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96-534: The Theogony ( Ancient Greek : Θεογονία , Theogonía , i.e. "the genealogy or birth of the gods ") is a poem by Hesiod (8th–7th century BC) describing the origins and genealogies of the Greek gods , composed c.  730–700 BC . It is written in the Epic dialect of Ancient Greek and contains 1022 lines. It is one of the most important sources for the understanding of early Greek cosmology . Hesiod's Theogony

192-537: A pitch accent . In Modern Greek, all vowels and consonants are short. Many vowels and diphthongs once pronounced distinctly are pronounced as /i/ ( iotacism ). Some of the stops and glides in diphthongs have become fricatives , and the pitch accent has changed to a stress accent . Many of the changes took place in the Koine Greek period. The writing system of Modern Greek, however, does not reflect all pronunciation changes. The examples below represent Attic Greek in

288-633: A descendent line consisting primarily of sea deities, sea nymphs, and hybrid monsters. Their first child Nereus (Old Man of the Sea) married Doris , one of the Oceanid daughters of the Titans Oceanus and Tethys, and they produced the Nereids , fifty sea nymphs, which included Amphitrite , Thetis , and Psamathe . Their second child Thaumas married Electra, another Oceanid, and their offspring were Iris (Rainbow) and

384-573: A functional level, Rhea was thought equivalent to Roman Ops or Opis . In Homer , Rhea is the mother of the gods, although not a universal mother like Cybele , the Phrygian Great Mother , with whom she was later identified. In the Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes , the fusion of Rhea and Phrygian Cybele is completed. "Upon the Mother depend the winds, the ocean, the whole earth beneath

480-472: A lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period. They have the same general outline but differ in some of the detail. The only attested dialect from this period is Mycenaean Greek , but its relationship to the historical dialects and

576-419: A lesser degree. Pamphylian Greek , spoken in a small area on the southwestern coast of Anatolia and little preserved in inscriptions, may be either a fifth major dialect group, or it is Mycenaean Greek overlaid by Doric, with a non-Greek native influence. Regarding the speech of the ancient Macedonians diverse theories have been put forward, but the epigraphic activity and the archaeological discoveries in

672-493: A living involvement with the divine order of things; and the absolute conviction that, beyond the totality of things, reality forms a beautiful and harmonious whole. In the Theogony , the origin ( arche ) is Chaos , a divine primordial condition, and there are the roots and the ends of the earth, sky, sea, and Tartarus . Pherecydes of Syros (6th century BC), believed that there were three pre-existent divine principles and called

768-415: A part of Greek mythology which embodies the desire to articulate reality as a whole; this universalizing impulse was fundamental for the first later projects of speculative theorizing. Further, in the "Kings and Singers" passage (80–103) Hesiod appropriates to himself the authority usually reserved to sacred kingship. The poet declares that it is he, where we might have expected some king instead, upon whom

864-543: A prefix /e-/, called the augment . This was probably originally a separate word, meaning something like "then", added because tenses in PIE had primarily aspectual meaning. The augment is added to the indicative of the aorist, imperfect, and pluperfect, but not to any of the other forms of the aorist (no other forms of the imperfect and pluperfect exist). The two kinds of augment in Greek are syllabic and quantitative. The syllabic augment

960-626: A religious ecstasy. Her priests impersonated her mythical attendants, the Curetes and Dactyls, with a clashing of bronze shields and cymbals. The tympanon's use in Rhea's rites may have been the source for its use in Cybele 's – in historical times, the resemblances between the two goddesses were so marked that some Greeks regarded Cybele as their own Rhea, who had deserted her original home on Mount Ida in Crete and fled to

1056-671: A separate historical stage, though its earliest form closely resembles Attic Greek , and its latest form approaches Medieval Greek , and Koine may be classified as Ancient Greek in a wider sense. There were several regional dialects of Ancient Greek; Attic Greek developed into Koine. Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language , divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic , Aeolic , Arcadocypriot , and Doric , many of them with several subdivisions. Some dialects are found in standardized literary forms in literature , while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms. Homeric Greek

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1152-451: A similar manner a Phrygian man named Pyrrhus tried to rape her, but the goddess changed him into stone for his hubris. In one Orphic myth, Zeus was filled with desire for his mother and pursued her, only for Rhea to refuse him and change into a serpent to flee. Zeus also turned himself into a serpent and raped her. The child born from that union was their daughter Persephone , and afterwards Rhea became Demeter . The child, Persephone,

1248-563: A standard subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance . This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical periods of the language, which are the best-attested periods and considered most typical of Ancient Greek. From the Hellenistic period ( c.  300 BC ), Ancient Greek was followed by Koine Greek , which is regarded as

