1. Chapter Four, Lecture One
Myths of Creation
Up to the Birth of Aphrodite; Monsters and Sea Deities

2. “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)

3. The cosmogony is the theogony.
Cosmogony-story that explains origin of world
Theogony-story that explains origin of gods
*Remember there are different and contradictory versions of myths.

5. First gods Hesiod, Theogony 116-125 Chaos = Chasm
Gaea (Earth), Tartarus (no translation)
Mythic geography
Chaos/Topmost
Earth/Middle
Tartarus/Bottommost
Diogenes, The Life of Epicurus
II. And when he had spent some time there, and collected some disciples, he again returned to Athens, in the time of Anaxicrates, and for some time studied philosophy, mingling with the rest of the philosophers; but subsequently, he somehow or other established the school which was called after his name; and he used to say, that he began to study philosophy when he was fourteen years of age; but Apollodorus, the Epicurean, in the first book of his account of the life of Epicurus, says, that he came to the study of philosophy, having conceived a great contempt for the grammarians, because they could not explain to him the statements in Hesiod respecting Chaos.

6. The Beginning of Creation
Classical mythology starts with the creation of the universe
To the Greeks, the universe began with a mystery that sprang from the unknown, from Chaos
Hesiod and Ovid had differing views of creation
Hesiod conceived of Chaos as an enormous
chasm born into darkness
Ovid viewed Chaos as shapeless, mutable matter

7. Gaia

8. The Children of Chaos Is Gaea the mother of all things?
Homeric Myth to Gaea

9. The Children of Chaos Eros Nyx and Erebus (Night and Darkness) Nyx
Force of sexual attraction
Nyx and Erebus (Night and Darkness)
Features of Chaos?
Nyx
Moerae-Fates
Nemesis-Retribution
Eerbus – Nyx
Aether (Radiance)
Hemera (day)

10. Nyx mated with Erebus and produced
1. Hemera (Day) and Aether (upper air)
a. Night and Day dwell in the same house but never share that house together.
2. Moros - doom
3. Thanatos - death
4. Hypnos - sleep

11. 5. Nemesis - goddess of retribution

12. 6. Eris - goddess of strife, bred a host of woes ranging from famine and sorrow to lies and murder
7. The Keres - female death spirits, would be charged with collecting and carrying off the bodies of the dead

13. 8. The Moerae - the fates, would be charged with determining the course of events in mortal lives
a. Clotho - spun the thread of life
b. Lachesis - measured it with a rod
c. Atropos - snipped it with shears ending the life span

14. The Children of Gaea: The Titans and their Cousins
Many beings from the earth
Most important the
Titans
Cyclopes
Hecatonchires

15. 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”)

16. Cyclopes

17. Cyclops, Hecatonchires
Hecatonchires (“hundred-handers”)
Also fifty heads
Cottus, Briareus, Gyes

18. Hecatonchires

19. The Titans
Gaea asexually produced Uranus (Sky), Mountains, Pontus (Sea), Giants, Erinyes (furies)
Gaea + Uranus

20. The Titans Uranus and Gaea in eternal sexual embrace
C.f. Egyptian Nut and Geb

22. Another Version of the Myth
Uranus enveloped Gaia with love and showered her with fertile rain
Gaia gave birth to the rest of the physical world (bodies of water, mountains, flora, fauna, etc.)
12 Titans
1. Two of them (Oceanus and Tethys) continued Creation themselves
2. Their mating produced
a. 3,000 rivers of Earth all of which draw their waters from the mighty stream Oceanus
b. 3,000 Oceanids, ocean goddesses all

23. One of the 3,000 rivers
An Oceanid or sea nymph

24. The Titans
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)

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

26. 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

27. Oceanus and Tethys

28. The Titans Phoebê = “brilliant,” “shinning” Themis = “settled law”
Occupied Delphi before Apollo
Zeus + Themis => Mnemosynê (Memory)
Cronus + Rhea
Parents or grandparents of the Olympians

29. Themis

30. Mnemosynê

31. Hyperion’s Children: Sun, Moon, Sun
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

32. Helius

33. Hyperion’s Children: Sun, Moon, Sun
Phaethon’s fall in art
Phaethon wanted proof of his parentage, so asked Helius if he was truly his father. Helius and confirms and grants his wish to drive the sun chariot. Zeus shoots chariot down and Phaethon dies so he can not destroy the earth.

34. Hyperion’s Children: Sun, Moon, Sun
Selenê and Endymion
Endymion placed in eternal sleep by Zeus
Eos
Tithonus immortal, but not always young
Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 5

35. 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-furies who haunt anyone who sheds kindred blood. (ironic?)
Giants-Earth bound ones

36. Uranus is defeated by Cronus..

37. The Birth of Aphrodite, Monsters and Sea Deities
Aphrodite springs up from the “foam” at Cythera
Monsters-at which you point in surprise
Altered Egyptian and Mesopotamian archetypes:
Harpies, Sirens, Sphinx

38. Aphrodites’s “birth”

39. Harpies

40. Sirens

41. Sphinx

42. The Birth of Aphrodite, Monsters and 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-mother of Achilles)

43. Gorgons

44. Cerberus

45. Chimera

46. Next
Zeus’s battles