Most of you know all about the Olympians, and may even have a bit of knowledge about the Titans, but Greek mythology doesn’t start there. It starts one generation back with the primordial gods, or the elementals. The first of the Greek gods was Chaos. Nothing else existed but Chaos. All of creation was just an empty void.

Chaos created love which allowed for order to begin. From love came the day and the night. Eros, which was the god of Love; Tartarus, the god of the Underworld; Erebus, the god of darkness; and Gaea, the earth appeared. Now remember, these aren’t humanoid gods like the Olympians. Gaea was the goddess of the earth, but she WAS the earth. Erebus WAS darkness, Tartarus WAS the region of the Underworld known as Tartarus. They didn’t look like people.

Gaea gave birth to Uranus who then became her mate. They had three sets of children. The giants, the Cyclopes, and the Titans. The titans were more humanoid. But Uranus was a terrible father. He tried to take the children from Gaea and imprison them. So she plotted with the Titans against Uranus. Gaea gave Cronus, the youngest of the Titans, a flint and a sickle to use against his father. Cronus fought Uranus and castrated him. His nether bits fell into the ocean and from their blood sprang the furies, from the foam came Aphrodite.

Cronus became the next ruler. He threw the giants and the Cyclopes into Tartarus and married his sister Rhea. Together, they had six children, but Cronus was afraid that one day his children would rise up against him like he rose up against his father, so he ate every single one of the children except for the youngest. Rhea tricked him and gave him a stone instead.

That child was Zeus.

Because Cronus ruled the earth and the sky, Zeus had to be suspended from the ground by a rope so he was never fully in either realm. He grew up this way and when the time was right, went against his father to avenge his siblings.

He managed to trick Cronus into drinking a potion that made him vomit up Zeus’ siblings. These children were Hera, Poseidon, Hades, Hestia, and Demeter. Zeus also freed the giants and the Cyclopes. Together, they fought Cronus and most of the remaining Titans and won and Zeus became god of Olympus.

The titans were sent to Tartarus except for atlas who was given the world on his shoulders as punishment.