The Seeds of the Pomegranate

Myths have, in so many civilisations, sought to explain what science could not. As science evolves, so too do myths. For man today ever seeks to understand the world in which he lives, no less than the man of three thousand years ago. One such phenomenon in nature was the changing of the seasons, a thing so critical to man's bond with the land. Here is one such story of how the seasons came into being.

Demeter
Photograph taken by Marie-Lan Nguyen
Sculpture in the Vatican Museums

One of the quieter goddesses, Demeter yet held a honoured position on Mount Olympus. She remained, after all, the sister of Zeus himself, and a daughter of Kronos, greatest of the Titans (for the story of their birth, please click here). Whilst her illustrious brothers reigned at the forefront, diligently watching over the affairs of man and the deeds of heroes, Demeter took a quieter role in the cosmos. For she was the lady of the harvest, to whom all men prayed to grant abundance to their crops. In these most ancient times, the bounty of the Earth was great all year round, as bushels of corn burst forth from the fields each day. There was, however, one thing Demeter treasured above all else. Persephone, her daughter, was renowned throughout the world as a paragon of beauty. Where mother and daughter walked, the sun shone brightly, flowers bloomed, the grasses rippled in the gentle breeze and the maize swelled at their fertile touch. Many gods had sought her favour, but Demeter had refused all suitors to Persephone. One god, more than any other, grazed by Cupid's arrow, was transfixed by her. His cold and dark demeanour could not have been further away from the sun drenched world above. For he was Hades, the god of death and lord of the Underworld, who rued the grisly world gifted to him at the Creation. His divine flesh was tinged with a sickly pallor, deprived of sunlight far below the surface of the Earth, and the light of life was far distant from his eyes. But longingly did he look upon Persephone.

Enna
Photograph taken by Massimiliano Canale

One day, Hades could endure the torment no longer, and came before Zeus, high on Mount Olympus. The Thunderer, surprised to see his brother in the Overworld, was stunned to see the anguish upon Hades' face. The god of the dead bowed before Zeus, and implored him to grant Persephone to him so that she could be his wife. The King of the gods was troubled by this request. For Persephone was also his daughter (incest being an alas regular occurrence in Greek Mythology), and she would never forgive her father for sending her to the dank depths of the Underworld. What was more, Demeter would never allow it, having spurned so many other deities before. Yet Hades was his brother, and he had no wish to offend him. What then, was the King of the gods to do? Torn by his duties, Zeus resigned to neutrality, neither granting Hades' wish, nor denying it, sending his brother away while he deliberated. Time passed, and the lord of the dead grew restless in his black abode. If Zeus had not forbidden it, then he must be allowed to, he thought. His patience gone at last, Hades resolved to take Persephone himself.

Hades seizes Persephone
Painting by Nicolò dell'Abate

Meanwhile, far above on the golden meadows of Sicily, Persephone and her handmaidens were dancing in the rolling fields. Revelling in the summer bloom, the goddesses were picking flowers near Enna, for a magnificent garland. Just then, Persephone noticed the particularly vibrant petals of a narcissus. Leaning over, she clasped the flower. As her soft fingers closed around the stem, a deafening roar shook the Earth. The goddesses screamed and jumped back in fear, for before them a vast fissure had torn the Earth asunder, a pit to the black abyss. Bursting forth from within came the god of the dead himself, in all his deathly glory, on a mighty chariot pulled by four towering black steeds. With a strength belying his ghostly complexion, Hades seized Persephone by the waist and took her into his chariot. With a crack of the whip, the god made haste, and hurtled back to the blackness of the abyss, as the handmaidens looked on, paralysed with shock and terror. The gaping maw of the chasm pulled shut with a roar, and the gateway between this world and the nether world sealed. Where once there was song, only silence prevailed.


Demeter, as yet unaware of Persephone's fate, called out to her daughter. When no reply came, she called again and again. Confused, and worried, the lady of the harvest looked, but did not find. Soon her worry turned to fear, as she could find her nowhere. Across the land she frantically searched, but no trace of her was to be found. For nine days the goddess searched, oblivious to hunger and fatigue. Distraught, soon Demeter found Persephone's belt, lying where she had been seized.


