Sauron
Gorthaur; the Abhorred; lieutenant of Morgoth, then the Dark Lord
Names and Titles
Sauron — in the Elvish tongue Gorthaur, “the Abhorred” — was the greatest of the servants of Melkor, a Maia of the people of Aulë whose byname in the older lore is Mairon, “the Admirable”. In the Second Age he was known to the Elves in his fair disguise as Annatar, “Lord of Gifts”; in the Third Age the dwellers of Mirkwood and Dol Guldur feared him under the name of the Necromancer, and the Men of the West called him the Dark Lord and Lord of Mordor. In his pride he would be king of all Middle-earth, holding the title “Tar-Mairon”, “King Excellent”, had he succeeded.
The Maia and the Fall
He was of the order of the Maiar, mighty and subtle in craft beyond the lesser of his kind, and at the beginning he loved order and mastery; but he was drawn to the power of Morgoth in the Dark Years, and he became Morgoth’s most formidable servant — the lieutenant of the Shadow, who learned the arts of the Enemy and grew strong in the service of his ruin. In the first age he dwelt in Angband and took the isle of Tol Sirion in the pass of the Sirion, making of it a place of werewolves, until Lúthien and Huan overcame him in his own fortress.
The Rings and the Second Age
After the war of Wrath and the casting out of Morgoth, Sauron escaped and, hid in his fair shape of Annatar, deceived the Elven-smiths of Eregion — most of all Celebrimbor — and contrived the forging of the Rings of Power. Secretly he made the Ruling Ring in the fires of Orodruin, and in its words his dominion was bound. When the Elves unmasked him, war came: he destroyed Eregion, but the armies of Númenor broke his power for a while, and he withdrew to Mordor and built the tower of Barad-dûr.
In Númenor he showed himself again, and as prisoner-adviser to Ar-Pharazôn he led the great king into the rebellion and the making of the Temple of Melkor; his counsel and the pride of the King brought the Downfall of Númenor upon the island, yet Sauron himself escaped, and at the end of the age he stood in the Battle of Dagorlad against the Last Alliance of Elves and Men — and was overthrown in the duel upon the mountain, when Isildur took the Ring from his hand.
The Third Age and the Ring
Failed and diminished, Sauron gathered his strength in the dark again, dwelling in Dol Guldur as the Necromancer, working through the year when the White Council drove him out. When he learned that the One Ring had come to light in the Shire, he put all his might into the seeking of it: his Ringwraiths hunted the Ring-bearer, the War of the Ring was kindled, and the armies of Mordor marched against the West. But his own Ring was his undoing — for the Ring-bearer’s pity and the turning of his servant in the fire unmade it, and Sauron’s power was broken with its passing, and the Dark Tower fell, and his spirit went.
In the Texts
Sauron stands with Morgoth as the second of the great enemies, and the Silmarillion, the Akallabêth, and the Lord of the Rings carry his story from the Elder Days to the fall of Barad-dûr; unlike Morgoth, who sought to destroy, Sauron desired order and lordship — yet the Ring corrupted even his high reason, and in the end he sought only to be master of all things, in the measure of his master’s shadow.