Typhon
[2] The mythographer Apollodorus (1st or 2nd century AD) adds that Gaia bore Typhon in anger at the gods for their destruction of her offspring the Giants.
[6] Several sources locate Typhon's birth and dwelling place in Cilicia, and in particular the region in the vicinity of the ancient Cilician coastal city of Corycus (modern Kızkalesi, Turkey).
[12] According to Hesiod, Typhon was "terrible, outrageous and lawless",[13] immensely powerful, and on his shoulders were one hundred snake heads, that emitted fire and every kind of noise: Strength was with his hands in all that he did and the feet of the strong god were untiring.
[20] For Nicander (2nd century BC), Typhon was a monster of enormous strength, and strange appearance, with many heads, hands, and wings, and with huge snake coils coming from his thighs.
[21] Apollodorus describes Typhon as a huge winged monster, whose head "brushed the stars", human in form above the waist, with snake coils below, and fire flashing from his eyes: In size and strength he surpassed all the offspring of Earth.
His body was all winged: unkempt hair streamed on the wind from his head and cheeks; and fire flashed from his eyes.The most elaborate description of Typhon is found in Nonnus's Dionysiaca.
Nonnus makes numerous references to Typhon's serpentine nature,[22] giving him a "tangled army of snakes",[23] snaky feet,[24] and hair.
[25] According to Nonnus, Typhon was a "poison-spitting viper",[26] whose "every hair belched viper-poison",[27] and Typhon "spat out showers of poison from his throat; the mountain torrents were swollen, as the monster showered fountains from the viperish bristles of his high head",[28] and "the water-snakes of the monster's viperish feet crawl into the caverns underground, spitting poison!".
[39] While mentioning Cerberus and "other monsters" as being the offspring of Echidna and Typhon, the mythographer Acusilaus (6th century BC) adds the Caucasian Eagle that ate the liver of Prometheus.
The whole earth seethed, and sky and sea: and the long waves raged along the beaches round and about at the rush of the deathless gods: and there arose an endless shaking.
And now, a helpless and a sprawling bulk, he lies hard by the narrows of the sea, pressed down beneath the roots of Aetna; while on the topmost summit Hephaestus sits and hammers the molten ore.
There, one day, shall burst forth [370] rivers of fire,1with savage jaws devouring the level fields of Sicily, land of fair fruit—such boiling rage shall Typho, although charred by the blazing lightning of Zeus, send spouting forth with hot jets of appalling, fire-breathing surge.
[67] Like Pindar, Nicander has all the gods, but Zeus and Athena, transform into animal forms and flee to Egypt: Apollo became a hawk, Hermes an ibis, Ares a fish, Artemis a cat, Dionysus a goat, Heracles a fawn, Hephaestus an ox, and Leto a mouse.
According to Strabo, Typhon was said to have cut the serpentine channel of the Orontes River, which flowed beneath the Syrian Mount Kasios (modern Jebel Aqra), while fleeing from Zeus,[69] and some placed the battle at Catacecaumene ("Burnt Land"),[70] a volcanic plain, on the upper Gediz River, between the ancient kingdoms of Lydia, Mysia and Phrygia, near Mount Tmolus (modern Bozdağ) and Sardis the ancient capital of Lydia.
According to Apollodorus, Typhon, "hurling kindled rocks", attacked the gods, "with hissings and shouts, spouting a great jet of fire from his mouth."
[85] So Typhon retrieves the sinews and gives them to Cadmus, who hides them in another cave, and again begins to play his bewitching pipes, so that "Typhoeus yielded his whole soul to Cadmos for the melody to charm".
And the pillar of the sky holds him down, snow-covered Aetna, year-round nurse of bitter frost, from whose inmost caves belch forth the purest streams of unapproachable fire.
In the daytime her rivers roll out a fiery flood of smoke, while in the darkness of night the crimson flame hurls rocks down to the deep plain of the sea with a crashing roar.
Ovid has Typhon buried under all of Sicily, with his left and right hands under Pelorus and Pachynus, his feet under Lilybaeus, and his head under Etna; where he "vomits flames from his ferocious mouth".
[110] Several locales, Cilicia, Syria, Lydia, and the island of Ischia, all places associated with Typhon, are given by Strabo as possible locations for Homer's "Arimoi".
[126] Other theories include derivation from a Greek root meaning "smoke" (consistent with Typhon's identification with volcanoes),[127] from an Indo-European root (*dhuH-) meaning "abyss" (making Typhon a "Serpent of the Deep"),[128][129] and from Sapõn the Phoenician name for the Ugaritic god Baal's holy mountain Jebel Aqra (the classical Mount Kasios) associated with the epithet Baʿal Sapōn.
Typhon's story seems related to that of another monstrous offspring of Gaia: Python, the serpent killed by Apollo at Delphi,[133] suggesting a possible common origin.
Lugal-e, a late-third-millennium BC Sumerian poem, tells the story of the battle between the Mesopotamian hero-god Ninurta and the terrible monster Asag.
[144] Like Typhon, Asag was a monstrous hissing offspring of Earth (Ki), who grew mighty and challenged the rule of Ninurta, who like Zeus, was a storm-god employing winds and floods as weapons.
[147] The early second-millennium BC Babylonian-Akkadian creation epic Enūma Eliš tells the story of the battle of the Babylonian supreme god Marduk with Tiamat, the Sea personified.
[148] Like Zeus, Marduk was a storm-god, who employed wind and lightning as weapons, and who, before he can succeed to the kingship of the gods, must defeat a huge and fearsome enemy in single combat.
[151] Like the Typhonomachy, several Near East myths, tell of battles between a storm-god and a snaky monster associated with Mount Kasios, the modern Jebel Aqra.
[153] From the north side of the Jebel Aqra, come Hittite myths, c. 1250 BC, which tell two versions of the storm-god Tarhunna's (Tarhunta's) battle against the serpent Illuyanka(s).
Again the storm-god is aided by a goddess Sauska (equivalent to Inaru), who this time seduces the monster with music (as in Nonnus), drink, and sex, successfully luring the serpent from his lair in the sea.
[156] Just as the Typhonomachy can be seen as a sequel to the Titanomachy, a different Hittite text derived from the Hurrians, The Song of Ullikummi, a kind of sequel to the Hittite "kingship in heaven" succession myths of which the story of Teshub and Hedammu formed a part, tells of a second monster, this time made of stone, named Ullikummi that Teshub must defeat, in order to secure his rule.
