by
Ryan Clement, LLM, BA, BSc, FRSA
THIS IS A STORY about the beginning as the Ancient Greeks perceived it to be. Today, we put it in the draw of mythology, Greek Mythology. In fact, the ensuing Romans didn’t dispute much of it either apart from changing a name here and there such as the Greek Uranus to Roman Neptune. I like originals, so I shall keep mainly to the Greek names but shall refer to the Roman counterparts later. So, here goes.
It’s hard to imagine this but there was once Chaos. Not the type of chaos we see in the world today but a type of emptiness. I know it seems hard to picture how chaos could be empty, but it is not for our modern human minds necessarily to get our heads around. It’s like mathematics, you simply accept that 22 over 7 is okay to use for Pi or that there are precisely 365 and one quarter days in the year without question. You learn it, memorise it and accept it.
So, according to the Greeks, Chaos was there alone. And Chaos was chaotic. Chaos was its raison d’être. I am guessing here but at some point I presume that Chaos wanted some order in its life. So, it created or formed – the precise verb is not essential – Gaia, Mother Earth, who was joined by Uranus (like I said, also known as Neptune by the Romans), god of the sky. They were joined by a dark unpleasant underworld beneath the Earth named Tartarus, an evil place. Others joined in also such as Hemera, Aether, Nyx and Erebus representing and being Day, Light, Night and Darkness respectively. Naturally, these were the first of their kind. These were Goddesses and Gods. The first EVER! So, in order to distinguish them from the gods they begat and those to follow, we called them Primordial deities. Interestingly, they could also take bodily forms.
Now we introduce the next tier of gods. Initially, Gaia and Uranus produced 12 giant beings – half a dozen males and females each – named, eventually, as the Titans. Amongst them were Rhea, Lapitus and the youngest, Cronus. Sadly, Uranus wasn’t fatherly and left the children’s upbringing to Gaia. Additionally, he was cruel to his offspring and didn’t even like the look of them. His view wasn’t helped by the appearance of his and Gaia’s next produce, being three giant Cyclopes (one eye!) and three Hecatoncheires (fifty heads and hundred hands giants!). Due to Uranus’ cruelty, Cronus, leading amongst his siblings together with his mother’s blessing, plotted to kill their father. Matters did not result in patricide, but a wounded Uranus fled.
The power vacuum created by Uranus’ departure was filled naturally by Cronus, as he had elected riskily to take on his father and conquered. Siblings Cronus and Rhea formed a union. However, due to a prophecy Cronus feared that one of his children would dethrone him – not too far removed from what he had in mind for his own father. His prognosis was to eat his children shortly after birth. After their fifth child had been consumed by the father, being Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Poseidon and Hades, Rhea conspired with her mother, Gaia, to give birth to Zeus in Crete, which was far removed from the eyes and, more importantly, the mouth of the child’s father. As had occurred before, after his child’s birth Cronus expected his infantile feast. However, Rhea was one step ahead of her husband and wrapped a stone from the mountainside in baby clothes. She handed it to Cronus who unduly consumed the stone, believing it to be Zeus. There the story remains until Zeus grows up and becomes a strong man.
Like Father, Like Son. As was his father, Cronus was cruel. In addition to what he did to his children he had imprisoned his younger brothers Cyclopes and Hecatoncheires in Tartarus. Again, as his father had once done, Zeus sought to deal with his father. An admirer of his, Metis, prepared a vomiting potion and, by Zeus’ disguising himself as a servant, sneakily poured the potion into his father’s wine, which Cronus drank. After a brief while Cronus vomited the stone followed by the regurgitation of Zeus’ five siblings. Zeus also freed his imprisoned uncles the Cyclopes and Hecatoncheires from Tartarus for which, naturally, they were grateful and loyal to him.
Again, Like Father, Like Son (not to mention that Zeus – with his extramarital affairs – also married his sister, Hera). As had Cronus, the youngest of the Titans at the time, Zeus, the youngest of his family, became the Chief among the rulers of the new world. He created a place at Mount Olympus in Olympia for the gods, whom he named Olympians, to reside at. The twelve Great Gods of the Olympians were from, at any one time (Roman equivalent in brackets), Zeus (Jupiter) – King of the Gods, Sky, Thunder and Lightening; Aphrodite (Venus) – Goddess of Love and Beauty; Apollo (Apollo) Ares (Mars) – God of War; Artemis (Diana) – Moon and Hunting; Athena (Minerva) – Goddess of War; Demeter (Ceres) – Harvest; Dionysus (Bacchus) – Wine; Hades (Pluto) – Underworld; Hephaestus (Vulcan) – Fire and Metalworking; Hera (Juno) – Queen of the Gods, Marriage and Childbirth; Hermes (Mercury) – Trade; Poseidon (Neptune) – Sea; and, occasionally, Hestia (Vesta) – Architecture, Family, Hearth and State.
Putting aside Rhea, understandably, the Titans supported by Cronus was unhappy by Zeus’ coup and were envious of the Olympians. There ensued a decade long war (Incidentally, the same duration as the Trojan War!) between the Titans and the Olympians – to term Clash of the Titans has been somewhat confusing! Grateful for their release by Zeus, the Cyclopes and Hecatoncheires sided with their nephew against their siblings. It was a bloody battle but, despite Lapitus’ son, Atlas’ (a Titan in his own right), gallantry (or foolhardiness) in leading the Titans to war, if the prophecy were to be fulfilled, there could be only one winner, ultimately, and that was Zeus! So it was prophesied and so it was done.
For Atlas’ part, he was punished by his having to bear the weight of the Heavens on his shoulder. As the legal concept of spent convictions had not yet been conceived at that time, as seen by many ancient and modern sculptures and paintings alike, that sentence holds firm even today!
Ryan Clement, LLM, BA, BSc, FRSA barrister
https://www.youtube.com/@RyanClement1
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