1344-556: A stone in the place of Zeus after his birth was assigned to have taken place on Petrakhos Mountain in Arcadia as well as on Mount Thaumasios in Arcadia, both of which were holy places: The center of the worship of Rhea was however on Crete, where Mount Ida was said to be the birthplace of Zeus. Reportedly, there was a "House of Rhea" in Knossos: Upon Mount Ida, there was a cave sacred to Rhea: Rhea only appears in Greek art from

1440-553: A temple at Lagina , the goddess of crossroads Hecate assisted Rhea in saving Zeus from his father. The frieze shows Hecate presenting to Cronus the swaddled stone while the real infant is being whisked away in safety. While Zeus was still an infant hidden in Crete , Rhea caught her husband Cronus with his mistress the nymph Philyra in the act; Cronus then transformed into a horse and galloped away, in order not to be seen by his wife. In some accounts, Rhea along with Metis gave Cronus

1536-510: A vowel or /n s r/ ; final stops were lost, as in γάλα "milk", compared with γάλακτος "of milk" (genitive). Ancient Greek of the classical period also differed in both the inventory and distribution of original PIE phonemes due to numerous sound changes, notably the following: The pronunciation of Ancient Greek was very different from that of Modern Greek . Ancient Greek had long and short vowels ; many diphthongs ; double and single consonants; voiced, voiceless, and aspirated stops ; and

1632-429: Is a large-scale synthesis of a vast variety of local Greek traditions concerning the gods, organized as a narrative that tells how they came to be and how they established permanent control over the cosmos . It is the first known Greek mythical cosmogony . The initial state of the universe is chaos , a dark indefinite void considered a divine primordial condition from which everything else appeared. Theogonies are

1728-556: Is a literary form of Archaic Greek (derived primarily from Ionic and Aeolic) used in the epic poems , the Iliad and the Odyssey , and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic and other Classical-era dialects. The origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of

1824-418: Is added to stems beginning with consonants, and simply prefixes e (stems beginning with r , however, add er ). The quantitative augment is added to stems beginning with vowels, and involves lengthening the vowel: Some verbs augment irregularly; the most common variation is e → ei . The irregularity can be explained diachronically by the loss of s between vowels, or that of the letter w , which affected

1920-644: Is called 'East Greek'. Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian Greek had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, as exemplified in the poems of the Boeotian poet Pindar who wrote in Doric with a small Aeolic admixture. Thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to

2016-448: Is considered by some linguists to have been closely related to Greek . Among Indo-European branches with living descendants, Greek is often argued to have the closest genetic ties with Armenian (see also Graeco-Armenian ) and Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ). Ancient Greek differs from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and other Indo-European languages in certain ways. In phonotactics , ancient Greek words could end only in

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2112-721: Is strongly associated with Gaia and Cybele , who have similar functions. The classical Greeks saw her as the mother of the Olympian gods and goddesses . The Romans identified her with Magna Mater (their form of Cybele), and the Goddess Ops . Some ancient etymologists derived Rhea ( Ῥέα ) (by metathesis ) from ἔρα ( éra , 'ground', 'earth'); the same is suggested also by modern scholars, such as Robert Graves . A different tradition, embodied in Plato and in Chrysippus , connected

2208-404: Is the element or first principle of all things, a permanent nature or substance which is conserved in the generation of the rest of it. From this, all things come to be, and into it they are resolved in a final state. It is the divine horizon of substance that encompasses and rules all things. Thales (7th – 6th century BC), the first Greek philosopher, claimed that the first principle of all things

2304-405: Is water. Anaximander (6th century BC) was the first philosopher who used the term arche for that which writers from Aristotle on call the "substratum". Anaximander claimed that the beginning or first principle is an endless mass ( Apeiron ) subject to neither age nor decay, from which all things are being born and then they are destroyed there. A fragment from Xenophanes (6th century BC) shows

2400-796: The Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires , not the Titans . With the help of Gaia, the youngest child, Cronus , overthrew his father, became king in his place, freed his siblings, and took his sister Rhea to wife. Ophion and Eurynome, a daughter of Oceanus , were said to have ruled snowy Mount Olympus in the early age. Rhea and Cronus fought them, and threw them into the waves of the Ocean, thus becoming rulers in their place. Rhea, skilled in wrestling, battled Eurynome specifically. Gaia and Uranus told Cronus that just as he had overthrown his own father and become ruler of

2496-565: The Cyclopes , the Hecatoncheires , the Giants , the Meliae , and the Erinyes ; and the half-sister of Aphrodite (in some versions), Typhon , Python , Pontus , Thaumas , Phorcys , Nereus , Eurybia , and Ceto . According to Hesiod , Rhea had six children with Cronus : Hestia , Demeter , Hera , Hades , Poseidon , and Zeus . The philosopher Plato recounts that Rhea, Cronus, and Phorcys were

