Tīsĭphŏne, one of the Furies, daughter of Nox and Acheron, who was the minister of divine vengeance upon mankind, and visited them with plagues and diseases, and punished the wicked in Tartarus. She was represented with a whip in her hand, serpents hung from her head, and were wreathed round her arms instead of bracelets. By Juno’s direction she attempted to prevent the landing of Io in Egypt, but the god of the Nile repelled her, and obliged her to retire to hell. Statius, Thebaid, bk. 1, li. 59.—Virgil, Georgics, bk. 3, li. 552; Æneid, bk. 6, li. 555.—Horace, bk. 1, satire 8, li. 34.——A daughter of Alcmæon and Manto.
Tisiphŏnus, a man who conspired against Alexander tyrant of Pheræ, and seized the sovereign power, &c. Diodorus, bk. 16.
Tissa, now Randazzo, a town of Sicily. Silius Italicus, bk. 14, li. 268.—Cicero, Against Verres, bk. 3, ch. 38.
Tissamĕnus. See: [Tisamenus].
Tissaphernes, an officer of Darius.——A satrap of Persia, commander of the forces of Artaxerxes, at the battle of Cunaxa, against Cyrus. It was by his valour and intrepidity that the king’s forces gained the victory, and for this he obtained the daughter of Artaxerxes in marriage, and all the provinces of which Cyrus was governor. His popularity did not long continue, and the king ordered him to be put to death when he had been conquered by Agesilaus, 395 B.C. Cornelius Nepos.——An officer in the army of Cyrus, killed by Artaxerxes at the battle of Cunaxa. Plutarch.
Titæa, the mother of the Titans. She is supposed to be the same as Thea, Rhea, Terra, &c.
Titan, or Titānus, a son of Cœlus and Terra, brother to Saturn and Hyperion. He was the eldest of the children of Cœlus; but he gave his brother Saturn the kingdom of the world, provided he raised no male children. When the birth of Jupiter was concealed, Titan made war against Saturn, and with the assistance of his brothers the Titans, he imprisoned him till he was replaced on the throne by his son Jupiter. This tradition is recorded by Lactantius, a christian writer, who took it from the dramatic compositions of Ennius, now lost. None of the ancient mythologists, such as Apollodorus, Hesiod, Hyginus, &c., have made mention of Titan. Titan is a name applied to Saturn by Orpheus and Lucian, to the sun by Virgil and Ovid, and to Prometheus by Juvenal. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 1, li. 10.—Juvenal, satire 14, li. 35.—Diodorus, bk. 5.—Pausanias, bk. 2, ch. 11.—Orpheus, hymn 13.—Virgil, Æneid, bk. 4, li. 119.
Titāna, a town of Sicyonia in Peloponnesus. Titanus reigned there.——A man skilled in astronomy. Pausanias, bk. 2, ch. 11.
Titānes, a name given to the sons of Cœlus and Terra. They were 45 in number, according to the Egyptians. Apollodorus mentions 13, Hyginus six, and Hesiod 20, among whom are the Titanides. The most known of the Titans are Saturn, Hyperion, Oceanus, Japetus, Cottus, and Briareus, to whom Horace adds Typhœus, Mimas, Porphyrion, Rhœtus, and Enceladus, who are by other mythologists reckoned among the giants. They were all of a gigantic stature, and with proportionable strength. They were treated with great cruelty by Cœlus, and confined in the bowels of the earth, till their mother pitied their misfortunes, and armed them against their father. Saturn, with a scythe, cut off the genitals of his father, as he was going to unite himself to Terra, and threw them into the sea, and from the froth sprang a new deity, called Venus; as also Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megæra, according to Apollodorus. When Saturn succeeded his father, he married Rhea; but he devoured all his male children, as he had been informed by an oracle that he should be dethroned by them as a punishment for his cruelty to his father. The wars of the Titans against the gods are very celebrated in mythology. They are often confounded with that of the giants; but it is to be observed, that the war of the Titans was against Saturn, and that of the giants against Jupiter. Hesiod, Theogony, li. 135, &c.—Apollodorus, bk. 1, ch. 1.—Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound.—Callimachus, Hymn to Delos, li. 17.—Diodorus, bk. 1.—Hyginus, preface to fables.
Titānia, a patronymic applied to Pyrrha, as granddaughter of Titan, and likewise to Diana. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 1, li. 395; bk. 2, &c.