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BIRTH OF THE ANCIENT GODS
In the beginning,
there was formless confusion and Chaos brooded over the unbroken
darkness. Then out of the void appeared Erebus, the unknowable
place where death dwells, and Night (Nyx). All else was empty,
silent, endless, darkness.
Then somehow Love (Eros) was born bringing a start of order.
From Love came Light and Day. Once there was Light and Day,
Gaea, the Earth appeared.
Gaea alone gave birth to Uranus (Heaven, Sky), the god of the
heavens. Uranus became Gaea's mate and Heaven and Earth joined.
Together they produced the three Cyclopes, the three
Hecatoncheires (100-Handed Ones), and twelve Titans.
But Uranus was a bad father and husband. He hated the
Hecatoncheires. He imprisoned them by pushing them into the
hidden places of the earth, Gaea's womb. This angered Gaea and
she plotted against Uranus. She made a flint sickle and tried to
get her children to attack Uranus. All were too afraid except
the youngest Titan, Cronus.
Gaea and Cronus set up an ambush of Uranus as he lay with Gaea
at night. Cronus grabbed his father and castrated him with the
stone sickle, throwing the severed genitals into the ocean. The
fate of Uranus is not clear. He either died, withdrew from the
earth, or exiled himself to Italy. As he departed, he promised
that Cronus and the Titans would be punished. From his spilt
blood came the Giants, the Ash Tree Nymphs, and the Erinyes.
From the sea foam where his genitals fell arose the beautiful
Aphrodite.
Cronus became the
next ruler. He imprisoned the Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires in
Tartarus. He married his sister Rhea, and under his rule the
Titans had many offspring. He ruled for many ages.
However, Gaea and Uranus both had prophesied that he would be overthrown
by a son. To avoid this Cronus swallowed each of his children as
they were born. Rhea was angry at the treatment of the children
and plotted against Cronus.
When it came time to give birth to her sixth child, Rhea tricked
Cronus. She secretly carried the child to Crete and then wrapped
a stone in baby blankets. Cronus, thinking it was a baby, ate
the stone and thought himself safe.
The child was Zeus. He grew into a handsome youth on Crete,
raised by the divine goat Amaltheia and the nymphs called
Curetes. Zeus consulted Metis on how to defeat Cronus. She
prepared a drink for Cronus which would force him to vomit up
the five other children.
Rhea eventually convinced Cronus to accept his son and Zeus was
allowed to return to Mount Olympus as Cronus's cupbearer. This
gave Zeus the opportunity to slip Cronus the specially prepared
drink. This worked as planned and the other five children were
vomited up. Being gods they were unharmed. They were thankful to
Zeus and made him their leader.
Cronus was yet to be defeated. He and the Titans, except
Prometheus, Epimetheus, and Oceanus, fought to retain their
power. Atlas became their leader in battle and it looked for
some time as though they would win and put the young gods down.
However, Zeus had other plans. He went down to Tartarus and
freed the Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires. The Titan Prometheus
joined Zeus as well. He returned to battle with his new allies.
The Cyclopes provided Zeus with lighting bolts for weapons. The
Hecatoncheires he set in ambush armed with boulders.
When the time was right, Zeus retreated, drawing the Titans into
the Hecatoncheires' ambush. The 100-Handed Hecatoncheires rained
down thousands of boulders with such a fury the Titans thought
the mountains were falling on them. They broke rank and ran
away, giving Zeus victory.
Zeus exiled the Titans who had fought against him into Tartarus.
All except for Atlas, who was singled out for the special
punishment of holding the heavens and sky on his shoulders.
However, even after
this victory Zeus was not safe. Gaea, angry that her children
had been imprisoned, gave birth to a last offspring, Typhoeus
(Typhon). Typhon was a creature more terrible than any that had
gone before. When the gods saw Typhon and his wife Echidna
coming, in terror they changed into animals and ran off to
Egypt. Brave Athena ridiculed Zeus into action, and eventually
he regained his courage and a terrible battle raged, which left
hardly a living creature on earth.
Zeus was fated to win however. As Typhon tore up huge Mount
Aetna to hurl, Zeus, using the thunder and lightning given him
by the Cyclopes, unleashed one hundred well-aimed lightning
bolts at the mountain and fell back, pinning Typhon underneath.
Typhon was buried under Mount Etna in Sicily and there he lies
to this day, belching fire, lava and smoke through the top of
the mountain.
Much later a final challenge to Zeus' rule was made by the
Giants. They went so far as to attempt to invade Mount Olympus,
piling mountain upon mountain in an effort to reach the top. But
the gods had grown strong and with the help of Hercules, the
Giants were subdued or killed.
Having been cleared of all the monsters, the world now was ready
for mankind. The Titans Prometheus and Epimetheus were spared
imprisonment in Tartarus because they did not fight with their
fellow Titans during the war with the Olympians. They were given
the task of creating man.
