How was the world created ? 

For the ancient Greeks the world was created out of nothing which they called Chaos. 

So as for some other Greek words the original meaning of the word has been mistaken and is now used with a whole different meaning : chaos didn’t meant disorder but nothingness, just like “apocalypse” meant “revelation “ and is now translated as “the end of the world “.

Born from the void of Chaos and from the light were the first primordial gods :

• Gaia, the Earth 
• Eros, the love and the reproductive force
• From Gaia came Uranus, the Sky
• Tartarus, the Pit,
• Pontus, the primordial ocean 
• Nyx, the Night,
• Erebus, the Darkness of the Underworld 

From Nyx alone or Nyx with Erebus were born a number of gods : 

-Aether ( Brightness) and Day (Hemera),

-Moros (Destiny)

-The Keres (Destruction, Death)

-Thanatos (Death)

-Hypnos ( Sleep)

-the Oneroi (Dreams)

-Momus (Blame)

-Oizys (Pain, Distress)

-The Hesperides (the Daughters of the evening)

-The Moira ( Fates : the 3 goddesses who determined human destinies especially the duration of one’s life and his share of misery.

There were 3 sisters: Clotho (the spinner) , Lachesis (the alloter) and Atropos (the inflexible).

-Nemesis (Indignation, Retribution)

-Apate (Deceit)

-Philotes(Friendship)

-Geras (Old Age)

-Eris (Strife)

The Union of Gaia and Uranus 

At this beginning of the time,  from the union between Earth and the Sky, Gaia and Uranus , three very different sets of children were born : 

• the twelve Titans, Cronus, Oceanus, Iapetus, Hyperion, Crius, Coeus, Tethys, Rhea, Phoebe, Mnemosyne, Themis, Theia.
• the three one-eyed Cyclops, Arges, Steropes and Brontes;  giants men with a single eye in the center of their forehead.
• the three “Hundred-Handed Hecatoncheires” who were named as they had one hundred massive hands and fifty heads : Briareus or Aegaeon (the vigorous or the sea goat), Cottus (the striker or the furious) and Gyges (the big-limbed). They personalised the natural forces such as the earthquakes and the gigantic sea waves.

There arose a problematic situation : Uranus was not exactly an infatuated, over indulgent father. Profoundly disgusted by his own descendants , the Hecatoncheires and the Cyclops he threw them back into Gaia’s womb which infuriated her and she decided to help her favourite Titanic son Cronus to overthrow her husband. 

Cronus with the efficient help of his mother overthrew his father by cutting his genitals. He then threw his devoted mother with his castrated father into Tartarus to be sure to be definitely liberated from them. 

Cronus and Rhea : The Time of the Titans 

The chief of the Titans was now Cronus 

He was married with his sister Rhea.

He was obsessed with power and lived in fear of being overthrown by one of his children,  probably as he did so with his own father.

Therefore to be sure to keep the absolute control over the cosmos, he made sure to eat all his newborns. Problem solved ! 

“No child, no risk “ was obviously his motto.

After watching her husband eat their fifth child, Rhea decided, just as Gaia previously, that she could not take it anymore and decided to trick her mighty selfish husband.  “Enough was enough !”

When she gave birth to her sixth child, she hid him immediately in a cave on Mount Ida in Crete. Back home she gave to her cannibal husband a stone wrapped in a blanket. Fortunately he did not make the difference and that was the first trick to many which will bring him down.

This betrayal driven by the maternal instinct , shows that Cronus did not fully understood how he was raised to power. His hubris prevented him to admit the help of his mother who was also driven by her maternal instinct. His arrogance allows the story to start. 

The Titanomachy : The Battle of the Gods 

The baby ‘s name was Zeus, the milk provider was a goat named Amalthea  with an infinite supply of milk and the baby sitting was ensured by a pack of beautiful, loving nymphs and joyful satyrs : what an education for the young Zeus !

Zeus would be forever grateful towards his protectors. Later he would prove his gratitude: 

by ripping one of the horn  from Amalthea and giving it to the nymphs and satyrs who took such a good care of him.

This extraordinary horn would provide for the whole eternity,  whatever the nymphs and satyrs are fond of : fruits, flowers,  jewels… This horn will be known as The Cornucopia. To thank for eternity Almathea , Zeus will raised her in the cosmos as part of a constellation .

Now a grown up, Zeus had no other option but to kill his father before his father learned the truth and killed him.

Zeus knew that he needed allies to win. So he concluded a deal with the Giants who had sprung from the blood of Uranus and were completely mistreated by the Titans. 

He even managed to convince one of the Titan’s leaders : Prometheus  to overthrow Cronus.

Prometheus was a very special Titan :  he had high moral ethics and he teamed up with Zeus as he could not accept any longer Cronus abuses of power ( much later he would also fight Zeus).

Zeus was able to trick Cronus to vomit his immortal brothers and sisters. Not only they were alive but they had been growing up inside Cronus and were perfect grown ups ready to fight.  

The war was named the Titanomachy or the Battle of the Gods. It was a long and arduous war to decide which generation of gods would rule. Finally Zeus and his allies defeated Cronus and the Titans.

The Giants were freed.

Prometheus, the Titan, was granted the pardon of his brother Epimetheus as his reward.

Cronus was sent to Tartarus, a hellish place of dire exile.

Atlas, one of the most fierce Titans who had been so difficult to defeat because of his titanic strength , was condemned to hold on his shoulders the Earth, blocking him to do anything else.

What about the other Titans ? They were all trapped beneath the Earth, it explains why there are volcanic eruptions and earthquakes : the Titans trapped underneath are fuming and desperate to free themselves. 

Zeus chose the highest mountain of Greece, Mount Olympus as the gods’s new home. 

The Gigantomachy

But the Giants wanted more than freedom. They were hungry for power.

One night they attacked Olympus when Zeus and his brothers were too drunk to notice anything .

The most important divine struggle in Greek mythology is the Gigantomachy, the battle fought between the Giants and the Olympian gods for the supremacy of the cosmos.

The Giants were the forces of disorder and darkness.

Thankfully that night the pet eagle of Zeus was sober and woke them up just in time.

Still their situation was desperate facing the whole army of the Giants.

Zeus decided to use for the first time his weapon of massive destruction : lightning!

He sent a lightning which pulverised the whole army of Giants.

Zeus after this red alert decided that ruling the world was after all a serious business and he needed help. It was time to delegate and to organise the world.

So he gave the seas to rule to Poseidon and the underworld to Hades,  keeping Mount Olympus, the earth and the sky for himself.

The Olympian gods were now ruling.