Tityos
Tityos was a phallic giant who grew so vast that he split his mother's womb and had to be carried to term by Gaia. He attempted to rape Leto near Delphi under the orders of Hera. For the crime of having tried to rape Leto, he was punished by having his liver being constantly eaten by two vultures in the Underworld.
↻ synthesized from 5 sources
When
- First attested
- 800 BCE
- Attested period
- -800 – 2020
- Historical notes
- Referenced in an epigram from 159 BC.
Relationships
- enemy of
- Apollo, Artemis (Diana), Leto
Mentioned by
Sources
Source passages
“Another one was the giant Tityos, a phallic being who grew so vast that he split his mother's womb and had to be carried to term by Gaia (the Earth) herself. He attempted to rape Leto near Delphi under the orders of Hera, like Python was, for having slept with Zeus, or alternatively he was simply overwhelmed with lust when he saw her.”
#22732 · extracted by google/gemini-2.0-flash-001
“Tityos is mentioned in Dante Alighieri's Inferno as among the biblical and mythological giants frozen onto the rings outside of Hell's Circle of Treachery. Dante and Virgil threaten to go to Tityos and Typhon if Antaeus doesn't lower them into the Circle of Treachery.”
#42863 · extracted by google/gemini-2.0-flash-001
“When the giant Tityos tried to rape Leto, she called out to her children, who were still young, for help. The twins were quick to respond by raining down their arrows on Tityos, killing him.”
#43061 · extracted by deepseek/deepseek-chat
“When the giant Tityos tried to rape Leto, she called out to her children, who were still young, for help. The twins were quick to respond by raining down their arrows on Tityos, killing him. For his actions against Leto, Tityos was banished to Tartarus, where he was pegged to the rock floor and stretched”
#43332 · extracted by google/gemini-2.0-flash-001