Myth Topic 4
Myths of Creation
1. Creation of the Gods
a. The gods are part of creation
2. Creation of Mortals
Cosmogony: the origin of the world
Hesiod, Theogony—
origin of the gods
an elaborate hymn to Zeus
Four PRIMAL ELEMENTS
Chaos (Abyss)
Erebos (darkness) Nyx (“Night”)
--
beget Aether, radiance and Hemera,
“Day”
Gaia (Gaea) — “Earth”
Tartaros — below earth
Eros — sexual love
CHILDREN OF GAIA
Titans
Cyclopes
Hecatonchires, “Hundred handers”
(asexually):
Ouranos (Uranus, “Heaven / Sky”),
Mountains, Pontus (“Sea”)
(with Ouranos):
Titans: Cronos (last born) Rheia,
etc.
Oceanus (world river)
Cyclopes
Ouranos
(lines 155 ff.)
Gaia makes a sickle, Cronos agrees
SKY separated from EARTH
Blood and guts:
Erinyes, “Furies” and Giants
His junk—thrown into the sea, white and foamy
Monsters:
(of Gaia and Pontus? Lineage unclear)
Animal/human
reinterpretations of Eastern and Egyptian (beneficial) creatures
Ceto
Cerberos
CRONOS as new
king of the Titans
prophecy, to be overthrown
Children with Sister/wife Rheia:
Olympians:
Hestia, Demeter, Hera, (Hades), Poseidon, and ZEUS [Aphrodite]
(next generation Olympians:
Apollo, Artemis, Athena, Hephaestus, Ares, Hermes)
Cronos eats
Children
Rheia gives him a swaddled
rock
throws up kids
Zeus on Mt Olympos:
the Olympians (except Hades)
Titanomachy
feeds his supporters ambrosia and nector
Cast and imprison Titans in Tartaros
Atlas (Titan or giant)
Gaia births Typhoios / Typhon
Battle—buried in the ground—Mt Etna
Series of Succession myths –
(primal human fear?)
Overthrow of Zeus?
First “wife”—Metis “cleverness”
Zeus eats her
Athena springs fully formed from his head
Virgin, Warrior, Wisdom
Zeus (Sky), Poseidon (sea) Hades (under earth)
Earth and Olympus are common ground
Creation: Not at all like Judeo-Christian event
Active personified elements, culminating in fully anthropomorphic gods
SIMILARITIES to Eastern Myths of Creation
Babylonian Enuma elish
Apsu and Tiamat (fresh and salt waters)
beget mud/earth/slime/lome
creation as a process, and a war
Younger generation overthrows
Ovid’s (Roman) Retelling
Metamorphoses, 1.1-89
“some god, or superior nature settled this
conflict” (21)
Rolls the earth into the shape of a great sphere (35)
Culminates in the creation of humans (78ff)
First Hebrew Creation account
—omnipotent single God,
outside of creation
But creation is a process of separation:
watery chaos becomes heaven and earth
Light is brought into darkness
Culminates in creation of humans
