Chaos — the Void :
Everything, everyone comes from the first reality which is Chaos, the void, the emptiness, the absence, the nothingness.
According to Hesiod’s “Theogony” around 700 BCE, the first primordial entities to come out of Chaos were :
Eros : the embodiment of love but more importantly the reproductive force. Without this force, the elements born from Chaos would have remained eternal, cold and sterile. Thanks to Eros our cosmos was about to be created.
Later the son of Aphrodite would take his name.
Gaia : the Earth
Gaia is the personification of earth and the mother of all life.
Latin name : Terra.
Tartarus: the Abyss
Tartarus is both a god and an abyss of torment.
Erebus, the Darkness and Nyx, the Night
Very little is found on Erebus except that he fathered a number of deities with his sister Nyx.
In Greek mythology, the Goddess Nyx was the personification of the night. Nyx was a sovereign, primordial and cosmogenic entity that even god Zeus himself respected and feared.
From Chaos came forth Erebus ( Darkness) and the black Night (Nyx); but of Nyx alone or with Erebus were born a number of children :
-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)
-Nemesis (Indignation, Retribution)
-Apate (Deceit)
-Philotes(Friendship)
-Geras (Old Age)
-Eris (Strife)
The most famous children of Nyx were :
The Moira
The Fates : the 3 goddesses who determined human destinies especially the duration of one’s life and his share of misery.
Latin name : the Parcae : Nona, Decuma, Morta
There were 3 sisters: Clotho (the spinner who determines the thread of human fate), Lachesis (the alloter who dispenses it) Atropos (the inflexible who cut the thread) . The 3 goddesses together determine human destinies especially the duration of one’s life and its share of misery.
According to the Ancient Greek authors , there are either 3 of the 6 children that Zeus had with the goddess of justice Themis, or in another version they are the children of Nyx alone.
How to recognise them ?
The fates are personified as 3 very old women.
*The Graeae: Deino, Enyo, Pemphredo or the Stygian Witches
The Walt Disney film “Hercules “ as well as Percy Jackson movies confuse the 3 Fates with the Graeae or Graiae old immortal witches who shared one eye and one teeth. They would read the future through the shared eye and then eat any mortal or hero like Perseus who came to ask for a prediction.
Nemesis, also named Rhamnousia
Latin name: Nemesis
Nemesis was the daughter of Nyx, she was the goddess of divine retribution especially against selfishness and against those who succumb to Hubris, the arrogance especially arrogance towards the gods.
Her daughter was Helen of Troy , which is instructive.
Nemesis punished Narcissus for his vanity by showing him his own reflection in a lake illuminated by the moon . He felt in love of his own reflection and drowned in it.
How to recognize her ?
Symbols of the goddess are the sword, the dagger, measuring rod, scale and the bridle. These symbols are very indicative of its function to measure human thoughts, emotions, actions and to set a limit on the ruthless actions of people’s selfishness.
The meaning of a “Nemesis “ has been transformed into the centuries to designate more and more an arch enemy than a just retribution of fate.
Eris
Latin name : Discordia
Eris was also a daughter of Nyx. She was the goddess of jealousy. She enjoyed causing divisions, disorders, resentments and fights .
According to Homer in the Iliad she was the daughter of Hera and Zeus and therefore a sister of God Ares.
Eris usually showed up gossiping or humming, spreading rumours, dividing families and friends. She was the one who in fact started the Trojan war by tossing the Apple of Discord in the midst of the feasts of the gods in spite for not having been invited by Zeus.
Eris’s opposite is Harmonia (Latin name : Concordia)
Hecate
Latin name: Hekate
Hecate was accepted at an early date as a goddess even if according to the poet Hesiod she was the daughter of the Titan Perses and the nymph Asteria.
She was one of the main deities worshipped in the households of Athens, often represented at doorways to keep the evil spirits away . She was the goddess of witchcraft, the moon, the night and necromancy. She was capable of both good and evil and had the knowledge of herbs
How to recognise her ?
Her sacred animals, among others, were the dog, the horse and the snake. She was accompanied by packs of barking dogs.
The Goddess was able to look in three different directions (three-headed goddess) at the same time.
She appears in Macbeth where Shakespeare described her as the ruler of the 3 witches.