Epimetheus was in charge of the task of giving the animals and
creatures of the earth their various qualities, such as
swiftness, cunning, strength, fur, wings. Unfortunately, by the
time he got to man Epimetheus had given all the good qualities
out and there were none left for man. So he turned to Prometheus
for help. Prometheus took over the task of creation and sought a
way to make man superior. He made man stand upright like the the
gods did and gave them fire.
Prometheus loved man more than he did the Olympians, who had
banished most of his family to Tartarus. When Zeus decreed that
man must present a portion of each animal they sacrificed to the
gods, Prometheus decided to trick Zeus. He created two piles,
one with bones wrapped in juicy fat, the other with the good
meat hidden in the hide. He then made Zeus pick one pile, and
that would be his future offering.
Zeus picked the bones. Since he had given his word, Zeus had to
accept that as his share for future sacrifices. In his anger
over the trick, he took fire away from man. However, Prometheus
defied Zeus - He saw man freezing and unable to cook without
fire and took pity.
He lit a torch from the sun and secretly brought it back again
to man. When he found out, Zeus was enraged that man again had
fire. He decided to inflict a terrible punishment on both man
and Prometheus.
To punish man, Zeus had Hephaestus create a mortal of stunning
beauty. The gods gave the mortal many gifts of wealth. This
creation was Pandora, the first woman. A final gift was a box
which Pandora was forbidden to open. When Hephaestus had
completed his creation of Pandora, Zeus sent her to Epimetheus
as a present.
Prometheus had warned his brother Epimetheus not to accept gifts
from Zeus but Pandora's beauty was too great and he allowed her
to stay. Daily, Pandora's curiosity grew as to the contents of
the box. Knowing that she wasn't allowed to open it tormented
her. Finally succumbing to her curiosity, she opened the jar and
out flew plagues, misery, mischief and just about every sorrow
known to mankind.
However, the bottom of the jar held one good thing - Hope. It
was the only good thing in the jar and remains to this day
mankind's sole comfort in times of misfortune.
A greater punishment lay in store for Prometheus. Zeus had his
servants, Force and Violence, seize Prometheus, take him to the
mountain Caucasus, and chain him to a rock with unbreakable
adamanite chains. Here he was tormented every day by an eagle
sent by Zeus that would feast on his liver, which would grow
back overnight, only to be eaten again the next day.
Zeus gave Prometheus two ways out of this torment. He could tell
Zeus who the mother of the child that would dethrone him was. Or
meet two conditions: First, that an immortal must volunteer to
die for Prometheus. Second, that a mortal must kill the eagle
and unchain him. Eventually, Chiron the Centaur agreed to die
for him and Hercules killed the eagle and unbound him.
Prometheus' name has stood through the centuries, from Greek
days to our own, as the great rebel against injustice and
authority of power. He was brave enough to stand up to mighty
Zeus and ensured the survival of humans.
The creation of men
had five transformations. The ancient writer Hesiod recounts the
ages of men: the Golden Age, the Silver Age, the Age of Bronze,
the Age of Heroes and finally, the time of Hesiod, the Age of
Iron
The Golden Age
The Golden Age of
mortal people was, as you might expect, wonderful. They extended
friendship to all mortals and respect to all immortals. They
lived without disease or hardship. When it came time for them to
die, they laid down to sleep and awoke as a blessed spirit,
roaming the earth and doing good deeds for all the righteous
souls they meet.
The Silver Age
The Silver Age was
not as good as it may sound, in fact, it was quite inferior to
the previous golden generation. This generation of mortals
stayed as children for one hundred years and then, reaching
their adulthood, were disdainful of their creator, Cronus, and
incurred his wrath. They too, were destroyed. After death, they
were transformed into blessed spirits. They are secondary and
underground but still deserving of worship.
The Age of Bronze
The Bronze Age
mortals were made from the ash spear. They were men of warcraft
and violence. They finally extinguished themselves and Hesiod
does not say if they were turned into spirits.
The Age of Heroes
The Age of Heroes,
the fourth age, was the period prior to, and including, the
Trojan War. It was the Age of Blood and Glory. The sons and
daughters of the immortals populated the earth alongside the
mere mortals. These lesser creations of Zeus, mortal men, were
the pawns of the Heroes and the toys of the immortals. Zeus
established a godly domain for the spirits for the deceased
heroes at the end of the world. Zeus also released his father,
Cronus, from Tartarus to join the heroes in their paradise.
The Age of Iron
The Age of Iron was
the age of Hessiod (800 B.C.E.) and perhaps also the age we live
in now. If that is true, by the will of Zeus, we are doomed to
hardship and, finally, pitiless destruction. There's supposedly
absolutely nothing we can do about it, resistance is futile.
It's quite a pessimistic view of humankind.
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