Hesiod: The Birth of Greek Mythology

John of Nikiu, as a Christian, attempted to keep Greek mythology by placing the Olympians in history, yet outside of Greece. Hesiod gives us our best understanding of the way the Greeks themselves believed about their g-ds before the advent of Christianity. I have read both M. L. West's translation for Oxford World's Classics and Richard Lattimore's translation for University of Michigan Press; I will be referencing the former unless noted.

Hesiod lived in the central Greek region of Boeotia (largest city Thebes) around the year 700 BCE. He gives biographical details about himself in his Works and Days, although there is not necessarily anymore belief that he is an individual writer than about Homer. It is most likely that whether the poems attributed to Hesiod were actually written by him or not, he was part of an oral tradition of mythical poetry that had existed for several generations. For our purposes, his Theogony is the poem to start Greek mythology with, meaning the "Birth of the G-ds" and fulfilling that title. It is important to realize that by the end of Hesiod's career, there existed a significant corpus of mythological literature for the Greeks, including the Theogony and a sequel no longer extent called the Catalog of Women, documenting the adventures of the heroes and their mothers who had consorted with the g-ds, as well as the Homeric cycle of Trojan War epic, and numerous smaller poems. Also remember that the Greek tradition, by this time, incorporated some elements of Egyptian and Mesopotamian religion.

Hesiod's purpose is to give a genealogy of the Greek g-ds. In his introduction, Hesiod claims inspiration from the Muses who can "tell many lies that sound like truth" (line 27) or "sing reality" (28), indicating that he will be telling the true version of these events, while acknowledging that not everyone agrees. For Hesiod, in the beginning was Chasm, or Chaos, or Void. Out of this, springs certain natural and supernatural phenomena: Gaia—the Earth, Tantaros—the Underworld, Eros—Love, Erebos—Darkness, and Night. After the appearance of Eros, sexual reproduction became possible: first Erebos and Night begat Aither—the Air, and Hemera—the Day (in case you don't look at the picture linked for Night, Erebos was the father and Night the mother). Later Night (alone now, Hesiod says), bears Moros—Doom, Ker—End (Lattimore), Death, Sleep, the Dreams, Momos—Cavil, Oizys—Misery, the Hesperides "who mind fair golden apples…and the trees that bear that fruit" (216), the Moiroi—the Fates, Nemesis—Resentment, Deceit, Intimacy, Old Age, and Eris—Strife. Eris, in turn, brought Toil, Neglect, Starvation, Pain, Battles, Combats, Bloodshed, Slaughter, Quarrels, Lies, Pretenses, Arguments, Disorder, Disaster, and Oath.

Gaia then gave birth to further natural phenomena: Uranus—the Heaven, Mountains, Mountain Nymphs, and Pontus—the Sea. After this, she mated with Uranus, and they had the twelve Titans and other gigantic monsters. Though Uranus is in the third generation from the beginning, he is still considered, in a sense, the first king of the universe. As such, he is jealous of power and fears his children will overcome him; thus, he suppresses them, displeasing his mother/wife. Cronus, the youngest Titan (or just a giant Semite if you ask John!), volunteered to help his mother punish his father, and "reached out from the ambush with his left hand; with his right he took the huge sickle with its long row of sharp teeth and quickly cut off his father's genitals, and flung them behind him to fly where they might" (173-183). The blood fertilized the Earth (or Gaia, as there is no distinction) to produce the Erinyes—the Furies, more Giants, and the Meliai—the Nymphs of Ash Trees. In addition, "a white foam grew from the immortal flesh, and in it a girl formed…And out stepped a modest and beautiful g[-]ddess…call[ed]…Aphrodite, because she was formed in foam" (191-196). Unlike in some versions of myth where Eros is a son of Aphrodite, Hesiod has him and Himeros—Desire—attending her.

Pontus had Nereus, one of the "old m[e]n" (234) of the sea. With Gaia, Pontus fathered more children. Further generations from these children include Iris—the Rainbow, Harpies, Gorgons, Pegasus, sea monsters, not-sea monsters, including the Sphinx and many who were defeated by Heracles. Two Titans, Oceanus and Tethys, were also aquatic: they had the Rivers and Ocean Nymphs (Oceanids). One such Ocean Nymph, Doris, married Nereus and they had fifty daughters, the Sea Nymphs (Nereids).

