Hecatoncheires (Hundred-Handed Ones)

In the standard tradition recorded in surviving summaries of Greek myth, the Hecatoncheires are offspring of Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth), placing their birth at the primordial, pre-Olympian stage of the cosmos. They belong to the generation that precedes the Olympian gods and are counted among the powerful elemental progeny involved in the Titanomachy.

They are described in tradition as three monstrous giants—named Cottus, Briareus and Gyges—each described as possessing a great multiplicity of heads and arms (commonly given as fifty heads and one hundred arms). The surviving account emphasizes their enormous size and many-limbed corporeality.

Surviving accounts stress vast physical strength and enormous bodily scale; their many arms and heads are presented in tradition as conferring exceptional martial capacity. In the received summary they are actors in divine combat, and in tradition they assisted Zeus and the Olympians in overthrowing the Titans. The provided source does not ascribe further specific supernatural faculties.