  " When she saw the gate-keepers fled, the house unguarded,
     the rusted hinges, the overthrown doorposts, and the miserable state
     of the silent halls, pausing not to look again at the disaster,
     she rent her garment and tore away the shattered corn-ears along with her hair.
     She could not weep nor speak nor breathe and a trembling
     shook the very marrow of her bones; her faltering steps tottered... "
                              - THE GRIEF OF DEMETER


Weeping, and angry, soon she neglected her duties as goddess of the harvest. Crops failed throughout the land. The grass withered and dried, green became brown, and maize became empty husks.  Wherever she trod, desert spread. Soon cattle, stricken with famine, collapsed in the barren fields. Mankind began to suffer too. Starving, soon people felt death's stricken hand drag them down to the House of Hades. The other gods came to Demeter and begged her to release the world from the deadly grip it was now locked in. But their pleas fell upon deaf ears, for Demeter thought only of  finding Persephone. Crying with frustration, Zeus ordered Hermes, the messenger of the gods, to travel down to Hades' realm, and release Persephone from the dark god's grip.

The Abduction of Persephone
Photograph taken by Steffen Heilfort

Meanwhile, deep in the depths of the Underworld, Persephone lay, a sad and melancholic shadow of her former self. Hades tried in vain to bring her round, and reconcile her with her new life, showing her the wealth that lay below the ground. The god of the dead held a large banquet to celebrate their wedding. Just as Persephone, resigned to her torment, placed her hand upon a pomegranate before her, a blinding light flashed throughout the darkness. Hermes appeared, in all his divine glory, commanding Hades to release his new bride. The dark god dared not disobey a direct order from Olympus, and reluctantly set her free, but with an odd indifference. Puzzled by the ease with which Hades handed her over, Hermes nevertheless took flight upon his winged sandals, bearing the new Queen of the Dead high to Olympus' lofty heights.

The Return of Persephone
Painting by Frederic Leighton

A storm of cheers raised the heights of the Divine Mountain as Persephone tentatively stepped into the banqueting hall, with the array of gods enthroned before her. With a cry of exultation, Demeter threw herself forward and embraced her daughter, tears of joy rolling down her fair cheek. All seemed well at last. The rains came, the drought subsided, and the crops grew plentiful once more. But then, at the moment of triumph, came forth the god Ascalaphus. A servant of Hades, who yearned for favour from his dark master, Ascalaphus, with a look of savage pleasure on his face, informed the assembled crowd that since Persephone had eaten the food of the Underworld, she was forbidden to leave it. The joy broke to silence. Jolted to the very core, Zeus realised he was right. The laws of the Fates were absolute, for it was indeed the law that any who took the food or drink of the Underworld was condemned to spend an eternity there. Persephone broke down in tears, for in her absent minded grief, she had eaten four seeds from the pomegranate at Hades' table. Demeter rounded on Ascalaphus in fury, and in her anger turned him into an owl, and he was forever banished from the domain of the gods. Pleading at the feet of Zeus, she begged the Thunderer for help. The gods debated long into the night. If the Fates were defied, the cosmos would be overturned in Chaos. But if Persephone could not be free, man would, for a second time, be hurled headlong into the grasp of death.

Dawn arrived. Demeter came before Zeus, awaiting his verdict with terror. Torn by inner conflict, the Thunderer decreed that since Persephone had eaten four seeds of the pomegranate, for four months of the year she would dwell with Hades in the Underworld. For the remaining eight, however, she was free to return to the Earth. So ever after, for much of the year the world was bathed in light and burdened under the fruits of the trees. As Persephone's time in Hades approached, Demeter grew sad again, and the land turned a shade of brown, and leaves began to fall from the trees, bringing Autumn. When Persephone descended to the Underworld, Demeter's grief was absolute, and the world was shrouded in white, and ice spread her glittering sheets across the land, bearing Winter. So the comings and goings of the seasons were born...

 United Kingdom

The Library of Mythology:
Apollodorus - The Library of Greek Mythology
(A vast collection of the myths of old Greece, written in ancient times, and a great intro)

The Theogony:
Hesiod - Theogony and Works and Days
(A tale of the beginning of the world, and the creation of the gods, briefly mentioning this story)

The Rape of Proserpina:
Claudian - The Rape of Proserpina
(Here is a link to a poetic retelling of the story, for the adventurous!)


