Gyes

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

Gyes was born to Sky and Earth as one of the Hundred-handed, with a hundred hands and fifty heads, and was unsurpassed in size and might. In Hesiod’s account, Heaven hated him and his brothers Briareos and Cottus, hiding them in a secret place of Earth before binding them beneath the earth; in Apollodorus’ account, Sky cast the Hundred-handed into Tartarus.

Cronus brought Gyes and his imprisoned brothers out after overthrowing Sky, then bound them in Tartarus again. On Earth’s advice, Zeus and the other gods later brought Gyes, Cottus, and Briareos back into the light, and they joined the battle against the Titans. After conquering the Titans, Gyes, Cottus, and Briareos bound them beneath the earth, and Gyes became one of Zeus’s warders in Tartarus.