The Origin of the Gods
Tianna Sharma Phukan
Have you ever wondered what was there before the beginning of time?
How did the universe come into existence?
According to the ancient Greek myths, there was nothing in the beginning and the universe was empty. Then, a single entity known as Chaos emerged from the depths of the universe. For eons, Chaos lived alone is her solitude. But eventually she tired and began to experiment with her powers.
These experiments led to the rise of a new entity, a primordial goddess, who came to be known as Gaia or the personification of Mother Earth. Gaia was a beautiful young goddess with flowing dark hair and a green dress sown from blades of grass. She loved frolicking in fields and playing with all the animals and birds. She was loved by all the creatures and beings.
But soon, Gaia got tired in her solitude. She looked up above her and thought about how empty it looked. So, with some help from Chaos, she created a new entity, the sky. The sky called himself Ouranos (Uranus) and his personification took the form of a handsome young god. During the day, his body would be a pale shade of blue with white clouds swirling in it and at night his torso turned darker with hundreds of tiny stars splattered across it.
It wasn’t long before Gaia was infatuated with Ouranos. While all of this was happening, Chaos began to wonder if she had the power to create any more of these powerful beings. This led to the creation of the world’s first seas from water collected from the mists of Chaos. These waters also developed their own consciousness and their personification was known as Pontus.
Chaos also gave birth to Nyx, the personification of night and Erebus, the personification of darkness. Nyx gave birth to two children, Hemera (personification of day) and Aether (personification of the ‘upper sky’ or the air that is inhaled by the gods) with Erebus. By herself she produced many other minor deities, mainly personifications of negative forces.
Not long after this, Gaia had six beautiful children with Ouranos, six boys and six girls. These children eventually came to be known as the Titans, a new generation of powerful beings. Ouranos and Gaia loved their children. However, the next time Gaia gave birth, things didn’t turn out so well. She gave birth to triplets who later came to be known as the Elder Cyclops.
But the Cyclops were not exactly known for their beauty, they had misshapen faces and a single, large, brown eye in the middle of their forehead. When Ouranos saw these children, he was furious and he refused to accept the children as his own. He was so angry that he trapped the Cyclops in Tartarus, a dark abyss under the surface of the earth. Gaia was devastated by this but Ouranos refused to let the Cyclops out of Tartarus despite all her efforts.
So, Gaia had no option but to agree. This wasn’t the end of their problems because the next set of children Gaia had were no better. They had a hundred hands and fifty heads each, and all of them suffered the same fate as the Cyclops. But this time Gaia was so furious that she decided to retaliate. She went to the Titans, her only children who were not imprisoned, and asked them to help her overthrow their father.
But most of the Titans were afraid of Ouranos’ power and didn’t want to go against him. All of them refused to help Gaia except Kronos, the youngest Titan. Kronos always felt invisible and unappreciated amongst his siblings and he saw this as an opportunity to finally be in the spotlight. He was greedy and ambitious and he wanted all the powers of the universe to himself so he agreed to help Gaia overthrow his father.
Gaia gave him a scythe made of pure diamond, drawn from the depths of the Earth and with this scythe, Kronos managed to kill his father by tricking him into leaving his domain, where his powers were the strongest, and coming down to Earth.
When Kronos killed his father, Ouranos’ golden Ichor fell into the ocean and gave rise to new creatures known as Nymphs. This ichor also gave rise to a deity who came to be known as Aphrodite, the goddess of love, beauty, passion, and fertility. She would later go on to become one of the twelve Olympian gods.
After his victory over Ouranos, Gaia named Kronos the king of the universe. So, Kronos reigned over the universe with his brothers and sisters by his side and built a magnificent palace on Mount Othrys, the tallest mountain in all of Greece and Gaia looked at the peace in the universe and decided that her children didn’t need her anymore. So, Gaia went into a deep sleep.
But, there was one tiny setback. Even though Kronos had promised Gaia to free the Cyclops and the Hundred-handed ones, he didn’t do so. He thought it was a better idea to keep his brothers in Tartarus because he saw them as a threat.
