Brothers Falling to Darkness: Rebel Angels and Titans

Undoubtedly, the fall of the rebel angels into Hell is the paramount sequence in Book I of John Milton's epic Paradise Lost. Following the terrible battle in heaven, in which angel is pitted against angel, Lucifer and his cohorts are defeated and cast down into a place of visible darkness and everlasting pain. Milton ever so eloquently describes the fall and the locale of Hell thusly,

Him the Almighty Power
Hurld headlong flaming from th' Ethereal Skie'
With hideous ruine and combustion down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In Adamantine Chains and penal Fire,
Who durst defie th' Omnipotent to Arms.
Nine times the Space that measures Day and Night
...
A Dungeon horrible, on all sides round
As one great Furnace flam'd, yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible
Serv'd onely to discover sights of woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes
That comes to all; but torture without end...
- John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I

Lucifer, chief among the angelic host, openly confronted God with his army of rebel angels, provoking a war that he hoped would gain him the place of God and the power associated with it. This however, was not to come to fruition for God and the might of Heaven opposed Lucifer and his masses in pitch battle. Such a conflict could logically resort in only one victor, with God and his legions claiming the title. It was the decisive hand of God that swayed the battle towards the side of 'light' and subsequently banished Lucifer and his rebel angels out of heaven and cast them down. Indeed, it is from the result of this fall that Lucifer (now metamorphosing into Satan) becomes the challenger of God as well as the inverse value thereof. This clearly defines and separates the two factions, following Milton's themes of light versus dark and height versus depth.

Milton, however, was not the first to use the device of a 'fall from grace' in regards to divine powers. Greek mythology is laden with the theme. In the Greek poet Hesiod's Theogony, we find a situation almost precisely similar to that of Lucifer's battle with God and fall to Hell. The difference this time is that instead of rebel angels, the Titans are the ones to be cast down. Hesiod describes the Titans banishment as a result of the defiance of Cronos/Uranus (the Father-god), rising against Zeus (and his fellow gods), and the ill-treatment of their siblings, the Cyclopses and the Gigantes (creatures with fifty heads and one hundred arms). This is in a way similar to that in which Mitlon describes his battle in Heaven and the fall of the rebel angels. Hesiod writes,

...and their spirit longed for war even more than before,
and they all, both male and female, stirred up hated battle that day,
the Titan gods, and all that were born of Cronos together with those dread,
mighty ones of overwhelming strength whom Zeus
brought up to the light from Erebus beneath the earth.
...
And on the other part the Titans eagerly strengthened their ranks,
and both sides at one time showed the work of their hands and their might.
The boundless sea rang terribly around, and the earth crashed loudly:
wide Heaven was shaken and groaned,
and high Olympus reeled from its foundation
under the charge of the undying gods...
....
Then Zeus no longer held back his might;
but straight his heart was filled with fury and he showed
forth all his strength. From Heaven and from Olympus he came
immediately, hurling his lightning:
the bolts flew thick and fast from his strong hand
together with thunder and lightning,
whirling an awesome flame.
...
...from their strong hands and overshadowed
the Titans with their missiles, and hurled them
beneath the wide-pathed earth, and bound them
in bitter chains when they had conquered them
by their strength for all their great spirit,
as far beneath the earth as heaven is above earth;
for so far is it from earth to Tartarus.
- Hesiod, Theogony

The fall of the Titans, as well as their battle with the gods is no less spectacular than that of Lucifer and his rebel angels. Key elements of the battle and the story even seem to be carbon copies of one another. In Hesiod's poem Zeus delivers the decisive strike that ensures victory for the side of "good" much as God does in Paradise Lost. After their defeat, the Titans are then cast down into Tartarus, a place eerily similar to Hell and also to the way Milton describes in as being "Nine times the space that measures day and night". In fact Tartarus is described as a place "as far below the Earth as Heaven is above Earth."

We can see that both Hesiod and Milton used the convention of a 'fall from grace' in respect to both of their own rebellious divine beings. Yet aside form that, they both use many of the same themes and in some places, even nearly the same wording and description of events. It comes as no surpass then that Hesiod's Theogony is essentially the ancient Greek version of Paradise Lost. By covering many of the same points Milton would over one thousand years later, one can begin to wonder if they were both inspired by the same thoughts or past history. Was it a sheer coincidence or was it a factor of similar beliefs? Only the Fallen Angels and Titans know for sure, and they are buried deep.