The origin of the world and the gods

The most important source for how the Greeks imagined the birth of the world is Hesiod's Theogony, a 7th-century BC poem whose title means "birth of the gods". The story follows three generations of deities, each overthrowing the one before: Uranus, Cronus and finally Zeus.

In the beginning was Chaos

At first there was only Chaos, a dark, empty void. From Chaos came Gaia, broad-breasted Earth, Tartarus, the depths beneath the earth, and Eros, the power of love that binds all things. Chaos also produced Erebus, darkness, and Night, who in turn bore Day and the bright Aether.

Gaia, on her own, bore Uranus, the starry Sky, to cover her on every side, together with the mountains and the sea, Pontus.

The reign of Uranus

Gaia and Uranus had many children: the twelve Titans, the three Cyclopes, one-eyed giants, and the three Hecatoncheires, monsters with a hundred arms and fifty heads. But Uranus hated his children and pushed them back into the womb of the Earth, keeping them from the light. Gaia, weary and grieving, made a great sickle and asked her sons to rebel. Only the youngest Titan, Cronus, agreed: he ambushed his father and maimed him. From the blood of Uranus that fell on the earth came the Erinyes, the Furies, and the Giants; from the foam of the sea rose Aphrodite.

The reign of Cronus

As lord of the world, Cronus married his sister Rhea. An oracle had warned him that a son would overthrow him, so Cronus swallowed his children as soon as they were born: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades and Poseidon. When the sixth was about to be born, Rhea fled to Crete, gave birth to Zeus in a cave and handed her husband a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes, which Cronus swallowed without noticing the trick. Some traditions call this stone a baetylus, and Pausanias says one was shown at Delphi.

Zeus grew up in secret, fed on the milk of the goat Amalthea and guarded by the Curetes, warriors who clashed their spears on their shields so Cronus would not hear the baby cry.

The Titanomachy

Once grown, Zeus forced Cronus, with a potion prepared by Metis, to disgorge his brothers and sisters. Then came the Titanomachy, the war between the young gods, based on Olympus, and the Titans, based on Mount Othrys. It lasted ten years. Zeus won by freeing the Cyclopes, who gave him the thunderbolt, Poseidon the trident and Hades the helmet of invisibility, and the Hecatoncheires, who hurled boulders at the enemy. The defeated Titans were shut away in Tartarus; Atlas was condemned to hold up the sky.

Dividing the world

The three brothers drew lots: Zeus took the sky, Poseidon the sea, Hades the underworld. The earth and Olympus remained shared by all. See the twelve Olympians.

The Gigantomachy and Typhon

Angry at the fate of the Titans, Gaia set the Giants against the gods. The Olympians won only with the help of a mortal, Heracles, as an oracle required. Finally Gaia bore Typhon, the most terrible monster of all, with a hundred serpent heads: Zeus defeated him after a fierce fight and buried him under Mount Etna, where, it was said, he still breathes fire. After that Zeus's reign was never threatened again.

See also the Titans, Prometheus and the birth of humankind and monsters of myth.