I wonder...
What was the origin of the five primordial beings, Gaia, Tartarus, Erebus, Night and Eros? And some of their godly children?
These beings came into existence after Chaos, believed to be born from Chaos itself. They soon came into beings and each became primordial deities. Gaia became the Mother Earth, Tartarus became the worst part of the underworld, where all the monsters and most horrible people got sent, those who deserved worse than the Fields of Punishment, Erebus became the darkness that covers the underworld, Night became the darkness to cover Earth, and finally Eros, Primordial being of Love, in other stories he can also be known as not a primordial being, but a son of Aphrodite, and he is the god of sexual desire.
Some of the godly children of these deities include the children of Night and Erebus, Hemera the goddess of day, Aether the god of heavenly air, Nemesis the goddess of divine retribution and revenge, Hypnos the god of sleep, Geras the god of old age, Momus the god of satire, mockery and poets, Philotes the goddess of affection and friendship, Eleos the goddess of pity, mercy and compassion, Phôs the god of light, Moros the god of Doom, Thanatos the god of Death, Achlys the goddess of Misery, Dolos the god of Deceit, Eris the goddess of Discord and even more.
There are other children too, the child of Gaia, Ouranos, Gaia's husband. He was the god of the sky and had a total of eighteen children with his wife, the three Cyclopes, Brontes, Arges and Steropes, the three Hecatonchires, Briares, Cottus and Gyges, all-powerful giants. Scared that his children would overthrow him, he imprisoned them in the belly of Gaia. They then went on to have the other dozen children, six males and six females. The males were named Kronos, Krios, Coeus, Hyperion, Iapetus and Oceanus, the six girls were named Rhea, Pheobe, Themis, Theia, Tethys and finally Mnemosyne. He was less wary of these children, and let them roam free. This eventually led to his downfall.
Gaia still angered and physically pained of her first children's imprisonment, devised a plan with her Titan children, to overthrow her husband. When her husband next descended to her, Krios, Coeus, Hyperion and Iapetus held him down at the four corners of the Earth, while Kronos wielded the scythe and castrated his father. Kronos allowed his father to ascend to the heavens, Ouranos, no longer with the strength, relinquished his 'duties' as the supreme deity. His castrated parts were cast to the ocean, with that the last child of Ouranos was born, the goddess of love and beauty, Aphrodite.
Gaia had other children too, Pontus, a primordial deity, a sea-god. By her son, Gaia bore the sea-deities, Nereus, Thaumas, Phorcys, Ceto and Eurybia.
When the children of Gaia, the Titans, were cast to Tartarus, Gaia gave birth to her next children. The Gigantes, each bred to go against a certain god. Another war then raged against Olympus, when the war was lost, Gaia had her last child, Typhon. Typhon was the most powerful monster in the entirety of Greek Mythology, pictured with a hundred dragons' heads.
Along with Typhon, Tartarus had Kampê the jailer of Tartarus, the monstrous ally of Kronos and the one who kept the hecatonchires and cyclopes imprisoned, until Zeus killed her to release the prisoners she held. She was the first foe vanquished with Zeus’ Master Bolt. Kampê has a human head, with snakes for hair, like Medusa. She has a half human body, like a centaur, but with reptilian skin and a dragon half, with gigantic claws. The dragon half is said to have white stripes down it's back. She has huge dark reptilian wings, a ginormous venom-dripping scorpion tail, and at the point where her halves meet, her skin bubbles and morphs, producing mutated animal heads that are constantly changing shape (bear, boar, wombat, tiger, crocodile, wolf, etc.) like a gruesome, monstrous belt. Hundreds of violent darting vipers are sprouted from her legs.
Now I wonder...
What is the story of the other gods who came to be part of the twelve Olympians?
Neat. I always found the greek g-ds interesting and now I know more about them.
ReplyDeleteHey Jess, I really liked this blog post. By reading this I can tell that you are very interested in this topic. I learned that Typhon was the most powerful monster in the entirety of Greek mythology. I liked learning about this topic. This makes me wonder about the origin of the Roman Gods. What do you think about the Roman Gods?
ReplyDelete- Nadia