United States

The Library of Mythology:
Apollodorus - The Library of Greek Mythology
(A vast collection of the myths of old Greece, written in ancient times, and a great intro)

The Theogony:
Hesiod - Theogony and Works and Days
(A tale of the beginning of the world, and the creation of the gods, briefly mentioning this story)

The Rape of Proserpina:
Claudian - The Rape of Proserpina
(Here is a link to a poetic retelling of the story, for the adventurous!)

The Curse of Lycaon

Though thought of primarily as born of modern horror and medieval superstitions, the werewolf is in fact a far older creation. Indeed, in the lore of ancient Greece, it is a part of the creation. Not so long ago I wrote of the story of the Titan Prometheus, and his ceaseless struggle for the betterment of the lot of humanity (to find it quickly, please click here). The Titan, at great personal cost, gave to man ingenuity, craft and fire. But the struggle for the balance between men and gods was far from over. Indeed, it had barely begun. Enraged by the Titan's audacity, Zeus the Thunderer, King of the gods, determined to exact terrible retribution upon mankind for their complicity in accepting the forbidden secrets of the gods.

The Golden Race
Painting by Lucas Cranach.

The race of men crafted by the Titan Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus were not the first people to inhabit the Earth, but the third, known as the Bronze Race. In the earliest times of the cosmos, the first race of men were the Golden Race. Living under the rule of the Titans, with Kronos as their supreme deity and King, men "lived like gods, with carefree heart, remote from toil and misery". This was an age without suffering or sin, an age of bliss, an age of unending bounty upon the Earth. Men did not have to work the land to sustain themselves, as the land itself burst forth with the fruit and crop of the Earth. Mankind harvested the land at his leisure, and their bodies did not grow old. A time before the creation of women, the Golden Race eventually passed into sleep, with only their spirits left walking the Earth. After the younger gods cast the Titans from the Heavens into the depths of Tartarus (for this story, please click here), Zeus created a new line, the Silver Race. These people however, were nothing of their forebears in spirit. Cruel and selfish beyond imagining, there were no limits to their crimes. When their trespasses distracted these men from the honour they owed to the gods, in a fit of rage Zeus hurled them all into the depths of Tartarus, the land of fire and ash within which all evil souls are bound.

Hermes bears Pandora to Epimetheus
Painting by Jean Alaux.

Disheartened by the failure of the Silver Race, Zeus turned to Prometheus and Epimetheus to furnish the Bronze Race (this they did, and their story is told here). With the chaining of Prometheus to endless torture for his spurning of the gods in favour of man, Zeus turned his vengeance upon man. Summoning all the gods of Olympus, Zeus ordered Hephaestus to forge a human shape, and all the goddesses to furnish it with charm and scheming thought. Their creation was the first woman, named Pandora (meaning "All gift", symbolising the hand each divinity had played in her creation), conceived as the truest curse of man. The gods brought Pandora before Epimetheus, offering her as a wife to him. Promtheus warned his brother not accept any gifts from Zeus, but Epimetheus had ever lacked his brother's wits. Welcoming her in and accepting her, Epimetheus and Pandora wed. Epimetheus however, possessed a jar, a spoil taken from the House of the gods by Prometheus, which contained "harsh toil and the grievous sicknesses that are deadly to men". Epimetheus forbade Pandora to open it.The gods knew very well, however, that the very curiosity that Prometheus had fused into the minds of humans would conquer her sense of obedience. One day, her curiosity afire, she unstoppered the jar, and to her horror, all evils rushed forth from the darkness within, unleashed upon the world. Grief, war, malice, hate, plague, death: all these things stormed forth as a pestilence upon the world of men. Panicking, Pandora closed the jar, trapping only a single thing within it which had not yet escaped - Hope.

Lycaon becomes the wolf
Engraving by Hendrick Goltzius.

The Bronze Race ever after was corrupted by the curses of Pandora, and were the first to work bronze, crafting great weapons and engines of war. Reduced to new levels of savagery by their wretched state, Zeus once again grew displeased with man. Assuming the shape of a man, Zeus came down to the Earth and walked among men. Seeing their cruelty all around, he one night came to the palace of Lycaon, the King of Arcadia. Giving a sign that a god had come, some people bowed in reverence, but not all. That night, as the King of the gods slept in his palace, no thoughts of piety were in the mind of Lycaon. Deigning to test the god's immortality, Lycaon considered murdering the god as he slept. His blade however, did not pierce the sleeping god. Lycaon therefore struck down one of the men who showed reverence to Zeus and ordered the servants to prepare him as though a roast boar. The next day when Zeus came to the banquet, the servants placed the meat before the god and Lycaon. Lycaon eagerly devoured his meal, but at once the omniscience of Zeus saw through the deception. The slaying of a guest was one of the gravest of crimes, second only to tasting the flesh of man. In his divine fury, the Thunderer hurled lightning to and fro. The palace crumbled under his rage, and Zeus turned his wrath upon Lycaon's fifty sons, slaying them all with thunderbolts. Lycaon fled in terror to the countryside, but Zeus placed a curse upon him:

             " He tried to speak, but his voice broke into an echoing howl.

