Uranus and Gaia

Uranus met the birth of each of his descendants with ever-increasing horror. He was certain that these bestial children would one day rise up and kill him. When they emerged from the womb of Gaia, he grabbed them and swallowed them. Those who had already grown up, he threw into Tartarus - the gloomy Abyss. The mother was torn from suffering. Summoning a river of molten metal from the secret recesses of her soul, Gaia forged a sickle strong enough to cut down a mountain. She went down to Tartarus, where her children were languishing, and asked who would have the courage to raise a hand against the wicked father. Of all, only the titan Kronos decided.

Kronos

Kronos(Kron, Roman - Saturn) - titan, the youngest son of Uranus and Gaia, the father of the Olympic gods.

On the same night, when Uranus, inflamed with passion for Gaia, reached out to his wife, Kronos appeared, hiding in the huge folds of his mother's body. He grabbed a sickle and castrated Uranus in an instant, and threw the genitals into the sea. Uranus cried out, a stream of blood gushed over their wounds. Where hot drops fell, nymphs arose from the earth Meliades, as well as disgusting creatures - furies (Erinnia), who were destined for centuries to become judges of mortal criminals. From the blood and semen of Uranus, whipped into foam by the waves, the goddess of love was born - Aphrodite.
Since Uranus was left crippled and helpless, the entire universe was at the feet of Kronos. He unleashed his brothers and sisters - the titans. Having taken his sister Rhea as his wife, Kron laid the foundation for a new tribe, to which people gave the name of the gods. Together they produced two sons -

Uranus, Greek, Latin Target- the god of the sky and the sky itself, the ruler of the world after the original.

Uranus was born without a father by mother earth, took possession of the world and entered into marriage with Gaia. Their first descendants were twelve titans and titanides, then Gaia gave birth to three one-eyed giants and three fifty-headed and hundred-armed giants from Uranus. Uranus did not love his children, but he simply hated the hundred-armed ones: for their ugliness and arrogance, he imprisoned them in the wombs of the earth and forbade them to come to the surface. Mother Gaia suffered greatly because of this and began to persuade the titans to deprive her father of power. Only the youngest of them decided on this,. Suddenly attacking his father, he castrated him with a sickle and proclaimed himself the ruler of the world. From the blood of the mutilated Uranus, which dripped onto the earth, Gaia gave birth to giants and (according to some authors) the goddesses of retribution Erinyes. The last of the descendants of Uranus was born Aphrodite, who was born from sea fief, which was fertilized by the blood of the mutilated Uranus, and came ashore on the island of Cyprus. (So ​​say Hesiod and a number of other authors. If you believe Homer, then Aphrodite was the daughter of Zeus and Dione.)

The Roman god Celus did not quite coincide with Uranus, although he arose after his model. Celus was considered the son of the eternal light of Ether, and Vulcan and Mercury were also attributed to the number of his descendants. The goddess of love and beauty, Venus, was recognized as the daughter of Celus almost unconditionally.

Uranus is the representative of the so-called first generation of Greek gods, overthrown by the rebellion. His successor Kronos also lost power as a result of an uprising organized by his younger son Zeus.

Uranus returned to the sky only in the last century, when the astronomer Bode named the planet discovered in 1781 by Herschel after him. However, the existence of this planet was pre-calculated by astronomers, just as chemists foresaw the existence of the radioactive element uranium, discovered later.

The names of most of the gods are arranged as hyperlinks, where you can go to a detailed article about each of them.

The main deities of Ancient Greece: 12 Olympic gods, their helpers and companions

The main gods in Ancient Hellas were those that belonged to the younger generation of celestials. Once it took power over the world from the older generation, personifying the main universal forces and elements (see about this in the article The Origin of the Gods of Ancient Greece). The gods of the older generation are usually called titans. Defeating the titans minor gods led by Zeus settled on Mount Olympus. The ancient Greeks honored 12 Olympian gods. Their list usually included Zeus, Hera, Athena, Hephaestus, Apollo, Artemis, Poseidon, Ares, Aphrodite, Demeter, Hermes, Hestia. Hades is also close to the Olympian gods, but he does not live on Olympus, but in his underworld.

