著者

城江 良和

出版者

日本西洋古典学会

雑誌

西洋古典学研究 (ISSN:04479114)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.35, pp.12-21, 1987

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The purpose of this paper is to explain a structural problem of the role which Hecatoncheires play in the Theogony, from the poet's religious sentiment. Their role can be seen from two aspects, namely as antagonists against Titans and as helpers of Zeus But in either role they have another god or other groups of gods who have similar functions to theirs. On the one hand in Titanomachy we see, beside Hecatoncheires, Zeus himself overpowers the enemies with his thunderbolt (the assertion that the ansteia of Zeus [687-712] is an interpolation is untenable), and on the other hand in order to support the supremacy of Zeus we already have Cyclopes who gave him the thunderbolt to be his weapon and the children of Styx, named "Emulation", "Victory", "Strength" and "Force", who dwell near Zeus and always escort him When we examine the episodes of these helper-gods, we discover two motifs recurrent in each of them First, the aid is motivated by the justice of Zeus and offered as a return for his kindness, and second, each episode ends with the words which praise the rule of Zeus. But the motifs are most conspicuous in the case of Hecatoncheires They fight together with Zeus in return for their release by him and Kottos, representing them, praises the wisdom of the supreme god We can infer that the aim of Hesiod who permitted the overlap of their role with that of the other gods was to express, through the mouth of Kottos, his own religious view This inference drawn from the internal arguments on the structure of the poem is supported by the external ones on the poet's attitude to the tradition of Titanomachy In the Iliad there are several allusions to the war against Titans, which tell that Zeus threw Kronos down into Tartaros, and in another place it is narrated that Thetis called up Briareos to rescue Zeus from being bound by three revolting gods In the Theogony the Titanomachy scene opens with the release of Hecatoncheires, for the poet's concern is concentrated on the alliance between Zeus and the monsters Accordingly the events which occurred before it are mentioned as briefly as possible. From these accounts on Titanomachy it is proper to assume a common source for both the epics, so to speak Ur-Titanomachy, which included the assistance to Zeus by Hecatoncheires The'tradition of Gigantomachy, beside that of Titanomachy, had also existed before Hesiod and he certainly knew it (SO, 185-6). Nevertheless he did not incorporate the war, unlike Titanomachy, in his work The reason for his selection is to be found in his piety for Zeus The story of Gigantomachy, where Olympian gods had not the power by themselves to defeat mortal enemies, and were forced to demand aid of a mortal hero Heracles, was not acceptable to the poet who believed in the sovereign power of Zeus. On the contrary in Titanomachy, though the situation is similar, the enemies as well as the helpers are immortal gods, therefore the tradition is less contrary to his religious sentiment. It is not certain whether the imprisonment of Hecat- oncheires by their father and their release by Zeus are an invention by Hesiod. But this plot, to be sure, gave the poet a good opportunity to make the monsters play an important role in the Theogony