2592-698: The Greek region of Macedonia during the last decades has brought to light documents, among which the first texts written in Macedonian , such as the Pella curse tablet , as Hatzopoulos and other scholars note. Based on the conclusions drawn by several studies and findings such as Pella curse tablet , Emilio Crespo and other scholars suggest that ancient Macedonian was a Northwest Doric dialect , which shares isoglosses with its neighboring Thessalian dialects spoken in northeastern Thessaly . Some have also suggested an Aeolic Greek classification. The Lesbian dialect

2688-735: The Hydra . Next comes the Chimera (whose mother is unclear, either Echidna or the Hydra). Finally Orthus (his mate is unclear, either the Chimera or Echidna) produced two offspring: the Sphinx and the Nemean Lion . The Titans, Oceanus, Hyperion, Coeus, and Cronus married their sisters Tethys, Theia, Phoebe and Rhea, and Crius married his half-sister Eurybia, the daughter of Gaia and her son, Pontus. From Oceanus and Tethys came

2784-453: The Muses have bestowed the two gifts of a scepter and an authoritative voice (Hesiod, Theogony 30–3), which are the visible signs of kingship. It is not that this gesture is meant to make Hesiod a king. Rather, the point is that the authority of kingship now belongs to the poetic voice, the voice that is declaiming the Theogony . Although it is often used as a sourcebook for Greek mythology ,

2880-540: The Nereid Amphitrite was born Triton , and from Ares and Aphrodite came Phobos (Fear), Deimos (Terror), and Harmonia (Harmony). Zeus, with Atlas 's daughter Maia , produced Hermes , and with the mortal Alcmene , produced the hero Heracles , who married Hebe . Zeus and the mortal Semele , daughter of Harmonia and Cadmus , the founder and first king of Thebes , produced Dionysus , who married Ariadne , daughter of Minos , king of Crete . Helios and

2976-480: The Ourea (Mountains), and Pontus (Sea). Uranus mated with Gaia, and she gave birth to the twelve Titans : Oceanus , Coeus , Crius , Hyperion , Iapetus , Theia , Rhea , Themis , Mnemosyne , Phoebe , Tethys and Cronus ; the Cyclopes : Brontes, Steropes and Arges ; and the Hecatoncheires ("Hundred-Handers"): Cottus, Briareos, and Gyges. When Cronus castrated Uranus, from Uranus' blood which splattered onto

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3072-499: The Theogony is both more and less than that. In formal terms it is a hymn invoking Zeus and the Muses: parallel passages between it and the much shorter Homeric Hymn to the Muses make it clear that the Theogony developed out of a tradition of hymnic preludes with which an ancient Greek rhapsode would begin his performance at poetic competitions. It is necessary to see the Theogony not as

3168-512: The Vedic and Hindu cosmologies. In the Vedic cosmology the universe is created from nothing by the great heat. Kāma (Desire) the primal seed of spirit, is the link which connected the existent with the non-existent In the Hindu cosmology, in the beginning there was nothing in the universe but only darkness and the divine essence who removed the darkness and created the primordial waters. His seed produced

3264-501: The present , future , and imperfect are imperfective in aspect; the aorist , present perfect , pluperfect and future perfect are perfective in aspect. Most tenses display all four moods and three voices, although there is no future subjunctive or imperative. Also, there is no imperfect subjunctive, optative or imperative. The infinitives and participles correspond to the finite combinations of tense, aspect, and voice. The indicative of past tenses adds (conceptually, at least)

3360-487: The universal germ ( Hiranyagarbha ), from which everything else appeared. In the Babylonian creation story Enûma Eliš the universe was in a formless state and is described as a watery chaos . From it emerged two primary gods, the male Apsu and female Tiamat , and a third deity who is the maker Mummu and his power for the progression of cosmogonic births to begin. Norse mythology also describes Ginnungagap as

3456-441: The "true" cosmological history. In the Theogony the initial state of the universe, or the origin ( arche ) is Chaos , a gaping void ( abyss ) considered as a divine primordial condition, from which appeared everything that exists. Then came Gaia (Earth), Tartarus (the cave-like space under the earth; the later-born Erebus is the darkness in this space), and Eros (representing sexual desire—the urge to reproduce—instead of

3552-1031: The 5th century BC. Ancient pronunciation cannot be reconstructed with certainty, but Greek from the period is well documented, and there is little disagreement among linguists as to the general nature of the sounds that the letters represent. /oː/ raised to [uː] , probably by the 4th century BC. Greek, like all of the older Indo-European languages , is highly inflected. It is highly archaic in its preservation of Proto-Indo-European forms. In ancient Greek, nouns (including proper nouns) have five cases ( nominative , genitive , dative , accusative , and vocative ), three genders ( masculine , feminine , and neuter ), and three numbers (singular, dual , and plural ). Verbs have four moods ( indicative , imperative , subjunctive , and optative ) and three voices (active, middle, and passive ), as well as three persons (first, second, and third) and various other forms. Verbs are conjugated through seven combinations of tenses and aspect (generally simply called "tenses"):

