Beginnings

 

The First Beings

The first being in the universe is Chaos—a swirling mass of disorganized matter. After Chaos comes Gaia (the Earth); the lower realm of Tartarus; and the fairest immortal, Love. From Chaos, Erebus (a realm below the Earth) and Night are born. In union with Erebus, Night gives birth to Day and Aether (the upper air of the Earth’s atmosphere). Gaia appears in the light of Day and gives birth to Uranus (Heaven) to cover her on all sides. Gaia also generates hills, mountains, and Pontus (the deep sea).

 

The Creation of Monsters and Titans

The coupling of Gaia and Uranus produces the one-eyed Cyclops race and other monsters, as well as the twelve Titans. The youngest and most violent of the Titans, Cronus, conspires with his mother, Gaia, to castrate and kill his father, Uranus. Cronus then assumes leadership over the rest of the Titans and, with them, over the entire universe. The Giants and the Furies are born from the blood of Uranus’s discarded testicles.

 

The Titans vs. the Olympians

After Cronus comes to power, he learns that one of his children is destined to overthrow him, just as he dethroned his own father. To avoid this fate, he swallows each of his children as they emerge from the womb of his wife, Rhea. Deceiving her husband by feeding him a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes, Rhea conceals her sixth child, Zeus. When Zeus reaches maturity—after a youth spent hiding in a cave in Mt. Ida on Crete—he violently confronts Cronus and forces him to vomit up his siblings. Together, the children of Rhea and Cronus challenge the Titans for control of the universe. Zeus and his siblings win the war, banish the Titans to the pit of the volcano Mount Aetna, and assume control of the universe from their new abode atop Mount Olympus. The brothers Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades draw lots to determine who will rule. Zeus wins rule of the gods and the heavens, Poseidon gains sovereignty over the sea, and Hades becomes master of the underworld.

 

The Creation of Man

Prometheus is a son of Iapetus, one of the Titans whom Zeus and his siblings defeat. Zeus, however, spares Prometheus because Prometheus allies himself with the Olympians in their battle with the Titans. Prometheus is a master craftsman, so the Olympian gods commission him and his brother Epimetheus to create mankind and the beasts of the Earth. Epimetheus expends the best gifts—swiftness, cunning, protective fur, and physical strength—in creating the beasts, but Prometheus makes mankind of a nobler shape, bearing closer resemblance to the gods.

 

The Gift of Fire

To compensate mankind for its lack of natural gifts, Prometheus approaches the sun and lights a torch made of fennel reeds. He then brings the torch down to Earth and shares the knowledge of fire with mortal men. Zeus is furious, for he intended to keep fire a secret from mortals. As punishment, he chains the immortal Prometheus to a rock in the Caucasus Mountains. Each day, an eagle swoops down and eats Prometheus’s liver, which regenerates each night, only to be devoured again the next day. Prometheus remains chained in this torture until the hero Heracles (Roman: Hercules) rescues him.

 

The Creation of Woman

To punish mankind for its newfound knowledge of fire, Zeus orders the metal smith god Hephaestus to create the first mortal woman, Pandora. Before she is put on Earth, Pandora is given a box containing all forms of evil and suffering, previously unknown to mankind, and is told never to open it. Epimetheus, despite his brother Prometheus’s warnings, marries Pandora. Overcome by insatiable curiosity, Pandora opens the box and releases the catalog of plagues upon mankind. After all of these evils escape into the world, hope floats up from the box to ease humankind’s suffering.