but he swallowed each of them at birth. However, Cronus' last child Zeus was saved by Rhea, and Zeus freed his brothers and sisters, and together they began a great war, the Titanomachy, against the Titans, for control of the cosmos. Gaia had foretold that, with the help of the Hundred-Handers, the Olympians would be victorious, so Zeus released them from their captivity and the Hundred-Handers fought alongside the Olympians against the Titans and were instrumental in the Titans' defeat. The Titans were then imprisoned in Tartarus with the Hundred-Handers as their guards.
The lost epic poem the Titanomachy, although probably written after Hesiod's Theogony, perhaps preserved an older tradition in which the Hundred-Handers fought on the side of the Titans, rather than the Olympians. According to a euhemeristic rationalized account, given by Palaephatus, Cottus and Briareus, rather than being hundred-handed giants, were instead men, who were called the Hundred-Handers because they lived in a city called Hecatoncheiria. They came to the aid of the residents of the city of Olympia in driving away the Titans from their city.
Briareus/Aegaeon
Briareus was the most prominent of the three Hundred-Handers. In Hesiod's Theogony he is singled out as being "good", and is rewarded by Poseidon, who gives Briareus his daughter Cymopolea for his wife.In Homer's Iliad, Briareus is given a second name, Aegaeon, saying that Briareus is the name the gods call him, while mortals call him Aegaeon. It is told in the Iliad how, during a palace revolt by the Olympians Hera, Poseidon and Athena, who wished to chain Zeus, the sea goddess Thetis brought to Olympus:
This second name does not seem to be a Homeric invention. According to the scholiast on Apollonius of Rhodes, the legendary seventh-century BC poet Cinaethon apparently knew both names for the Hundred-Hander. The name also appears in the lost epic poem the Titanomachy.
Titan ally
While in Hesiod and Homer, the powerful Hundred-Hander Briareus was a faithful and rewarded ally of Zeus, the Titanomachy seems to have reflected a different tradition. Apparently, according to the Titanomachy, Aegaeon was the son of Gaia and Pontus, rather than Gaia and Uranus, and fought on the side of the Titans, rather than the Olympians. The scholiast on Apollonius of Rhodes tells us that, according to Cinaethon, Aegeaon was defeated by Poseidon. Apollonius of Rhodes mentions the "great tomb of Aegaeon", seen by the Argonauts when "they were passing within sight of the mouth of the Rhyndacus... a short distance beyond Phrygia". The scholiast on Apollonius says that the tomb marked the spot where Aegaeon's defeat occurred.As in the lost Titanomachy, for the Latin poets Virgil and Ovid, Briareus was also an enemy of the gods, rather than an ally. In his Aeneid, Virgil has Aegaeon make war against the gods, "with fifty sounding shields and fifty swords". Ovid, in his poem Fasti, has Briareus on the side of the Titans. As Ovid tells us, after the Titans had been overthrown, apparently in order to restore the Titans to power, Briareus sacrificed a bull, about which it had been prophesied that whoever burned its entrails would be able to conquer the gods. However just when Briareus was about to burn the entrails, birds snatched them away, and were rewarded with a home among the stars.
Association with the sea
In the lost epic Titanomachy, Aegaeon was the son of Pontus, and lived in the sea. Briareus/Aegaeon's association with the sea can perhaps already be seen in Hesiod and Homer. In the Theogony, Briareus ends up living, apart from his brothers, with Cymopolea the daughter of Poseidon the god of the sea, where it might be supposed the couple dwells, while in the Iliad one might also suppose that Briareus dwells in the sea, since it was the sea goddess Thetis that fetched him to Olympus. Apparently, this was made explicit by the fifth-century BC poet Ion of Chios, who referring to the Homeric story of the Olympians' revolt against Zeus, said that Aegaeon was the son of Thalassa and that Thetis "summoned him from the Ocean". A connection to the sea can also be seen in the name Aegaeon itself. The root αἰγ- is found in words associated with the sea: αἰγιαλός 'shore', αἰγες and αἰγάδες 'waves'. while Poseidon himself was sometimes called Aegaeon.Later writers also make Briareus/Aegaeon's association with the sea explicit. According to Aelian, Aristotle said that the Pillars of Heracles had been previously named the Pillars of Briareus. Ovid, in his Metamorphoses, describes Aegaeon as a "dark-hued" sea god "whose strong arms can overpower huge whales", while according to Arrian apparently, the Aegean Sea was said to have been named after Aegaeon. As reported by Pliny, according to the Euboean Archemachus, the first man to sail in a "long ship” was Aegaeon.
Oeolyca
According to the sixth-century BC lyric poet Ibycus, the belt that Heracles was sent to fetch in his ninth labour, belonged to Oeolyca, the daughter of Briareus.Euboea
Briareus/Aegaeon had a particular connection with the Greek island of Euboea. According to the third-century Latin grammarian Solinus, Briareus was worshipped at Carystus, and Aegaeon at Chalcis. Aegaeon was said to be the name of a ruler of Carystus, which had also been named Aigaie after him, while Briareus was said to be the father of Euboea, after whom the island took its name. Aegeaon was perhaps associated with the place name Aegae mentioned by Homer as Poseidon's home, and located by Strabo in Euboea north of Chalcis, as a place where Poseidon had a temple.Poseidon
Briareus/Aegaeon seems also closely connected with Poseidon. The name Aegaeon has associations with Poseidon. As noted above, Homer locates Poseidon's palace in Aegae. Poseidon was sometimes himself called Aegaeon, or Aegaeus, and Aegaeon could mean 'son of Aegaeus'.Homer says that Briareus/Aegaeon "is mightier than his father", but who Homer is referring to as the father is unclear. It has been sometimes supposed that contrary to Hesiod, who makes Uranus the father of Briareus, Cottus and Gyges, the father being referred to here is Poseidon, although this interpretation of Homer is uncertain at best.
In the Theogony Briareus becomes the son-in-law of Poseidon, while Poseidon, whether regarded as the father of Briareus/Aegaeon, or not, is a central figure in the story told about the Hundred-Hander in the ‘’Iliad’’. Both are sea-gods with a special connection to Euboea. As noted above Poseidon was sometimes called Aegaeon, and it is possible that Aegaeon was an older cult-title for Poseidon, however according to Lewis Richard Farnell, it is more likely that Poseidon inherited the title of an "older Euboean sea-giant".
As mentioned above, the scholiast on Apollonius of Rhodes, tells us that according to Cinaethon, Aegeaon was defeated by Poseidon. Possibly then, Briareus/Aegaeon was an older sea-god eventually displaced by Poseidon.
According to a Corinthian legend, Briareus was the arbitrator in a dispute between Poseidon and Helios over some land, deciding that the Isthmus of Corinth belonged to Poseidon and the acropolis of Corinth to Helios.