Legends and myths of Ancient Greece. Cartoon

Goddess Artemis. Statue in the Louvre

Statue of Athena the Virgin in the Parthenon. Ancient Greek sculptor Phidias

Hermes with caduceus. statue from Vatican Museum

Venus (Aphrodite) de Milo. Statue ca. 130-100 BC

God Eros. Red-figure dish, ca. 340-320 BC e.

Hymen Companion of Aphrodite, god of marriage. According to his name, wedding hymns were also called hymens in ancient Greece.

Daughter of Demeter, kidnapped by the god Hades. The inconsolable mother, after a long search, found Persephone in the underworld. Hades, who made her his wife, agreed that she would spend part of the year on earth with her mother, and the other with him in the bowels of the earth. Persephone was the personification of the grain, which, being "dead" sown in the ground, then "comes to life" and comes out of it into the light.

The Abduction of Persephone. Antique jug, ca. 330-320 BC

Amphitrite Poseidon's wife, one of the Nereids

Proteus- one of sea ​​deities Greeks. The son of Poseidon, who had the gift to predict the future and change his appearance

Triton- the son of Poseidon and Amphitrite, the messenger of the deep sea, trumpeting the shell. By appearance- a mixture of man, horse and fish. Close to the eastern god Dagon.

Eirene- the goddess of the world, standing at the throne of Zeus on Olympus. IN Ancient Rome- Goddess Pax.

Nika- goddess of victory. Constant companion of Zeus. In Roman mythology - Victoria

Dike- in ancient Greece - the personification of divine truth, a goddess hostile to deceit

Tyukhe- Goddess of good luck and luck. The Romans - Fortune

Morpheus- the ancient Greek god of dreams, the son of the god of sleep Hypnos

Plutus- god of wealth

Phobos("Fear") - the son and companion of Ares

Deimos("Horror") - the son and companion of Ares

Enyo- among the ancient Greeks - the goddess of violent war, which causes rage in the fighters and brings confusion to the battle. In Ancient Rome - Bellona

Titans

The Titans are the second generation of the gods of Ancient Greece, born of the elements of nature. The first titans were six sons and six daughters, descended from the connection of Gaia-Earth with Uranus-Sky. Six sons: Kron (Time. for the Romans - Saturn), Ocean (father of all rivers), Hyperion, Kay, Crius, Iapetus. Six daughters: Tethys(Water), Theia(Shine), Rhea(Mother Mountain?), Themis (Justice), Mnemosyne(Memory), Phoebe.

Uranus and Gaia. Ancient Roman mosaic 200-250 A.D.

In addition to the titans, Gaia gave birth to Cyclopes and Hecatoncheirs from marriage with Uranus.

cyclops- three giants with a large, round, fiery eye in the middle of the forehead. In ancient times - the personification of the clouds, from which lightning sparkles

Hecatoncheires- "hundred-armed" giants, against whose terrible power nothing can resist. Embodiments of terrible earthquakes and floods.

The Cyclopes and Hecatoncheires were so strong that Uranus himself was horrified by their power. He tied them up and threw them into the depths of the earth, where they still rage, causing volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. The stay of these giants in the womb of the earth began to cause her terrible suffering. Gaia persuaded her youngest son, Kronos, to take revenge on her father, Uranus, by castrating him.

Kron made it with a sickle. From the drops of blood of Uranus shed at the same time, Gaia conceived and gave birth to three Erinyes - goddesses of vengeance with snakes on their heads instead of hair. Erinnia's names are Tisiphone (killing avenger), Alecto (tireless pursuer) and Megara (terrible). From that part of the seed and blood of castrated Uranus that fell not on the ground, but in the sea, the goddess of love Aphrodite was born.

Night-Nyukta, in anger at the iniquity of Krona, gave birth to terrible creatures and deities of Tanata (Death), Eridu(Discord) Apatou(Deceit), goddesses of violent death Ker, Hypnos(Dream-Nightmare) Nemesis(Revenge), Gerasa(Old age), Charon(carrier of the dead to the underworld).

Power over the world has now passed from Uranus to the Titans. They divided the universe among themselves. Kron instead of a father became supreme god. The ocean received power over a huge river, which, according to the ideas of the ancient Greeks, flows around the whole earth. Four other brothers Kronos reigned in the four corners of the world: Hyperion - in the East, Crius - in the south, Iapetus - in the West, Kay - in the North.