Two other Titans, Hyperion and Thea, begat Helios—the Sun, Selene—the Moon, and Eos—the Dawn. Eos bore the Winds and Stars to Astraeus, a son of the Titan Kreios. Koios and Phoebe, another two Titans, married and had Leto. The Titan Iapetos and Ocean Nymph Clymene had four sons, including Atlas, Prometheus, and Epimetheus, who later wed Pandora the first mortal woman.

Cronus, the leading Titan and second overall ruler, married his sister Rhea, and inherited the behavior of his father, as his parents warned him that "it was fated for him to be defeated by his own child" (464-465); Uranus, apparently, bore no grudge. He swallowed his eldest five children as they were born: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon. Rhea, feeling as her mother did, received help from their parents in tricking Cronus into swallowing a stone instead of Zeus when her youngest was born. Thus, Zeus was raised clandestinely in Crete, until he was of age to, with aid from Gaia, induce the vomiting up of his siblings, with the stone put at the site that will be the Delphic oracle. Zeus released the monstrous brothers of the Titans, who proved decisive themselves and with their gift of lightning in the long battle Zeus and his partisans fought for supremacy against the Titans. In time, the Titans – or some of them, anyway – were locked in Tartarus.

Zeus, thus, became the third king of the g-ds. He retained dominion over the celestial, or heavenly, realm, while allotting water to his brother Poseidon, and the underworld to his brother Hades. Theoretically, the earth was held in common, but Zeus had superiority, Poseidon's powers include "earth shaking" (e.g. 456), and earthly matters were considered chthonic like Hades' subearthly realm was.

Zeus was not yet destined to be the last king. He took as his first wife Metis, an Ocean Nymph; Gaia and Uranus gave warning to Zeus as they had his father that his second child with Metis would be a son who would overthrow him, but this time they also give him the appropriate means to forestall this destiny. Hence, Zeus swallowed a pregnant Metis – who becomes his conscience, more or less – and Athena is "born" from Zeus' head. Next he married Themis, a Titan, and they have the Horai – the Seasons, Lawfulness, Justice, and Peace, as well as a reference to the Fates (who were already born of Night). Eurynome, a sister of Metis, became his third wife, and together they had the three Graces. Then Zeus mated with his own sister, Demeter, to have Persephone, who was later stolen by Hades to become Queen of the Underworld. His fifth wife was Mnemosyne – Memory – another Titan, who gave birth to the nine Muses. Leto was his next wife, who bore the twins Artemis and Apollo. Zeus' final wife, according to Hesiod, was Hera, and their children were Hebe, Ares, and Eileithyia. Although, chronologically, it appears that Hera was not yet with Zeus when he had Athena, Hesiod considers Hera's parthenogenic – well, not quite if she was already married with children – birth of Hephaestus an act of revenge. Poseidon married the Nereid Amphitrite, and their son was Triton. The poems ends with affairs of Zeus and other g-ds with immortal and mortal women, and the children produced thereof. Presumably, this leads directly into the Catalog of Women, giving the adventure of such children as Heracles.

Just as with Eros, other traditions, including Homer, say that Aphrodite was not born from Uranus' castration, but was the daughter of Zeus and an Ocean Nymph named Dione; Dione is linguistically the feminine equivalent of Zeus, thus indicating their non-Hesiodic union was of very old provenance. Many consider Hepahaestus a son of Zeus as well as Hera, and Homer has him married to Aphrodite, while Hesiod has him married to one of the Graces.

The emphasis on genealogy has parallels in both the literature of the Bible and history. It helps to give some sense of timing to the events, even if the immortality of the figures obscures it. While he sneaks it in with his comments on Pandora, Hesiod does explain the birth of humanity and the human necessity of having to work, and have children to support them in old age.

In a later post, we will see how later writers characterized the three reigns of Uranus, Cronus, and Zeus. For now, it is enough to say that Hesiod characterized a cyclical view of history, but also a sense that the current order was more stable than what had been in the past. It is also important to see from here that the ancient Greeks were pantheistic – they imbued everything, seen and unseen, with a sense of the divine – and this informed the way they saw events during historical times.

A different translation than the ones I used can be found at many locations on the internet, including the Internet Sacred Text Archive.