The Story of Typhon (Typhoeus) - Father of All Monsters In Greek Mythology | Typhon VS Zeus

In the time of the primordial gods, ancient titans, and giants, after the battle between the titans and the gods, the mother of the earth, Gaia, was angered by the destruction of her children, the titans, and so, sought to bear another child, more powerful than anything in the universe. Powerful enough to overthrow the Olympians. Gaia mated with Tartarus, the dark abyss, and from their union came Typhon, the greatest monster of all, an extremely horrid creature, with immeasurable strength. In a slightly different version, Typhon was the son of Cronus and Hera. After a big quarrel with Zeus, an angry Hera visited their father, Cronus, whom Zeus had defeated, and asked for a way to overthrow Zeus. Cronus handed Hera two eggs, covered in his own semen, and told her to bury them, that from those eggs, the one who would overthrow Zeus would be born. Hera buried the eggs in Cilicia, but before Typhon emerged, Hera had reconciled with Zeus, and told him what she had done. Whichever the story is, there was never a creature as monstrous as Typhon. Typhon was horrifying, cruel, lawless, and immensely ferocious. On his shoulders were one hundred snake heads that breathed fire and made terrible noise. He never tired nor slept, so huge was he, that his heads touched the skies, and from the eyes of his one hundred heads, fire flashed and burned as he glared. The mountains trembled at the hisses, the bellows, the roars, and every kind of noise that came from his heads. He was the bane of gods and mortals alike. Typhon surpassed all other Gaia's children, both in strength and in size. A poison-spitting viper, he was. From the waist above, he had a human form, from below the waist, he had snake coils as legs, and above the shoulders was an army of venomous snake heads, with his main head at the center, having tattered hair, an unkempt beard, and fiery eyes. One of his hands reached out to the west, and the other hand to the east, and in place of his fingers were a hundred dragon's heads. Typhon married a fellow monster, Echidna, the mother of monsters, and had a number of monstrous children. His children were the Laedon, the two-headed Orthrus, the Sphinx, the Nemean Lion, the three-headed Cerberus, the Lernian Hydra, and the Chimera. When the enormous and powerful Typhon was ready, he set out to do what he was born to do, to overthrow Zeus. Typhon began to hurl big fiery rocks at the gods. He spat poison at them, he blasted fire at them. In order to escape this mad monster, most of the gods transformed into animals and fled to Egypt, except Athena and Zeus who stayed behind, and Hades and Poseidon who remained in their territories. Apollo transformed into a hawk, Hermes an ibis, Ares a fish, Artemis a cat, Dionysus a goat, Heracles a fawn, Hephaestus an ox, and Leto a mouse. When the warrior goddess Athena urged her father Zeus to fight for his children and all of Olympus, Zeus set out to meet his supposed pain. He and Typhon engaged in an earth-shaking battle which caused the realm of Hades to tremble, and the seas of Poseidon to rage. Even Tartarus shook beneath the feet of the two fighting gods. Who would the victor be? The king of the gods, or the king of monsters? The two gods struggled and strained, Typhon pouring fire and venom, and Zeus hurling lightning and thunderbolts. The sky god dealt huge strikes at his opponent with his thunderbolts, severing many of the monster's snake heads. After a long time of struggling, Zeus was finally able to restrain Typhon's arms, and fired thunderbolts at the Typhon fell to the earth with a loud crash, burnt and maimed. Zeus had conquered him, the king of the gods had won. Typhon met the same fate as his titan brothers. Zeus cast him into Tartarus and placed a huge mountain known as Mount Etna over him to make sure he never escaped. It is believed that volcanic eruptions are caused by Typhon in his efforts to escape. This is the myth of Typhon.