Four of the six Elder Titans married their sisters. From them came the younger generation of titans and elemental deities. From the marriage of Oceanus with his sister Tethys (Water), all earthly rivers and water nymphs-Oceanids were born. The titan Hyperion - ("high-walking") took his sister Teia (Shine) as his wife. From them were born Helios (Sun), Selena(moon) and Eos(Dawn). From Eos were born the stars and the four gods of the winds: Boreas(North wind), Note(South wind), Zephyr(west wind) and Evre(Eastern wind). The titans Kay (Celestial Axis?) and Phoebe gave birth to Leto (Night Silence, mother of Apollo and Artemis) and Asteria (Starlight). Kron himself married Rhea (Mother Mountain, the personification of the productive forces of mountains and forests). Their children - olympic gods Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, Zeus.

The titan Crius married the daughter of Pontus Eurybia, and the titan Iapetus married the oceanid Clymene, who gave birth from him to the titans Atlanta (he holds the sky on his shoulders), the arrogant Menetius, the cunning Prometheus (“thinking before, foreseeing”) and the feeble-minded Epimetheus (“thinking after").

From these titans came others:

Hesperus- god of the evening and the evening star. His daughters from the night, Nyukta, are the nymphs of the Hesperides, who guard a garden with golden apples on the western edge of the earth, once presented by Gaia-Earth to the goddess Hera during her marriage to Zeus

Ora- goddesses of parts of the day, seasons and periods of human life.

Charites- the goddess of grace, fun and joy of life. There are three of them - Aglaya ("Glee"), Euphrosyne ("Joy") and Thalia ("Abundance"). A number of Greek writers have charites with other names. In ancient Rome, they corresponded graces

Chaos, Gaia, Uranus. Chaos was born first in the Universe. No one can say what it is or what it looked like. It was a black haze, similar to an open huge mouth (even the name Chaos itself comes from the Greek word meaning "yawn"). All the beginnings of the future world were mixed in it: earth and water, air and fire. Chaos was followed by Gaia - the Earth, a gloomy underground abyss - Tartarus and the most beautiful among all the gods - Eros (Love), the power of which drives everything in the Universe and to which not only people and animals are subject, but also the immortal gods themselves.

From Chaos, black Night and gloomy Darkness - Erebus, were born, which then, having entered into marriage, gave birth to Ether, in which the immortal gods live, and the shining Day - Hemera. Gaia-Earth also produced offspring. First of all, she gave birth to Uranus, the starry Sky, which was equal to her in its boundless breadth, then - nymphs, forest goddesses, and finally - Pontus, a noisy boundless sea.

Gaia's husband was Uranus. The Earth was spread wide, mighty, giving life to everything, the mountains born of the Earth proudly rose to the Sky. Uranus looked tenderly at Gaia: and drops of life-giving rain fell from the sky to the earth - and she gave birth to flowers, trees, animals and birds. From the rain, rivers began to flow, and all the depressions were filled with water, forming lakes.

Three generations of giants. Soon Gaia and Uranus had three children. But not to the joy of their parents, they were born: after all, they turned out to be terrible monsters - giants, as high as a mountain, each had fifty heads and a hundred hands (that's why they called them hekatoncheirs - "hundred-armed"). Uranus looked at his children and was afraid of their exorbitant strength. He imprisoned them in the bowels of the Earth, in depth and darkness, and did not allow them to come out into the light. Earth-Gaia shuddered under their weight, but did not dare to argue with her husband.

Then three more children were born to Uranus and Gaia, but they were not much better than the first. True, they had one head, two hands, but they were also giants, and one eye burned fiercely in their foreheads. They called them Cyclopes, and Uranus dealt with them, as with their brothers.

Finally, the third generation of children of Uranus and Gaia was born, which was later called the Titans. Uranus and Gaia had six titan sons - Oceanus, Coy, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus and the most terrible of them, the youngest of the titans - the cunning Kronos; in addition to sons, six Titanide daughters were born - Fairy, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Tethys and Phoebe. All of them, like the Hecatoncheirs and Cyclopes before them, were imprisoned in Tartarus.