Titans and Gods did not have blood or DNA, they had Ichor, a golden fluid that coursed through their veins and because of this, once they came of age, they didn’t necessarily see their siblings as relatives anymore, but rather as separate individuals. This was why the Titans saw nothing wrong with marrying or having romantic relationships with their brothers and sisters. The first Titans to get married were Tethys and Oceanus.
Oceanus was the Titan of the seas and was sometimes referred to as ‘a giant river circling the earth.’ His sons with Tethys eventually became the river gods (Potamoi) and their daughters came to be known as the Oceanids. They also had a daughter named Klymene who eventually married Iapetus, the Titan of the west.
Their son, Atlas would later become the pillar holding up the sky for all eternity and their second son, Prometheus, eventually created the lesser species that came to be known as humans. The next Titans to get married were Koios and Phoebe, the Titans of Prophecy. Their daughter Leto became the Titan protector of the young and later, she would also become the mother of the Olympian gods Apollo and Artemis.
The Titans Hyperion and Theia had two children, Helios and Selene who became the personification of the sun and moon respectively. But, they were later replaced by their successors Apollo and Artemis. Kronos was one of the last Titans to get married. He fell in love with his sister Rhea. Rhea was the youngest female Titan. She was the most beautiful and had a cheerful persona. She would often wander the Earth with her two lions to accompany her.
Her marriage to Kronos was celebrated lavishly by the Titans. But their happiness did not last long. A few weeks before Rhea gave birth to their first child, Kronos received a prophecy. The prophecy warned him that his children would grow to be more powerful than him and that he would be overthrown by them just like he had done with his own father. Kronos was ambitious and greedy. He didn’t want to give up all of his power and fame.
So, when his first child was born, a beautiful daughter named Hestia, Rhea brought the child to Kronos. When Kronos saw the child, he immediately realized that the girl was not a Titan, she was the first of a different generation altogether. He sensed the power that coursed through her and it frightened him. So, he opened his mouth wide and swallowed the baby whole.
Rhea was shocked and terrified, but Kronos convinced her that the next child would be perfect. But the next child was no different. He took one look at her and swallowed her at once. The next three children suffered the same fate. By now, Rhea was devastated, but Kronos was the king if the universe and she couldn’t contest him. So, the next time Rhea was pregnant, she pleaded to her mother Gaia for help.
Even though Gaia was asleep, some part of her consciousness remained awake and she answered her daughter’s pleas. She led Rhea to an island in the middle of the ocean where she could safely give birth to the child and raise him away from Kronos’ eye. The child was a beautiful boy with dark curly hair and blue eyes like cornflower. She named the boy Zeus. He grew up on the island, away from the rest of the world.
He spent his days running around the countryside with Nymphs and Satyrs, learning how to fight with the Kouretes. When Zeus was old enough, Rhea told him about his father and his brothers and sisters who were stuck in their father’s stomach. So, Zeus set off to Kronos’ palace under the pretence of being a cup bearer. When he got to the palace, Kronos immediately warmed up to him.
Zeus kept up the pretence till the time was right and one day when all the Titans had gathered for a feast, he proposed a drinking contest. Titans loved drinking contests so they accepted readily, but Zeus had put a special poison in all their drinks that would make them drowsy and upset their stomachs. The moment Kronos and the rest of the Titans finished their drinks, the affects of the poison began to show.
Kronos was so badly affected that he vomited, and his five trapped children were thrown out if his stomach. When Kronos realized what had happened, he tried to stop Zeus and the other gods, but he and all the other Titans were so influenced by the poison that they weren’t able to do anything. So, Zeus was able to escape with the rest of his brothers and sisters.
Zeus had three sisters named Hestia, Demeter, and Hera and two brothers named Poseidon and Hades. Now, by the time Zeus and his siblings managed to escape, the Titan palace was in an uproar. Kronos was furious and he sent his brothers all over the world to hunt his children down. So, Zeus took his siblings to the only place that was beyond Kronos’ reach, Tartarus.
The Cyclops and the Hundred-handed ones were still imprisoned in Tartarus and Zeus knew how much they hated Kronos and the other Titans and he used this to his advantage. The Cyclops were also known to be accomplished blacksmiths, so Zeus asked them to make him and his brothers special weapons that were capable of destroying the Titans, and the Cyclops did not disappoint.
