One of the best encapsulations of early
Greek myth and it's source material as a whole:
http://www.timelessmyths.com/classical/creation.html Theogony of Hesiod
Obscure Creation Myths
Hesiod was a Boeotian poet of either the 8th or 7th century BC, who is believed by many to flourish not long after Homer. Hesiod had written two poems, Works and Days and the Theogony. Both works can actually be combined to form an adequate Creation myth, though I had mostly relied on the Theogony.
The Theogony begins with Chaos and end with Zeus' reign, and it included the tale of Titanomachia, which is the war between the Titans and the Olympians. You will also find the about Prometheus and the Deluge.
It is in Works and Days, where you would find Hesiod's account of the Five Ages of Man, as well as the myth of Prometheus and Pandora. Prometheus stealing fire is also found in the other poem.
Below is the myth of Creation, where I have relied mainly on Hesiod's version, but my other sources included Apollodorus' Library and Ovid's Metamorphoses, to supplement Hesiod's myth.
Beginning
War in Heaven and on Earth
Typhon
Rise of the Olympians
Underworld, see House of Hades
Five Ages of Man
Saviour of Mankind
Deluge
Beginning
Before the beginning of the universe, there was nothing in existence until Chaos came into being. Who or what was Chaos was, the Greeks not really made clear. The Greeks usually associated Chaos as a male entity. Chaos could be personification of the abyss or void, a formless confusion.
Out of the void, came Nyx ("Night") and Erebus ("Darkness"). Also from Chaos - Eros ("Love"), Gaea ("Earth") and Tartarus came into being. It was Eros that made it possible for propagation between two beings – to produce offspring.
By her brother Erebus, Nyx became mother of Aether ("Upper Air") and Hemera ("Day"). This was the first sexual union. By herself, Nyx became mother of several abstract personifications: Thanatos ("Death"), Moros ("Doom"), Hypnos ("Sleep"), the Fates or Moerae and Nemesis.
Gaea, by herself, bore Uranus (Sky), Ourea (Mountains) and Pontus (Sea).
Gaea mated with her son Pontus and she became mother of two ancient sea-gods, Nereus and Phorcys, as well as Thaumas, Eurybia, and the sea monster Ceto.
Gaea married her other son, Uranus, and he became ruler of the universe. Gaea became the mother of the Titans, Hecatoncheires (Hundred-Handed) and Cyclops ("Wheel-eyed"). The birth of their children resulted in a war by the gods that lasted for generation.
Works written by Hesiod:
Theogony.
Works and Days.
The Iliad was written by Homer.
Library was written by Apollodorus.
War in Heaven and on Earth
Uranus
Uranus became ruler of the universe after marrying his mother, Gaea. Uranus was the father of the three giant creatures with hundred hands and fifty heads, Briareus, Cottus and Gyges. These giants were known as the Hecatoncheires (Hundred-Handed). They were monstrous in size and strength. They were so ugly that Uranus hid them within their mother's body. Uranus probably did the same to his other three offspring known as the Cyclops. The Cyclopes were also giants, with a single eye in their foreheads. The three Cyclopes were named Arges, Brontes and Steropes. Imprisoning the six gigantic creatures within her body caused Gaea a great deal of pain.
The Titans were also his offspring, but they were smaller in size and fairer in looks. Unlike their ugly brethren they weren't imprisoned. Gaea was furious at the treatment of her earlier sons, so she appealed to her son, Cronus, youngest of the Titans, to overthrow her husband and his father.
At night, when Uranus was about to lay with his mother-wife (Gaea), Cronus castrated his father with an adamantine sickle and threw his father's genitals into the sea, near the island of Cythera. The Giants, Erinyes (Furies) and Meliae were born from the blood that fell on the ground, thereby impregnating her (Gaea). The Olympians would later fight the Giants, aided by the hero Heracles.
In the sea, the water began foaming around the severed genitals of Uranus. This foams drifted across vast distant of sea, before it reached the isle of Cyprus. From the foaming sea, Aphrodite, goddess of love, divinely beautiful and naked, sprang into being, already as fully grown young woman.