3648-490: The Archaic period of ancient Greek (see Homeric Greek for more details): Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκε, πολλὰς δ' ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι· Διὸς δ' ἐτελείετο βουλή· ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε Ἀτρεΐδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς. The beginning of Apology by Plato exemplifies Attic Greek from

3744-554: The Classical period of ancient Greek. (The second line is the IPA , the third is transliterated into the Latin alphabet using a modern version of the Erasmian scheme .) Ὅτι [hóti Hóti μὲν men mèn ὑμεῖς, hyːmêːs hūmeîs,   Rhea (mythology) When Cronus learnt that he was destined to be overthrown by one of his children like his father before him, he swallowed all

3840-665: The Cyclopes (apparently still imprisoned beneath the earth, along with the Hundred-Handers, where Uranus had originally confined them) who then provide Zeus with his great weapon, the thunderbolt, which had been hidden by Gaia. A great war was begun, the Titanomachy , between the new gods, Zeus and his siblings, and the old gods, Cronus and the Titans, for control of the cosmos. In the tenth year of that war, following Gaia's counsel, Zeus released

3936-455: The Hundred-Handers, who joined the war against the Titans, helping Zeus to gain the upper hand. Zeus then cast the fury of his thunderbolt at the Titans, defeating them and throwing them into Tartarus , thus ending the Titanomachy. A final threat to Zeus' power was to come in the form of the monster Typhon , son of Gaia and Tartarus. Zeus with his thunderbolt was quickly victorious, and Typhon

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4032-641: The Oceanid Clymene and produced Atlas , Menoetius , Prometheus , and Epimetheus . Zeus married seven wives. His first wife was the Oceanid Metis , whom he impregnated with Athena , then, on the advice of Gaia and Uranus, swallowed Metis so that no son of his by Metis would overthrow him, as had been foretold. Zeus' second wife was his aunt the Titan Themis , who bore the three Horae (Seasons): Eunomia (Order), Dikē (Justice), Eirene (Peace); and

4128-588: The Oceanid Perseis produced Circe , Aeetes , who became king of Colchis and married the Oceanid Idyia , producing Medea . The goddess Demeter joined with the mortal Iasion to produce Plutus . In addition to Semele, the goddess Harmonia and the mortal Cadmus also produced Ino , Agave , Autonoe and Polydorus . Eos (Dawn) with the mortal Tithonus , produced the hero Memnon , and Emathion , and with Cephalus , produced Phaethon . Medea with

4224-656: The Titan Mnemosyne , from whom came the nine Muses : Clio , Euterpe , Thalia , Melpomene , Terpsichore , Erato , Polymnia , Urania , and Calliope . His sixth wife was the Titan Leto , who gave birth to Apollo and Artemis . Zeus' seventh and final wife was his sister Hera , the mother by Zeus of Hebe , Ares , and Eileithyia . Zeus finally "gave birth" himself to Athena , from his head, which angered Hera so much that she produced, by herself, her own son Hephaestus , god of fire and blacksmiths. From Poseidon and

4320-490: The Titans to be born and Cronus to assume supreme command of the cosmos. Cronus, having now taken over control of the cosmos from Uranus, wanted to ensure that he maintained control. Uranus and Gaia had prophesied to Cronus that one of Cronus' own children would overthrow him, so when Cronus married Rhea , he made sure to swallow each of the children she birthed: Hestia , Demeter , Hera , Hades , Poseidon , and Zeus (in that order), to Rhea's great sorrow. However, when Rhea

4416-550: The aorist. Following Homer 's practice, the augment is sometimes not made in poetry , especially epic poetry. The augment sometimes substitutes for reduplication; see below. Almost all forms of the perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect reduplicate the initial syllable of the verb stem. (A few irregular forms of perfect do not reduplicate, whereas a handful of irregular aorists reduplicate.) The three types of reduplication are: Irregular duplication can be understood diachronically. For example, lambanō (root lab ) has

4512-419: The augment when it was word-initial. In verbs with a preposition as a prefix, the augment is placed not at the start of the word, but between the preposition and the original verb. For example, προσ(-)βάλλω (I attack) goes to προσ έ βαλoν in the aorist. However compound verbs consisting of a prefix that is not a preposition retain the augment at the start of the word: αὐτο(-)μολῶ goes to ηὐ τομόλησα in

4608-485: The bones and hid them with a thin glistening layer of fat. Prometheus asked Zeus' opinion on which offering pile he found more desirable, hoping to trick the god into selecting the less desirable portion. Though Zeus saw through the trick, he chose the fat covered bones, and so it was established that ever after men would burn the bones as sacrifice to the gods, keeping the choice meat and fat for themselves. But in punishment for this trick, an angry Zeus decided to deny mankind

4704-438: The center of Greek scholarship, this division of people and language is quite similar to the results of modern archaeological-linguistic investigation. One standard formulation for the dialects is: West vs. non-West Greek is the strongest-marked and earliest division, with non-West in subsets of Ionic-Attic (or Attic-Ionic) and Aeolic vs. Arcadocypriot, or Aeolic and Arcado-Cypriot vs. Ionic-Attic. Often non-West

