God of the Week: Typhon

03/12/2012: Typhon

Typhon was very tall

Typhon was the son of Tartarus and Gaia, and father of all monsters. He was pretty tall; reached all the way up to the stars. Which, admittedly, was a lot shorter back then than it is today. Back then, the stars used to be affixed to the firmament, which disappeared sometime around the invention of modern science. Now the stars are light years away.

One of the most powerful monsters who opposed Zeus in this war was called Typhon or Typhoeus. He was the youngest son of Tartarus and Gæa, and had a hundred heads, with eyes which struck terror to the beholders, and awe-inspiring voices frightful to hear. This dreadful monster resolved to conquer both gods and men, but his plans were at length defeated by Zeus, who, after a violent encounter, succeeded in destroying him with a thunderbolt, but not before he had so terrified the gods that they had fled for refuge to Egypt, where they metamorphosed themselves into different animals and thus escaped.

– Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome, E.M. Berens

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