               His ravening soul infected his jaws;

               His murderous longings were turned on the cattle;

               Still possessed of bloodlust was he.

               His garments now were as a shaggy coat, and his arms as legs "

                                    - ZEUS PLACES THE CURSE OF LYCANTHROPY UPON LYCAON

His fury mounting, Zeus sent a great deluge upon the Earth. Torrential rains battered the gound and churned the seas, as the oceans rose to swallow the land. All but the mightiest pinnacles were claimed by the stormy seas, and all but two humans perished under the violent ocean. Prometheus, distraught at the fate of his progeny, spurned Zeus one last time. Calling to his son Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha, he warned them of the coming flood, and ordered them to built a craft to keep them afloat. The waters eventually subsided and the craft was set down atop Mount Parnassus, and the two humans emerged. Giving a sacrifice to Zeus, begging his mercy, they got it. Remembering that not all humans had refused him reverence, Zeus was filled with guilt at what he had done. Sending the Titaness Themis to the humans, he bade her restore the human race. Themis instructed Deucalion and Pyrrha to walk along the beach, casting stones over their shoulders without looking back. Wherever a stone cast by Deucalion hit the sand, the stone became a man; wherever Pyrrha hurled a stone, the stone became a woman. This was the Heroic Race, the heirs to the Bronze Race. From this progeny would be born all the greatest heroes of legend, from Perseus to Achilles, and all who would be joined in war before the Gates of Troy...

A powerful episode in the saga of Creation, the story of Pandora and Lycaon marks the birth of the transition from the Age of the gods to the Age of man. From here on in, the line between god and man would be increasingly blurred, until the climactic Trojan War, which saw the human sons of gods march to war with each other, as their parents do in the skies above. What of Lycaon? Perhaps the first werewolf to appear in Western legend, his great legacy was to give his own name to his affliction. For his name became the word in Greek for wolf (lycos), and the term used to describe the condition by which a man becomes a wolf is known today as lycanthropy, from the Greek lycos and anthropos - 'Wolf' and 'Man'. The story is present in various guises in ancient lore, all readily available at a nominal price from Amazon:

United Kingdom

The Story of Lycaon:
Metamorphoses: A New Verse Translation (Penguin Classics)
(A powerful telling crafted through poetry)

The Story of the Ages of Man:
Theogony and Works and Days (Oxford World's Classics)
(Found in Works and Days, a lyrical and easy to read account)

The Story of Pandora and Lycaon:
The Library of Greek Mythology (Oxford World's Classics)
(A Roman epic poem, which recounts the story of Lycaon and his affliction)

United States

The Story of Lycaon:
Metamorphoses (Penguin Classics)
(A powerful telling crafted through poetry)

The Story of the Ages of Man:
Hesiod and Theognis (Penguin Classics): Theogony, Works and Days, and Elegies
(Found in Works and Days, a lyrical and easy to read account)

The Story of Pandora and Lycaon:
The Library of Greek Mythology (Oxford World's Classics)
(A Roman epic poem, which recounts the story of Lycaon and his affliction)

Prometheus

Though ultimately the protectors of mankind, the gods are also its masters. Though capable of care and affection towards humanity, they are quick to punish men and women who attempt to rise above their servitude – and those who aid them in such action. Just one such being who fell foul of divine authority was Prometheus, one of the Titans of Greek lore. Powerful, wily and cunning, Prometheus laboured tirelessly to improve the lot in life of his greatest creation – mankind – in defiance of Zeus himself, and paid the price in the form of ageless torture.

Atlas
Sculpture in New York City, by Lee Lawrie.