They built Zeus a lightning bolt out of Celestial Bronze, a trident that could control the seven seas for Poseidon and a helmet for Hades that gave him the power of invisibility. Armed with these new, powerful weapons the Gods were finally able to face the wrath of the Titan army. Their battle lasted for days on end. Finally, Zeus realized that they had made no progress and he decided to retreat to form a plan.
During their retreat, the Titans had also returned to their palace on Mount Othrys and Zeus took advantage of this. The next day, when the Titans were still in their palace at Mount Othrys, Zeus blasted the mountain with a lightning bolt so powerful that the entire tower became blackened and charred.
The Hundred-handed ones threw giant boulders at the palace till it’s once beautiful walls crumbled and fell. The Titans were trapped under several feet of ruble, but since they were immortal, they couldn’t die. So, Zeus and the other Gods chained them and threw them into Tartarus.
After his victory over the Titans, Zeus was named the new king of the universe. He and his brother divided the three different domains of the world between themselves. Zeus became the lord of the sky, Poseidon the lord of the oceans and Hades became the lord of the underworld. Their sisters Hestia, Hera and Demeter also took on their own roles in the new world.
Hestia became the goddess of family and home, Demeter became the goddess of harvest and agriculture, and Hera became the goddess of marriage, women, and marital harmony. The few Titans who had sided with the Gods were allowed to live with them peacefully. Since their battle, Mount Othrys was no longer the tallest mountain in Greece. So, Zeus built his palace on top of Mount Olympus, the new tallest mountain in Greece.
Zeus later married his sister Hera and they had a son, Ares, who became the God of war and courage, and two daughters, Hebe, who became the Goddess of youth and Eileithyia, who became the goddess of childbirth and midwifery. However, Zeus was not known for being a faithful husband, and his many affairs gave rise to new deities.
Some of these were Athena, goddess of warfare and wisdom (sired by the Titaness Metis), Apollo, God of archery, the sun, music and poetry and Artemis, goddess of archery, the moon and the hunt (sired by the Titaness Leto), Hermes, god of thieves, roads and travelers (sired by the Titaness Maia), and Dionysus, god of wine and festivity (sired by the mortal princess Semele).
Zeus is also said to have had an affair with his sister Demeter which gave rise to the goddess Persephone, who later married Hades and became the queen of the Underworld. Zeus’ affairs had always irked Hera, and finally, she decided to that she too would give birth to a child without Zeus. However, since she was the Goddess of marriage and faith, she could not betray her husband.
So, she single-handedly gave birth to the God Hephaestus. But the child was deformed at birth and Hera threw the newborn baby out of her window on Mount Olympus. But Hephaestus would survive and later return and take his throne beside the other Gods. Zeus’ brother Poseidon, who became the supreme lord of the seas, storms, and earthquakes, later married the Nereid Amphitrite and they had a son named Triton and two daughters named Rhodes and Benthesikyme.
He is also known to have had an affair with his sister Demeter. According to the myth Demeter had taken the archaic form of a mare to avoid Poseidon. But he took the form of a stallion and mated with her. As a result of this union Demeter bore a daughter, Despoina and a divinely-bred, fabulously fast horse known as Arion. Poseidon also had an affair with one of Athena’s beautiful priestesses, Medusa.
But because Athena was a maiden goddess, all her priestesses had to vow to remain virgins. When she realized that Medusa had broken this vow, Athena cursed her and Medusa became a monster with a head of snakes and eyes that could turn people to stone. As a result of her union with Poseidon, Medusa was pregnant with two children.
But because of her curse, the children were unable to leave her body. However, when the demigod Perseus beheaded her, the two children emerged from the blood of her decapitated body. She gave birth to the famous white, winged horse, Pegasus, and the hero Chrysaor.
Many years later Zeus decided to create a council of twelve Gods and Goddesses who would assist him in fulfilling his duty as supreme lord of the universe. This council consisted of Zeus, Hera, Demeter, Poseidon, Aphrodite, Ares, Hephaestus, Apollo, Artemis, Athena, Hermes and Dionysus and they came to be known as the twelve Olympian gods.
These were the primary deities of worship in ancient Greece. With the help of this council, Zeus successfully reigned over the world for several eons.
(The author is a student at Delhi Public School Guwahati. Novanita_21@yahoo.co.in)
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