4800-459: The children Rhea bore as soon as they were born. When Rhea had her sixth and final child, Zeus, she spirited him away and hid him in Crete , giving Cronus a rock to swallow instead, thus saving her youngest son who would go on to challenge his father's rule and rescue the rest of his siblings. Following Zeus's defeat of Cronus and the rise of the Olympian gods into power, Rhea withdraws from her role as

4896-454: The cosmos, he was destined to be overcome by his own child; so as each of his children was born, he swallowed them. Rhea, Uranus, and Gaia devised a plan to save the last child, Zeus. Rhea gave birth to Zeus in a cavern on the island of Crete and gave Cronus a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes, which he promptly swallowed; Rhea hid Zeus in a cave on Mount Ida . Her attendants, the warrior-like Kouretes and Dactyls , acted as bodyguards for

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4992-495: The cosmos. The world began with the spontaneous generation of four beings: first arose Chaos (Chasm); then came Gaia (Earth), "the ever-sure foundation of all"; "dim" Tartarus , in the depths of the Earth; and Eros (Desire) "fairest among the deathless gods". From Chaos came Erebus (Darkness) and Nyx (Night). And Nyx "from union in love" with Erebus produced Aether (Brightness) and Hemera (Day). From Gaia came Uranus (Sky),

5088-471: The definitive source of Greek mythology, but rather as a snapshot of a dynamic tradition that happened to crystallize when Hesiod formulated the myths he knew—and to remember that the traditions have continued evolving since that time. The written form of the Theogony was established in the 6th century BC. Even some conservative editors have concluded that the Typhon episode (820–68) is an interpolation. Hesiod

5184-611: The dialect of Sparta ), and Northern Peloponnesus Doric (including Corinthian ). All the groups were represented by colonies beyond Greece proper as well, and these colonies generally developed local characteristics, often under the influence of settlers or neighbors speaking different Greek dialects. After the conquests of Alexander the Great in the late 4th century BC, a new international dialect known as Koine or Common Greek developed, largely based on Attic Greek , but with influence from other dialects. This dialect slowly replaced most of

5280-1015: The earth, came the Erinyes (Furies), the Giants , and the Meliai . Cronus threw the severed genitals into the sea, around which foam developed and transformed into the goddess Aphrodite . Meanwhile, Nyx (Night) alone produced children: Moros (Doom), Ker (Destiny), Thanatos (Death), Hypnos (Sleep), Oneiroi (Dreams), Momus (Blame), Oizys (Pain), Hesperides (Daughters of Night), Moirai (Fates), Keres (Destinies), Nemesis (Retribution), Apate (Deceit), Philotes (Love), Geras (Old Age), and Eris (Discord). And from Eris alone, came Ponos (Hardship), Lethe (Forgetfulness), Limos (Starvation), Algea (Pains), Hysminai (Battles), Makhai (Wars), Phonoi (Murders), Androktasiai (Manslaughters), Neikea (Quarrels), Pseudea (Lies), Logoi (Stories), Amphillogiai (Disputes), Dysnomia (Anarchy), Ate (Ruin), and Horkos (Oath). After Uranus's castration, Gaia mated with her son Pontus (Sea) producing

5376-500: The eldest children of Oceanus and Tethys . According to the Orphic myths, Zeus wanted to marry his mother Rhea. After Rhea refused to marry him, Zeus turned into a snake and raped her. She had Persephone with Zeus. Rhea was born to the earth goddess Gaia and the sky god Uranus , one of their twelve (or thirteen ) Titan children. According to Hesiod , Uranus imprisoned all his children, while Apollodorus states he only imprisoned

5472-525: The emotion of love as is the common misconception). Hesiod made an abstraction because his original chaos is something completely indefinite. By contrast, in the Orphic cosmogony the unaging Chronos produced Aether and Chaos and made a silvery egg in divine Aether. From it appeared the androgynous god Phanes , identified by the Orphics as Eros, who becomes the creator of the world. Some similar ideas appear in

5568-472: The end of the 13th century. An early example is found in Vaticanus gr. 1825 . This manuscript dates to about 1310 based on watermarks. There are about 64 known manuscripts that date from 1600 AD or earlier. The heritage of Greek mythology already embodied the desire to articulate reality as a whole, and this universalizing impulse was fundamental for the first projects of speculative theorizing. It appears that

5664-474: The figure of Kumarbi an Anatolian parallel to Hesiod's Uranus–Cronus conflict. One of the principal components of the Theogony is the presentation of what is called the "succession myth", which tells how Cronus overthrew Uranus , and how in turn Zeus overthrew Cronus and his fellow Titans , and how Zeus was eventually established as the final and permanent ruler of the cosmos. Uranus (Sky) initially produced eighteen children with his mother Gaia (Earth):