Born a grandson of Earth and Sky and a cousin of Kronos, unlike many of his brethren, Prometheus sided with the younger gods in the War of the Titans (to read the story of this, please click here), and lent his strength to Zeus. One of four sons of the Titan Iapetus, Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus were to be the champions of mankind, though Epimetheus lacked his brother’s sound reasoning. Of the two remaining brothers, the most powerful was the Titan Atlas, famous for his punishment for siding with the Titans, when Zeus ordered him to bear the unbounding weight of the Heavens on his shoulders for eternity. The last brother, Menoetius, joined Atlas in the Titanomachy, but was struck by one of the thunderbolts of Zeus and cast into Tartarus.

At the creation of the beings which would populate the world, the gods fashioned their forms from clay, and ordered Prometheus and Epimetheus to furnish all the animals with unique qualities. Over eager, Epimetheus convinced Prometheus to allow him to do the deed, and won over the Titan to his plan. Epimetheus then turned to the animals and contrived to make all beings equal, so that the powers of one beast would be laid low by another. To some he distributed thick hides to protect from winter’s chill, to others terrible claws to cause other beasts to fear them, to other hooves to swiften their movements across the world. But not possessed of his brother’s wisdom, Epimetheus soon realised that he had used up all of the defining traits on his animals, and possessed nothing to give to men, “for while the other animals were all very carefully provided for, humankind was naked, shoeless, without bedding and defenceless”. Realising his brother’s mistakes, Prometheus considered the problem for a while. Deciding to make man the blessed race, Prometheus crept into the House of the gods, and stole the ingenuity of Athena and the crafts of Hephaestus, and imparted them into man, so that they would employ their mastery over the elements to overcome the weakness of their form.



Prometheus Bound
Sculpture by Nicolas-Sébastien Adam.

Angered by the Titan’s daring, the gods wished man to acknowledge divine superiority, and held council to discuss how man would honour them. Carving up a great bull, they decided which portions should be burned and gifted to the gods, and which would be retained and eaten by man. Determined that the gods would receive the better half, that is the delicious meats and finest innards, and that man should be humiliated by accepting the bones, gristle and fat, Zeus ordered Prometheus to give him the rightful portion. But the Titan was cunning. He divided the carcass into two piles, one was fat and bones, yet covered with the thinnest layer of fine meat, whilst the other pile contained all the finest parts of the animal, yet covered by the animal’s unsightly stomach. Prometheus came before the King of the gods and asked him to choose which he would like. Confused, the Thunderer replied:



                  “ 'Son of Iapetus, outstanding among all the lords,

                     My good sir, how unfairly you have divided the portions'.

                    So chided Zeus, whose designs do not fail. But crooked schemer Prometheus,
                    smiling quietly and intent on deceit, said to him,

                    'Zeus greatest and most glorious of the eternal fathers, choose then

                    whichever of them the spirit in your breast bids you'. ”

                                      - PROMETHEUS DECEIVES ZEUS

Selecting the more enticing portion crowned with rich meat, in his fury Zeus saw the Titan’s trick. Ever since, whenever men sacrificed, the bones and fat were burned on the altar, and the finest meats were eaten. In his rage, Zeus hid from man the secrets of fire, and cursed them to endure the cold forever.

But Prometheus cared for men. He defied the King of the gods once more, sneaking into the House of the gods, he took a spark from their fire and, concealing it within the pith of a fennel, came down to Earth and granted the secrets of fire to men. Spying the far-beaconing flares of fire among mankind, Zeus was enraged. Ordering Prometheus to be taken to the far flung edge of the world, he ordered the gods to:

                 “ Nail him to the rock; secure him on this towering summit

                   Fast in the unyielding grip of adamantine chains.

                   It was your treasure he stole, the flowery splendour

                   Of all-fashioning fire, and gave to men – an offence

                   Intolerable to the gods, for which he must now suffer,

                   Till he be taught to accept the sovereignty of Zeus.”

                                         - PROMETHEUS IS CONDEMNED

The Torture of Prometheus
Painting by Jean-Louis-Cesar Lair.

Not only this, but Zeus commanded a great eagle to torment Prometheus, to every day peck out his liver. Every night, the Titan’s liver would regrow, and every day the bird would devour it anew, for eternity. As for man, Zeus devised a punishment for their acceptance of forbidden gifts. He ordered Hephaestus to mix earth and water and to imbue it with human voice and strength, and model its form upon those of the immortal goddesses. Athena he ordered to teach this new creation the crafts of weaving and faculty of scheming, and Aphrodite the secrets of charm. The creation he named Pandora, meaning ‘All gift’, as all the denizens of Olympus had had a hand in its creation. For Pandora was the first woman, and from Pandora was descended the female gender, conceived on Olympus as the ultimate curse of man, dooming them at once to lives of servitude and misguided obsession. Prometheus looked on in despair from his mountainous prison, bemoaning his fate, until the day when he will be released from his shackles...

