1 The tales of Gaea and Cronus

the tale of Gaea

Gaea was the Ancient Greek personification of the Earth, and, for all intents and purposes, the Mother of Everything Beautiful in the world. Born spontaneously – either out of Nothingness.

First, she and Uranus gave birth to eighteen children. The first twelve of them were the Titans: six females (Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Tethys), and six males (Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus, and Cronus). Next, she bore the three Cyclopes (Brontes, Steropes, and Arges), and, finally, the three Hecatoncheires (Cottus, Briareos, and Gyges).

Afterward, Gaea mated with Pontus and brought into being five more children: Nereus, Thaumas, Phorcys, Ceto, and Eurybia.

Uranus, the Sky, hated his children; so much so, in fact, that he pushed each of them back into the Earth (the womb of their mother) at the very moment of birth. After a while, devastated by grief and pain, Gaea fashioned an adamantine sickle and asked her children to help her oust Uranus from power.

Cronus – who despised his father – was the only one who wasn't afraid to agree to her plan and, following Gaea's advice, he hid at a different place in her womb and lay there in waiting for a chance to attack Uranus.

The blood which spurted out of Uranus' wound sprinkled Gaea and impregnated her with many more children: the three Erinnyes (or Fates), the numerous Gigantes (or Giants) and the even more numerous Meliads (the Nymphs of the Ash Trees).

After a brief period of harmony and bliss, Cronus started ruling the world the same way his father had ruled it before him: brutally and autocratically. Alarmed by a prophecy and fearing a rebellion, he imprisoned his brothers, the Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires, in Tartarus, and swallowed all but the youngest of his six children. The child – who will grow to become Zeus – was saved thanks to the shrewd advice which Gaea gave to Rhea, Cronus' wife: to replace it with a stone.

However, even after successfully freeing his brothers and his sisters, Zeus was unable to overthrow Cronus – at least not until Gaea advised him to free the Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires from Tartarus and form an alliance with them. This did the trick: after ten years, the Olympians finally won the war against the Titans (the Titanomachy), and Zeus became the third ruler of the gods.

Zeus' supreme power was challenged several times; the most serious two of these challenges were orchestrated by his grandmother, Gaea.

Even at his tyrannical worst, Zeus was a far better ruler than his predecessors; however, this mattered not in the slightest to Gaea, since Zeus too dared to imprison some of her children. In his case, naturally, the prisoners were the Titans, left to rot away in Tartarus.

Consequently, Gaea summoned the best of the rest, the Gigantes, and commanded them to get rid of Zeus. That's how the Gigantomachy started, a war which lasted for a long period, but which, nevertheless, ended with the Olympians prevailing and Zeus cementing his power.

The defeat enraged Gaea. Angered, she gave birth to one of the most fearsome creatures in all of Greek mythology: the fire-breathing dragon Typhoeus, the father of all monsters. Typhoeus was such a formidable opponent that he managed to singlehandedly fight off almost all Olympians (including Zeus), before Zeus' lightning bolts finally overwhelmed him.

After Typhoeus' demise, Gaea conceded defeat and accepted Zeus as the supreme leader of all gods. To prove her allegiance, she warned her grandson that the child his first wife (Metis) was pregnant with, was destined to overthrow him. Years later, Gaea attended Zeus' wedding with his seventh – and final – wife, Hera, and gifted the Queen of Olympus the golden apples of the Hesperides.

Gaea was the Ancient Greek personification of the Earth, and, for all intents and purposes, the Mother of Everything Beautiful in the world. Born spontaneously – either out of Nothingness.

Afterward, Gaea mated with Pontus and brought into being five more children: Nereus, Thaumas, Phorcys, Ceto, and Eurybia.

Zeus' supreme power was challenged several times; the most serious two of these challenges were orchestrated by his grandmother, Gaea.

the tale of Cronus

Cronus was the youngest son of Uranus and Gaea, the leader of the first generation of Titans, and, for a brief period, the ruler of all gods and men. He successfully led the rebellion against his father, but soon grew as tyrannical as him, imprisoning both the Cyclops and the Hecatoncheires, and swallowing all of his children, save the last son; eventually, this child – Zeus – would be the one to overthrow him and lock him away in Tartarus.Cronus was the son of Uranus and Gaea, the youngest one of the original Twelve Titans. This makes him the brother of five male siblings (Oceanus, Hyperion, Coeus, Crius, and Iapetus) and six Titanides (Mnemosyne, Tethys, Theia, Phoebe, Themis, and Rhea). Cronus eventually married Rhea, with whom he fathered six children: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus.Because his name was often confused with the Greek word for time, Chronos, Cronus was often depicted as Old Father Time, with whom, conveniently, he did share few characteristics: mercilessness, a beard, and a scythe. In fact, in many cases, the two are visually indistinguishable.Cronus played a crucial part in the creation of the known universe – first as a rebel against Uranus, then as the tyrant against whom Zeus led his rebellion.

The story of Cronus begins with the irrational hate-driven decision of his father Uranus (the Sky) to not allow his children (the Cyclopes, the Hecatoncheires, and the Titans) to leave their mother's womb, i.e., the Earth. Grief-stricken and straitened, Gaea devised a crafty little plan, fashioned an adamantine sickle (harpe), and appealed to her offspring for help. "My children," she said, "if you obey me, we should punish the vile outrage of your father." Cronus was the only one not seized by fear.After seizing power, everything seemed all but perfect. Finally freed from her burdens, Gaea was once again blissful and more than generous, producing crops for all human beings of her own accord. Untroubled by toils and hard work, the humans lived carefree and healthy lives, which ended peacefully and only when they were very old. Some say that even the gods themselves walked among the humans during the reign of Cronus. Undoubtedly, this was the Golden Age, the most beautiful of the fabled five ages of man.

However, at some point, Cronus violently and dramatically changed his ways. Fearing rebellion, he imprisoned both the Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires in Tartarus and set the dragoness Campe to guard them. Alarmed by a prophecy saying that he would be overthrown by one of his children, he started swallowing them all, one by oneGaea counseled her daughter to go to Crete, where eventually the Titaness gave birth to a mighty son, Zeus. Prompted by further advice, Rhea left her child there and handed Cronus a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes in place of the supposed baby. Cronus swallowed the stone, unsuspecting of any foul play, and unaware that nymphs are meanwhile raising his eventual overthrower in Crete.

When the time came, disguised as Cronus' cupbearer, Zeus managed to slip his father a vomit-inducing drink (prepared by Metis) in place of his favorite wine. This led to Cronus disgorging all of his children, who subsequently teamed up with the Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires and ousted him from power after a bloody, decade-long war remembered forevermore as the Titanomachy.Deposed from the throne, Cronus either escaped to Latium (modern Lazio) or was imprisoned in Tartarus with the rest of the Titans. Either way, he seems to have reverted to his good old ways, since, in time, he was promoted to be the ruler of the Islands of the Blessed, a heaven-like abode, where the souls of only the greatest heroes lived after their earthly deaths.

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