Titan giants and their children. Gaia suffered cruelly from the weight of her own children, imprisoned in her bowels; she began to persuade her children-titans to rebel against their father and deprive him of power. All the titans were afraid of an evil deed, and only the cunning and treacherous Kronos agreed to this. Watching for his father, he mutilated him with a blow of a sickle and thereby deprived him of all his strength and power. Since then, the children of Uranus and Gaia, who stretched out their hand to the wicked cause, have been called titans, having formed this word from the Greek verb meaning "stretch." And from the blood of Uranus, which spilled onto the earth, the terrible goddesses of vengeance Erinia and mighty snake-footed giants were born.

So the power in the world was acquired by the titans. Soon they had many children, among whom were Helios-Sun, and Selene-Moon, and ruddy Eos-Dawn, and many others. Little by little order was established in the world. The young sun shone above the earth, heavy rains fell from the clouds, and the grass became even greener; in the dark spaces of the night the stars shone, and when they paled, the birds greeted the dawn with a friendly song.

Rhea gives Kron a stone,
wrapped in diapers.

Kronos became the ruler of the world. But he had no peace: after all, he gained power in an unrighteous way, cursed his bleeding Uranus and therefore was afraid that one of his children would do with him the same way he did with his father. He decided to destroy his children: as soon as his daughter or son was born, he ordered the child to be brought to him and swallowed it. So he devoured three daughters, Hestia, Demeter and Hera, and two sons, Hades and Poseidon.

Birth of Zeus. When another son, Zeus, was born, it became a pity for the goddess Rhea, his mother, to give the baby to be eaten by her father, and, on the advice of the Earth-Gaia, she gave Kronos a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes; Kronos swallowed it and did not notice anything. And Gaia-Earth hid little Zeus on the island of Crete, in a deep cave on Mount Ida, where he grew up secretly from his father. Little Zeus was cared for by nymph goddesses, they fed him honey and watered him with the milk of the wonderful goat Amalthea. Zeus later thanked her for this by taking her to heaven and making her the constellation Capricorn. In addition, one of the horns of Amalthea was turned by him into a cornucopia, which, at the request of its owner, can give any food and drink.

Zeus returns sisters and brothers. The golden cradle of little Zeus hung on a tree so that Kronos could not notice him either on earth, or in heaven, or in the sea. She was surrounded by Rhea's servants, the curets; if the child began to cry, then they hit the shields with spears and performed a noisy dance so that the cry would not reach Kronos.

So many years have passed. Zeus grew up, matured and decided to return the sisters and brothers swallowed by Kronos to the world in order to take revenge on his father with them. On the advice of the daughter of the Ocean of Metis (Wisdom), he imperceptibly mixed salt and mustard into the honey drink that Kronos drank, so that he immediately spewed out first a stone that replaced Zeus, then his two brothers - Poseidon and Hades, finally, three sisters - Hera, Demeter and Hestia. Therefore, they said about Hestia that she was born both the first of the children of Kronos, and the last - after all, Rhea gave birth to her first and Kronos vomited the last.

The struggle of the children of Kronos with the titans. All the children of Kronos were safe and sound and in gratitude offered Zeus to lead their fight against the titans. Thus began the terrible war of the Kronids (children of Kronos) and the titan gods, which lasted ten years. Neither one nor the other could win: their forces were equal. Then Gaia gave Zeus advice to bring to her side the terrible allies imprisoned in the bowels of the Earth, the hecatoncheirs and the cyclops (after all, Kronos, having deprived his father of power, brought only the titans out of Tartarus). Zeus, having obeyed the foremother of all living, went to Tartarus. Having freed the prisoners, Zeus gave them a taste of nectar and ambrosia - the food of the gods, which supports immortality - and the giants perked up, were filled with strength and took the side of Zeus in the fight.

The nymph Adrastea feeds a small
whom Zeus from the horn of the goat Amalthea.
On the right is Pan.

For the decisive battle, the Cyclopes forged weapons for the god brothers: Hades - an invisibility helmet, Poseidon - a trident, and Zeus - thunder and lightning. The gods fortified themselves on the top of Mount Olympus. The titans moved towards her. The boundless sea roared terribly, the earth groaned, even the wide sky shuddered, the great Olympus trembled to the foot. Zeus began to throw his thunders and lightnings - the earth hummed from the heat, the flame swirled, the forest caught fire, the waters of the ancient gray Ocean boiled. The hundred-armed giants broke off pieces of rocks and threw them at the titans, three hundred stones at a time, so that the stones eclipsed the sunlight. The noise from the battle was such that it seemed as if the sky had fallen on the earth and broken it into innumerable pieces.

