Anytus

Anytus belonged to the most obscure layer of Titan mythology — the local traditions preserved in specific regions rather than the grand Panhellenic poems. The travel writer Pausanias, who visited every corner of Greece in the second century AD, recorded that in the Arcadian city of Lycosura there stood a temple to Despoina, a mysterious daughter of Demeter and Poseidon who was worshipped under a title meaning simply "the Mistress." Beside Despoina's cult statue stood a figure identified as the Titan Anytus, shown wearing full armour. Local tradition held that Anytus had raised Despoina from infancy, serving as her guardian and protector. This is remarkable because it contradicts the standard myth where all Titans were imprisoned after the Titanomachy. Anytus appears to have been a Titan who either escaped punishment or was rehabilitated — tolerated by the Olympian order because of his service to Demeter's family. His cult at Lycosura was bound up with mystery rites that promised initiates secret knowledge about death and the afterlife. Pausanias, who was himself initiated into several mystery cults, refused to write down what the rituals involved. Anytus therefore remains doubly hidden: a Titan spared from Tartarus whose worship was wrapped in deliberate secrecy by the very people who honoured him.