Cottus

Family: Hundred-handed · Role: hundred-handed giant · First appears: Apollodorus, Library 1.1

Cottus is a hundred-handed giant, born of Sky and Earth; in Heaven and Earth’s account, he was one of three mighty sons with Briareos and Gyes, each bearing a hundred arms and fifty heads. Heaven hated them and hid them in a secret place of Earth, while Sky bound and cast the Hundred-handed into Tartarus.

After Cronus dethroned Sky, he brought Cottus and his imprisoned brothers out, but later rebound them in Tartarus. On Earth’s advice, Zeus and the other gods restored Cottus, Briareos, and Gyes to the light. Cottus then pledged to aid Zeus against the Titans, joining the battle in which the mighty freed beings fought beside the gods.

After their victory, Cottus, Gyes, and Briareos conquered and bound the Titans beneath Earth. Cottus thereafter lived in Tartarus as one of Zeus’s trusty warders.