5760-663: The forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek ( c.  1400–1200 BC ), Dark Ages ( c.  1200–800 BC ), the Archaic or Epic period ( c.  800–500 BC ), and the Classical period ( c.  500–300 BC ). Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers . It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been

5856-439: The fourth century BC, when her iconography draws on that of Cybele ; the two therefore are often indistinguishable; both can be shown wearing a crown (either a Mural crown or a Polos ), seated on a throne flanked by lions , riding a lion, and on a chariot drawn by two lions. In Roman religion , her counterpart Cybele was Magna Mater deorum Idaea , who was brought to Rome and was identified in as an ancestral Trojan deity. On

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5952-532: The hand of Atalanta in marriage thanks to the help he received from Aphrodite , he neglected to thank her. Thus the goddess inflicted them with great passion for each other when they were near a temple of Rhea. The two then proceeded to have sex inside the temple. In anger, Rhea turned them into lions. At some point, a mortal man named Sangas offended the goddess, and she turned him into a river that bore his name; Sangarius (now Sakarya River ) in Asia Minor . In

6048-556: The historical Dorians . The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, who regarded themselves as descendants of the population displaced by or contending with the Dorians. The Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people – Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians (including Athenians), each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Allowing for their oversight of Arcadian, an obscure mountain dialect, and Cypriot, far from

6144-472: The historical circumstances of the times imply that the overall groups already existed in some form. Scholars assume that major Ancient Greek period dialect groups developed not later than 1120 BC, at the time of the Dorian invasions —and that their first appearances as precise alphabetic writing began in the 8th century BC. The invasion would not be "Dorian" unless the invaders had some cultural relationship to

6240-417: The infant Zeus, helping to conceal his whereabouts from his father. In some accounts, by the will of Rhea a golden dog guarded a goat which offered her udder and gave nourishment to the infant Zeus. Later on, Zeus changed the goat into an immortal among the stars while the golden dog that guarded the sacred spot in Crete was stolen by Pandareus . In an obscure version, attested only on the east frieze of

6336-660: The mortal Jason , produced Medius , the Nereid Psamathe with the mortal Aeacus , produced the hero Phocus , the Nereid Thetis , with Peleus produced the great warrior Achilles , and the goddess Aphrodite with the mortal Anchises produced the Trojan hero Aeneas . With the hero Odysseus , Circe would give birth to Agrius , Latinus , and Telegonus , and Atlas' daughter Calypso would also bear Odysseus two sons, Nausithoos and Nausinous . The Theogony , after listing

6432-509: The mortal princess Semele . Later on she went on to heal Dionysus' raging madness, which had been inflicted on him by the jealous Hera, causing him to wander around aimlessly for some time. Rhea gave Dionysus the amethyst , which was thought to prevent drunkenness. Rhea sometimes joined Dionysus and his Maenads in their frenzy dances. According to Bacchylides , it was Rhea herself who restored Pelops to life after his father Tantalus cut him down. Rhea and Aphrodite rescued Creusa ,

6528-424: The most notable exceptions being Hera and Eileithyia , the goddess of childbirth, whose absence left Leto in terrible agony. Rhea was said to be a goddess who eased childbirth for women. After Demeter reunited with her daughter Persephone , Zeus sent Rhea to persuade Demeter to return to Olympus and rejoin the gods. Rhea raised another one of her grandsons, Dionysus , after the fiery death of his mother,

6624-483: The offspring of the Titan Iapetus and the Oceanid Clymene , as Atlas , Menoitios , Prometheus , and Epimetheus , and telling briefly what happened to each, tells the story of Prometheus. When the gods and men met at Mekone to decide how sacrifices should be distributed, Prometheus sought to trick Zeus. Slaughtering an ox, he took the valuable fat and meat, and covered it with the ox's stomach. Prometheus then took

6720-499: The older dialects, although the Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language , which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek . By about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosed into Medieval Greek . Phrygian is an extinct Indo-European language of West and Central Anatolia , which

6816-400: The order of being was first imaginatively visualized before it was abstractly thought. Hesiod, impressed by necessity governing the ordering of things, discloses a definite pattern in the genesis and appearance of the gods. These ideas made something like cosmological speculation possible. The earliest rhetoric of reflection all centers about two interrelated things: the experience of wonder as

6912-487: The perfect stem eilēpha (not * lelēpha ) because it was originally slambanō , with perfect seslēpha , becoming eilēpha through compensatory lengthening. Reduplication is also visible in the present tense stems of certain verbs. These stems add a syllable consisting of the root's initial consonant followed by i . A nasal stop appears after the reduplication in some verbs. The earliest extant examples of ancient Greek writing ( c.  1450 BC ) are in