Waiting on the shore of Cyprus, Eros (Love) and Himerus (Desire) waited to greet her. The other gods paid honour to her. Aphrodite would later become the member of the Olympians, even though she was technically not an Olympian.
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Cronus and the Titans
Cronus succeeded his father as ruler of the universe, and became leader of the Titans. He shared the earth with his brothers and sisters. Cronus married his sister, Rhea, his consort. It was during his reign that he created mankind, and ruled during the Golden Age.
Cronus however did not release his brothers, the Hundred-Handed and the Cyclops, from Tartarus. The whole purpose that Gaea instructed Cronus and the Titans to revolt against Uranus' rule was to release her other sons from Tartarus. Instead, Cronus had the monster Campe to guard the Hundred Handed and the Cyclopes, to prevent their escape from Tartarus.
This caused his mother to become angry with her son that she announced that Cronus would be in turn, be overthrown by his own son, like when Cronus overthrew his father.
Cronus tried to avoid this fate, by swallowing each child that his sister-wife (Rhea) gave birth to. The usual story is that, he swallowed all his children except his youngest Zeus. Rhea realising she would lose all of her children, gave her husband a stone wrapped in swaddling cloth. The unsuspecting Cronus swallowed the stone.
Rhea hid the infant Zeus in Crete, where he was brought up by nymphs and the Curetes. According to some, Zeus was born in Crete, while others say that his birthplace was in Arcadia, but he was hidden from his father at Crete. His home was in the cave of either Mount Ida or Mount Dicte. The infant Zeus was fed from the milk of the goat Amalthea. The Curetes were Cretan spirits or daimones, and were usually described and depicted as youths. The Curetes danced war-dance, clashing their spears against their shields so that Zeus' cries were drowned out by their noise. This part of myth may actually be of pre-Hellenic origin from Minoan Crete.
When Zeus had grown, he married one of daughters of the Titans (the Oceanids), Oceanus and Tethys, named Metis. From Gaea, he received a drug that would make Cronus disgorged the five older children that Cronus had swallowed. Metis gave Cronus the emetic, where he vomited up Zeus' brothers and sisters.
War broke out between the Titans against the younger gods known as the Olympians, led by Zeus. This war was known as the Titanomachia.
Zeus and his brothers required aids, since they were outnumbered. None of the female Titans (Titanesses) took part in the war. Of all the sons of Uranus and Gaea, Oceanus had chosen to remain neutral. When Zeus calls upon the younger Titans to help him, the first to change side was the Styx, the eldest daughter of Oceanus and Tethys. Styx came to Zeus with her children: Bia (violence), Cratus (strength), Nike (victory) and Zelus (emulation). For this reason, Zeus honoured her above the other gods, and gave special places to her children.
Prometheus and Epimetheus, the sons of Titan Iapetus and the Oceanid Clymene or Asia, had also defected to the Olympians, because Prometheus knew that the Zeus and his brothers would eventually win. Prometheus unsuccessfully tried to persuade his father Iapetus and his eldest brother, Atlas, to change side.
Gaea advise Zeus that her other children, the Cyclopes and the Hundred-Handed would help him if he was to release them from their dungeons in Tartarus. So Zeus descended the netherworld and killed the guard, Campe, and released the prisoners.
The Cyclopes became known as master smiths and as master builders. The Cyclops was responsible for making several weapons for the younger gods: Thunderbolt for Zeus, the Trident for Poseidon, and the Cap of Invisibility for Hades.
Victory was ensured when Zeus also released the Hundred-Handed. Because there were three Hundred-Handed and each giant had a hundred hands, they could hurl 300 large boulders at the Titans.
The war last for ten years before the Olympians won, and most of the male Titans were imprisoned in Tartarus, the deepest region in the Underworld. Zeus set the Hundred-Handed to guard the Titans. The Cyclopes or their descendants worked in the forge of Hephaestus.
There was a special punishment for Atlas. In Libya, the western part of North Africa, Atlas had carried the weight of the sky upon his shoulders, for countless centuries.
Theogony and Works and Days were written by Hesiod.
Titanomachy was part of the Epic Cycle.
The Iliad was written by Homer.
Library was written by Apollodorus.
Argonautica was written by Apollonius of Rhodes.
Contents
Uranus
Cronus and the Titans
