Chapter 4 Lecture One of Two Myths of Creation The Rise of Zeus ©2012 Pearson Education Inc

Chapter 4Lecture One of Two

Myths of CreationThe Rise of Zeus

©2012 Pearson Education Inc.

“Sing all this to me, Muses, you who dwell on Olympus: from the

beginning tell me, which of the gods first came to be.”

Hesiod, Theogony (114–5)


The cosmogony is the theogony.


THE CHILDREN OF CHAOS



The Children of Chaos

• Hesiod, Theogony 116-125• Chaos < Chasm• Gaea, Tartarus• Mythic geography

– Olympus/Topmost– Earth/Middle– Tartarus/Bottommost



• Eros– Force of sexual attraction

• Nyx and Erebus– Features of Chaos?

• Nyx– Moerae– Nemesis

• Eerbus – Nyx– Aether (Radiance)– Hemera (day)



• Is Gaea the mother of all things?– Homeric Myth to Gaea


THE CHILDREN OF GAEAThe Titans and Their Cousins



The Titans and their Cousins

• Many beings from the earth• Most important the

– Titans– Cyclopes– Heacatonchires


The Titans

• Gaea = > Uranus, Mountains, Pontus• Gaea + Uranus


The Titans

• Uranos and Gaea in eternal sexual embrace• C.f. Egyptian Nut and Geb


Figure 4.1 Sky and Earth


British Museum, London; © The Trustees of the British Museum / Art Resource, New York

Thereafter Gaea was bedded with Uranus, lord of heaven, and bore deep-swirling (1) Oceanus, (2) Coeus, (3) Crius, (4) Hyperion, (5) Iapetus, (6) Theia and (7) Rhea, (8) Themis, (9) Mnemnosynê, (10) Phoebê, and fair-featured (11) Tethys. Last of all she gave birth to (12) Cronus, that scheming intriguer, cleverest child of her brood, who hated his lecherous father.

Hesiod, Theogony (126–38)

The Titans


The Titans

• Titans six male, six female• Most Titans hardly more than names• Take no role in subsequent Greek myth


The Titans

• Oceanus – Tethys• Homer’s alternate cosmology makes them the

primordial parents of all the gods• Ancient geography

– Oceanus rims the world– Sky is a dome over it

• The Oceanids


The Titans

• Phoebê = “brilliant,” “shinning”• Themis = “settled law”

– Occupied Delphi before Apollo– Zeus + Themis => Mnemosynê

• Iapetus = Jepheth (?)• Cronus + Rhea

– Parents or grandparents of the Olympians


THE CHILDREN OF GAEACyclops, Hecatonchires


Cyclops, Hecatonchires

• Also children of Gaea and Uranus• Cyclops

– Not the Cyclops of Homer (Polyphemos)– Blacksmiths for the gods– Brontes (“Thunderer”), Steropes (“flasher”), Arges

(“brightener”)


Cyclops, Hecatonchires

• Hecatonchires (“hundred-handers”)– Also fifty heads– Cottus, Briareus, Gyes


HYPERION'S CHILDRENSun, Moon, Dawn


Sun, Moon, Dawn

• Hyperion (“he who goes above”)• Father of Helius, another sun god• Selenê (moon)• Eos (dawn)• Homeric Hymn to Helius• The Story of Phaëthon in Ovid 1.750-


Hyperion’s Children: Sun, Moon, Sun

• Clymenê• The hasty promise• Etiology: why the Ethiopians are black• Eridanus (Po) river• Heliades = > poplar trees and golden amber• Phaethon’s fall in art


Sun, Moon, Dawn

• Selenê and Endymion– Endymion placed in eternal sleep

• Eos– Tithonus– Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 5


CRONOS AGAINST URANUS


Cronus Against Uranus

• Uranus stuffing newly born Titans back into Gaea

• Cronus, the youngest, castrates Uranus with a sickle

• Blood from the severed genitals becomes the Erinyes


BIRTH OF APHRODITE, MONSTERS AND SEA DEITIES



Aphrodite, Monsters, Sea Deities

• Aphrodite springs up from the “foam” at Cythera– Birth of Aphrodite in modern art

• Monsters• Altered Egyptian and Mesopotamian

archetypes:– Harpies, Sirens, Sphinx


Figure 4.2 Birth of Aphrodite


Museo Nazionale delle Terme, Rome; author’s photo

Figure 4.3 The Harpy Tomb


British Museum, London; © Trustees of the British Museum / Art Resource, New York

Aphrodite, Monsters, Sea Deities

• Combined human and animal parts– Gorgons, Geryon, Cerberus, Chimera

• Natural animals, but with special powers– Ceto, Graeae, Nemaean Lion, Nereus (the Nereids

– Thetis)


Figure 4.4 Cerberus


Musée du Louvre, Paris; Reunion des Musees Nationaux/Art Resource, New York

Figure 4.5 Chimera


Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Florence; University of Wisconsin–Madison Photo Archive

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Chapter 4 Lecture One of Two Myths of Creation The Rise of Zeus ©2012 Pearson Education Inc