7008-440: The potion that made him disgorge the children he had eaten. Following Zeus's ascension, Rhea withdrew from spotlight as she was no longer queen of gods, but remained an ally of her children and their families. In some traditions, Rhea disapproved of her children Hera and Zeus getting married, so the two had to elope in order to be together. Rhea was present in the birth of her grandson Apollo , along with many other goddesses,

7104-402: The primordial abyss from which sprang the first living creatures, including the giant Ymir whose body eventually became the world, whose blood became the seas, and so on; another version describes the origin of the world as a result of the fiery and cold parts of Hel colliding. Ancient Greek language Ancient Greek ( Ἑλληνῐκή , Hellēnikḗ ; [hellɛːnikɛ́ː] ) includes

7200-442: The queen of the gods to become a supporting figure on Mount Olympus. She has some roles in the new Olympian era. She attended the birth of her grandson Apollo and raised her other grandson Dionysus . After Persephone was abducted by Hades, Rhea was sent to Demeter by Zeus. In the myth of Pelops , she resurrects the unfortunate youth after he has been slain. In early traditions, she is known as "the mother of gods" and therefore

7296-532: The snowy seat of Olympus; whenever she leaves the mountains and climbs to the great vault of heaven, Zeus himself, the son of Cronus , makes way, and all the other immortal gods likewise make way for the dread goddess," the seer Mopsus tells Jason in Argonautica ; Jason climbed to the sanctuary high on Mount Dindymon to offer sacrifice and libations to placate the goddess, so that the Argonauts might continue on their way. For her temenos they wrought an image of

7392-672: The statue was made by Pheidias. In Sparta there was furthermore a sanctuary to Meter Megale (“[the] Great Mother”). Olympia had both an altar and a temple to the Meter Theon: Her temple in Akriai , Lakedaimon, was said to be her oldest sanctuary in the Peloponnese : Statues of her were also standing in the sanctuaries of other gods and in other places, such as a statue of Parian marble by Damophon in Messene. The scene in which Rhea gave Chronos

7488-517: The syllabic script Linear B . Beginning in the 8th century BC, however, the Greek alphabet became standard, albeit with some variation among dialects. Early texts are written in boustrophedon style, but left-to-right became standard during the classic period. Modern editions of ancient Greek texts are usually written with accents and breathing marks , interword spacing , modern punctuation , and sometimes mixed case , but these were all introduced later. The beginning of Homer 's Iliad exemplifies

7584-404: The three Moirai (Fates): Clotho (Spinner), Lachesis (Allotter), and Atropos (Unbending). Zeus then married his third wife, another Oceanid, Eurynome , who bore the three Charites (Graces): Aglaea (Splendor), whom Hephaestus married, Euphrosyne (Joy), and Thalia (Good Cheer). Zeus' fourth wife was his sister, Demeter , who bore Persephone . The fifth wife of Zeus was another aunt,

7680-402: The three thousand river gods (including Nilus [Nile], Alpheus , and Scamander ) and three thousand Oceanid nymphs (including Doris , Electra, Callirhoe , Styx , Clymene , Metis , Eurynome , Perseis , and Idyia ). From Hyperion and Theia came Helios (Sun), Selene (Moon), and Eos (Dawn), and from Crius and Eurybia came Astraios , Pallas , and Perses . From Eos and Astraios came

7776-472: The three-headed Geryon . Next comes the half-nymph half-snake Echidna (her mother is unclear, probably Ceto, or possibly Callirhoe). The last offspring of Ceto and Phorcys was a serpent (unnamed in the Theogony , later called Ladon , by Apollonius of Rhodes ) who guards the golden apples. Gaia also mated with Tartarus to produce Typhon , whom Echidna married, producing several monstrous descendants. Their first three offspring were Orthus , Cerberus , and

7872-559: The transition from Chaos to Apeiron : "The upper limit of earth borders on air. The lower limit of earth reaches down to the unlimited (i.e the Apeiron)." John Milton , a Calvinist , viewed the Theogony as inspired by Satan . Milton's view, as articulated in Paradise Lost , was that once Satan was cast out from heaven, he became the muse that inspired Hesiod. What Hesiod wrote, therefore,

7968-488: The twelve Titans, the three Cyclopes , and the three Hecatoncheires (Hundred-Handers), but hating them, he hid them away somewhere inside Gaia. Angry and in distress, Gaia fashioned a sickle made of adamant and urged her children to punish their father. Only her son Cronus, the youngest Titan, was willing to do so. So Gaia hid Cronus in "ambush" and gave him the adamantine sickle, and when Uranus came to lie with Gaia, Cronus reached out and castrated his father. This enabled

8064-470: The two Harpies : Aello and Ocypete . Gaia and Pontus' third and fourth children, Phorcys and Ceto , married each other and produced the two Graiae : Pemphredo and Enyo , and the three Gorgons : Stheno , Euryale , and Medusa . Poseidon mated with Medusa and two offspring, the winged horse Pegasus and the warrior Chrysaor , were born when the hero Perseus cut off Medusa's head. Chrysaor married Callirhoe , another Oceanid, and they produced

