Titanic Beginnings
The creation of the world according to Greek mythology
Content warnings: childbirth, incest, castration, body horror
At first, all there was was a silent, howling void called Khaos. There was no time, no matter, no universe, simply Khaos.
From the roiling emptiness began to emerge elementals, the beginnings of the world personified. First came Phanes, resplendent and beautiful, their golden wings stretching from their back and a large serpent coiling smoothly around them. Phanes, life itself, ushered in the others; next helping the largely incorporeal Thesis, creation incarnate, and Hydros, elemental water, into being from the depths of Khaos. Mud emerged with them but Hydros removed the water from it, creating Gaia, the earth.
Alongside these elemental deities came still more primordials. Both the personification and goddess of the night, Nyx took Phanes’ hand and stepped into the unfolding universe. The shadows curling around her formed wings behind her, speckling with stars as they stretched for the first time, revealing her dark, starry robes and hair. Next into the world came Tartarus, the abyss of the underworld, accompanied by his brother, Erebus. Erebus, pure darkness, wrapped himself around Tartarus as they both cringed from the light from the world coming into being.
The churning waters of Hydros joined with Gaia, producing two children. It was only now that Chronos, time, and his sister Ananke, necessity and inevitability, were born, intertwining their serpentine forms around the universe and pulling it into motion.
Nyx found Erebus wrapped around his primordial brother and coupled with him. Their union brought two more children into the universe. These were Aether, the pure upper air of the gods and the personification of light, and his sister Hemera, the day incarnate, bringing pure daylight to the previously dark world. These two became consorts and produced Thalassa, the body and surface of the sea.
Both Nyx and Gaia had children on their own; Nyx had countless sons and daughters alone, while Gaia brought two sons onto the world. One was Pontus, the sea himself, splashing down and filling the basin of the earth. The other was Ouranos, the sky, stretching from and encompassing her in a gentle caress.
With the world now settling, glorious and freshly made, Gaia and Ouranos had twelve more children together; these were the Titans, coming forth from their primordial parents to rule the world below them.
First came five boys: Oceanus, the great river that encircled the earth, Koios, the god of intellect, Krios, the god of constellations, Hyperion, god of heavenly light, and Iapetus, god of mortality. After them came their six sisters, Theia, goddess of sight, Rhea, goddess of motherhood and fertility, Themis, goddess of justice, Mnemosyne, goddess of memory, Phoebe, goddess of intellect and prophecy, and Tethys, goddess of freshwater. These children were followed by Kronos, the pair’s final Titan son and god of the harvest.
It was after Kronos’ birth that Gaia and Ouranos decided that they would produce no more Titans. They did, however, have still more sons.
The Hecatoncheires were born, named Cottus, Aegaeon and Gyges. They each had one hundred hands and fifty heads to control the stormy weather in Greece. The Cyclopes were also born to Gaia and Ouranos, each being giants with a large, circular eye in their forehead; the Cyclopes’ names were Brontes, Steropes and Arges.
Ouranos, fearing their strength and power, locked the Hecatoncheires and Cyclopes away in Tartarus, in the depths of their mother earth. This infuriated Gaia who, in her rage at her sons’ imprisonment and the pain it caused her, crafted a flint sickle and turned to her Titan children to help her to overthrow their father. Each in turn refused until at last she reached her youngest, her son Kronos. He had grown into a strong young man with sharp, perceptive black eyes, a black beard and mid-length black hair. Kronos listened to his mother’s plan and, unlike his other Titan siblings, agreed to help her, taking the flint sickle and agreeing on the details of his attack.
As planned, Gaia waited for Ouranos to come to her. He did, as he always did, and Kronos lay in wait, patiently looking for his opportunity. When he saw it he struck, castrating his father and throwing the remnants from the window and into the ocean. Writhing in his pain, Ouranos grasped his son and gave him a prophetic warning; just as he, Ouranos, was suffering now, Kronos would eventually also be overthrown by one of his children.
Fearing his father’s words but victorious nonetheless, Kronos seized Ouranos’ throne and placed his siblings in positions of power alongside him. The Hecatoncheires and Cyclopes, however, were just as feared by Kronos as they were by Ouranos, so he kept them imprisoned in Tartarus as Ouranos had.
Meanwhile, far out in the foaming water where Ouranos’ genitalia had landed, the water bubbled and frothed, birthing a naked Aphrodite from the depths. She emerged out of the ocean and onto the shore, not a Titan herself but the daughter of one, goddess of love and beauty.