The Greek Gods, Heroes, and Mystery Cults

Greek cosmogony received its earliest and most influential systematic treatment in the Theogony of Hesiod, a poet generally dated to around 700 BCE and traditionally associated with Boeotia. The poem traces the origin of the cosmos from Chaos, an initial yawning void, from which emerged Gaia (Earth), Tartarus, and Eros, followed by successive generations of primordial deities. Gaia produced Uranus (Sky), and their union generated the Titans, among them Cronus, who, at his mother’s urging, overthrew and castrated his father to seize power. Cronus in turn, warned that he would be displaced by one of his own children, swallowed each of them at birth until his wife Rhea concealed the infant Zeus and gave Cronus a stone to swallow instead. Zeus, raised in secret, eventually forced his father to disgorge his siblings and led the younger gods, the Olympians, in the Titanomachy, a decade-long war against the Titans, which ended with the Titans’ defeat and imprisonment in Tartarus.