8160-401: The use of fire. But Prometheus stole fire inside a fennel stalk, and gave it to humanity. Zeus then ordered the creation of the first woman Pandora as a new punishment for mankind. And Prometheus was chained to a cliff, where an eagle fed on his ever-regenerating liver every day, until eventually Zeus' son Heracles came to free him. The earliest existing manuscripts of the Theogony date from

8256-426: The water also Chaos. In the language of the archaic period (8th – 6th century BC), arche (or archai ) designates the source, origin, or root of things that exist. If a thing is to be well established or founded, its arche or static point must be secure, and the most secure foundations are those provided by the gods: the indestructible, immutable, and eternal ordering of things. In ancient Greek philosophy , arche

8352-500: The wife of Aphrodite 's son Aeneas , from the slavery the Greeks would have subjected her to after the fall of Troy . As for Aeneas, when he landed in Italy , a local warlord named Turnus set his pine-framed vessels ablaze. Rhea (or Cybele ), remembering that those hulls had been crafted from trees felled on her holy mountains, transformed the vessels into sea nymphs. After Melanion won

8448-708: The wilds of Phrygia to escape Cronus. Rhea was often referred to as Meter Theon (“Mother of the Gods”) and there were several temples around Ancient Greece dedicated to her under that name. Pausanias mentioned temples dedicated to Rhea under the name Meter Theon in Anagyros in Attika, Megalopolis in Arkadia , on the Acropolis of Ancient Corinth, and in the district of Keramaikos in Athens, where

8544-602: The winds: Zephyrus , Boreas and Notos , Eosphoros (Dawn-bringer, i.e. Venus , the Morning Star), and the Stars. From Pallas and the Oceanid Styx came Zelus (Envy), Nike (Victory), Kratos (Power), and Bia (Force). From Coeus and Phoebe came Leto and Asteria , who married Perses, producing Hekate , and from Cronus and his older sister, Rhea, came Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus. The Titan Iapetos married

8640-500: The word with ῥέω ( rhéo , 'flow, discharge'), which is what A Greek–English Lexicon supports. Alternatively, the name Rhea may be connected with words for the pomegranate : ῥόα ( rhóa ), and later ῥοιά ( rhoiá ). The name Rhea may ultimately derive from a Pre-Greek or Minoan source. Rhea is the sister of the Titans ( Oceanus , Crius , Hyperion , Iapetus , Coeus , Themis , Theia , Phoebe , Tethys , Mnemosyne , Cronus , and sometimes Dione ),

8736-475: Was Aeolic. For example, fragments of the works of the poet Sappho from the island of Lesbos are in Aeolian. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, or to an island. Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric (including Cretan Doric ), Southern Peloponnesus Doric (including Laconian ,

8832-551: Was a corruption of the "actual" events that happened in the cosmological struggle of Satan against God. In particular, Milton asserted that the triumph of Zeus (i.e., the supreme deity) through guile, negotiation and alliances, was a corruption of God's omnipotence which did not require any ally. Milton's view echoes the views of early Christian patristic writers. Justin Martyr and Athenagoras of Athens , for example, asserted that heathen mythologies in general are demonic distortions of

8928-498: Was also imprisoned in Tartarus. Zeus, by Gaia's advice, was elected king of the gods, and he distributed various honors among the gods. Zeus then married his first wife Metis , but when he learned that Metis was fated to produce a son which might overthrow his rule, by the advice of Gaia and Uranus, Zeus swallowed Metis (while still pregnant with Athena ). And so Zeus managed to end the cycle of succession and secure his eternal rule over

9024-424: Was born so deformed that Rhea ran away from her frightened, and did not breastfeed her daughter. Rhea had "no strong local cult or identifiable activity under her control." She was originally worshiped on the island of Crete , identified in mythology as the site of Zeus's infancy and upbringing. Her cults employed rhythmic, raucous chants and dances, accompanied by the tympanon (a wide, handheld drum), to provoke

9120-506: Was pregnant with Zeus, Rhea begged her parents Gaia and Uranus to help her save Zeus. So they sent Rhea to Lyctus on Crete to bear Zeus, and Gaia took the newborn Zeus to raise, hiding him deep in a cave beneath Mount Aigaion. Meanwhile, Rhea gave Cronus a huge stone wrapped in baby's clothes which he swallowed thinking that it was another of Rhea's children. Zeus, now grown, forced Cronus (using some unspecified trickery of Gaia) to disgorge his other five children. Zeus then released his uncles

9216-690: Was probably influenced by some Near-Eastern traditions, such as the Babylonian Dynasty of Dunnum , which were mixed with local traditions, but they are more likely to be lingering traces from the Mycenaean tradition than the result of oriental contacts in Hesiod's own time. The decipherment of Hittite mythical texts, notably the Kingship in Heaven text first presented in 1946, with its castration mytheme , offers in

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