Hecatoncheires

(Ἑκατόγχειρες, “the hundredhanded ones”). In Hesiod these are three giants, each with fifty arms and a hundred hands, sons of Uranus and Gaea. Their names are Briareōs, Cottus, and Gyes. Owing to their hostile attitude to him, their father kept them imprisoned in the bowels of the earth; but on the advice of Gaea, the gods of Olympus summoned them from their prison to lend assistance against the Titans, and, after their victory, set them to watch the Titans, who had been thrown into Tartarus. Homer mentions Briareōs, called by men Aegaeon, as the son of Poseidon, and mightier than his father (Il. i.).