Iapetos

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Iapetos ( ancient Greek Ἰαπετός Iapetós ) is one of the titans of Greek mythology and son of Gaia and Uranos .

relationship

As a wife, he is usually given the Oceanid Asia , but also Klymene , also an Okeanos (or Uranos) daughter, Asope (Asopis) or the Themis are occasionally mentioned. With her he begat Atlas , the bearer of the heavens, the arrogant Menoitius , with Clymene the twins Prometheus and Epimetheus (Prometheus myth), through which the titan family of Iapetus is also connected with the human race. In addition, two other sons are named: Inachos and Hesperos .

myth

When his mother Gaia gave them the task of emasculating Uranus , he and his brothers Hyperion , Krios and Koios held their father. Kronos then emasculated him with a sickle. Since Iapetus kept the father in the west, he was also referred to as the titan of the west. His son Atlas also had this title.

Since the Titanomachy , the battle of the gods sex of the Titans against the gods of Olympus , sitting Iapetus and his brother Kronos , banished by Zeus , in the lightless depths of Tartarus ( Homer's Iliad 8478-481). As usual with the genealogies of Greek gods, Iapetos appears in some poets and storytellers (e.g. Aeschylus , Pausanias ) with a completely different lineage. Sometimes even a connection to the biblical Japhet ( Hebrew יָפֶת), a son of Noah .

Pedigree of the Titans

 
 
 
 chaos → Gaia → Uranus
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Family of gods of the titans
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Oceanus
 
 
 Kreios
 
 
 Hyperion
 
 
 Theia
 
 
 Themis
 
 
 Phoibe
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Kronos
 
 Koios
 
 Iapetos
 
 Rhea
 
 Mnemosyne
 
 Tethys
 
 


Others

The moon Iapetus of Saturn was named after Iapetos . In geological history, Iapetus is the name of an ocean that existed from the end of the Neoproterozoic to the Paleozoic .

In the book series Percy Jackson by Rick Riordan , Iapetos falls into the Lethe , the river of oblivion, during a fight with the protagonist Percy Jackson , and loses all his memories. Percy gives him the name Bob and entrusts him to Persephone, who hires him as a caretaker.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Iapetus: Greek Titan god of mortality. Theoi Project, Aaron J. Atsma, New Zealand, accessed December 7, 2013 .

literature