Finally, the titans were defeated and imprisoned in the gloomy Tartarus, the gates of which Zeus set to guard the hecatoncheirs. There, in the underground darkness, they were supposed to stay forever.

The fate of Atlas and the Cyclopes. One titan Atlas, who was the leader of their troops in battle, received a different punishment. The gods placed him in the extreme west of the world, where he holds the vault of heaven on his shoulders. As for the Cyclopes, the allies of Zeus, dangerous with their ferocious, uncontrollable power, they were removed away from the sunlight. Zeus placed them in an underground forge, where they were supposed to forge his formidable weapon for him.

The war with the titans was the first of Zeus's battles for dominion over the world. Ahead he had two more terrible battles - with the giants and with Typhon.

Battle with giants. The role of Hercules The first to attack the gods were the giants, the children of Gaia, born from the blood of Uranus, outraged that their titan brothers were imprisoned in Tartarus. Each of them was huge and terrible, they were all long-bearded and had writhing snake bodies instead of legs.

From the tops of the mountains on which they lived, they showered the sky with huge stones and burning tree trunks, and at first their terrible onslaught even pressed the gods. Unlike the titans, the giants were mortal, but only a man could strike them. The gods had to turn to the mortal hero Hercules for help. Gaia found out about this and decided to protect her children from the arrows of Hercules with the help of magic herb. However, she failed to find the grass - Zeus found out about her intentions and forbade Eos, Helios and Selene to appear in the sky. The world was covered with darkness, and in this darkness Zeus himself found the right grass and cut it, depriving the giants of the hope of victory.

The battle took place in the homeland of the giants, on the Phlegrean fields in Greece. However, the arrows of Hercules at first did not deliver victory to the gods. The giant Alcyoneus, who was slain by him, fell to the ground, immediately jumped up and rushed into battle with renewed vigor. Then it became clear to the gods that native land that gives them strength, giants cannot be struck to death. Athena found a way out: Hercules dragged the giants slain by the gods outside the Phlegrean fields and there finished off with his club. So the giants were defeated.

Ancient Greek culture and religion left a huge imprint on the whole future European civilization. If you look closely, we still largely live in the atmosphere Greek myths and think in Greek terms. For example, in the solar system there is a giant planet called Uranus. And they named her so in honor of ancient greek god sky. It will be discussed below.

Uranus is a god who in Ancient Hellas personified the vault of heaven. He was the son and at the same time the husband of Gaia, the goddess of the earth. Together they gave birth to countless creatures and populated the world with them. Uranus is the god who belongs to the oldest generation gods of Greece. He was the father of the titans themselves and, as one source says, the first began to rule the entire universe. That is, once he was the supreme deity. According to Hesiod, together with Gaia, Uranus gave birth to mountains, nymphs, cyclops, titans and giants with hundreds of hands. Being so prolific, Uranus nevertheless did not differ in love for his offspring and hid them in the womb of Gaia, that is, in tartar, the bowels of the earth. This ultimately played a bad joke on him.

Loss of power

Gaia suffered greatly from the behavior of her husband in relation to their offspring. To ease her pain, one of the sons of Gaia named Kronos rebelled against his father and castrated him with a sickle. From the blood, which at the same time spilled onto the ground, erinia appeared. And from the one that poured into the sea, there was Aphrodite. So he lost control of the world and Uranus faded into the background. The god of heaven from that moment ceded power over the universe to Kronos.

Origins of the cult

The cult of the sky god is one of the oldest. Therefore, it is no coincidence that it is also present in Greece. The sky god Uranus in this sense is the development of a more archaic image, which, according to many experts, was also the source of the Vedic deity Varuna. We are talking about some kind of Proto-Indo-European god, who was worshiped by our ancestors. It would be useful to note that in the most ancient civilizations known to us, for example in Babylon and Sumer, it was the heavenly deity that played the supreme role. Uranus is the god who inherited this place, although he lost some of his position. So, in Greece, although he was revered, he was not singled out with special worship. As a matter of fact, not a single temple or sanctuary of Uranus has been found to date, as well as its ancient images. Obviously, the Greeks did not betray him of great importance, nevertheless noting in their myths that he had once played a more significant role.