The story of Prometheus is an important, yet oft forgotten, chapter of the creation of man in Greek legend. His role as patron of mankind, and punishment for it, moved the minds of great thinkers and artists of the Renaissance and beyond, just as the stoicism of his brother Atlas did too. Perhaps Prometheus was one of the first tragic heroes? The story of Prometheus is mentioned throughout the Classical corpus, the most enduring excerpts however, are to be found in readily available texts on Amazon:

United Kingdom

His Role in the Creation of Man:
Protagoras and Meno (Penguin Classics)
(A philosophical text, though containing the story of Prometheus and Epimetheus in Protagoras 320d)

His Trickery and the Creation of Pandora:
Theogony and Works and Days (Oxford World's Classics)
(Nice and readable, mentioned in both the Theogony and Works and Days)

His Punishment:
Prometheus Bound and Other Plays: The Suppliants; Seven Against Thebes; The Persians (Classics)
(A sympathetic treatment of the Titan, short and readable)

United States

His Role in the Creation of Man:
Protagoras and Meno (Penguin Classics)
(A philosophical text, though containing the story of Prometheus and Epimetheus in Protagoras 320d)

His Trickery and the Creation of Pandora:
Theogony and Works and Days (Oxford World's Classics)
(Nice and readable, mentioned in both the Theogony and Works and Days)

His Punishment:
Prometheus Bound and Other Plays: Prometheus Bound, The Suppliants, Seven Against Thebes, The Persian (Penguin Classics)
(A sympathetic treatment of the Titan, short and readable)

The War of the Titans

We start with a story which probably captured your imagination as a small child, it certainly did mine. We go to the earliest myths of Greece, those of the birth of the gods of Olympus and their defeat of the Titans and ascension to mastery of the Heavens. ‘Where is this stuff written?’ is a question I am often asked. It is all in a short poem called the Theogony (The birth of the gods). As far as Creation myths are concerned, this one is truly awe inspiring. Its words tell of the birth of the original creation of the Earth and Sky from Chaos (a Greek word meaning ‘The Chasm’, which did not acquire the meaning of confusion and disorder until more recent ages).

The War of the Titans
Painting by Rubens

The union of Earth and Sky gave birth to Night and Day, Air and Ocean, Nymph and Titan. The youngest of the Titans, Kronos, was then born. A ‘crooked schemer and the most fearsome of children’, Kronos hated his father for his immoral passions and lay ever in wait to take his place as Master of the Cosmos. His chance soon came, when Earth gave birth to the Cyclopes and three monstrous sons. They were known as the Hecatonchires, fearsome Giants who had a hundred arms and fifty heads, and ‘Strength boundless and powerful was on their mighty form’. Sky despised them and hurled them into the Underworld, devoid of light. Earth was displeased with the treatment of her offspring, and appealed to her others to help her. Kronos alone rose and swore to punish Sky. He did just that. One day he ambushed Sky and severed his manhood, which fell to the Ocean and gave birth to Aphrodite, the goddess of lust. Kronos now stood triumphant, and the Titans were now supreme. Night then gave birth to Doom, Fate, Sleep, Death, Jeer, Misery, Resentment, Deceit, Old Age, Intimacy, Strife, Toil, Neglect, Starvation, Pain, Battle, Combat, Bloodshed, Slaughter, Quarrels, Lies, Pretence, Argument, Disorder, Disaster, Oath and accursed Old Age. In short, the Cosmos became polluted with the things which destroy goodness.

Then came the gods and goddesses that we know. Kronos had by his sister Rhea five offspring:

                  " Hestia, Demeter, and gold sandalled Hera,

Mighty Hades who lives under the Earth,

Merciless of heart, and Poseidon the booming Shaker of Earth,

And Zeus the resourceful, father of gods and men,

Under whose Thunder the broad Earth is shaken. "
 
                                        - THE CHILDREN OF KRONOS

But Kronos heard a prophecy that he would be overcome by his own child, so he proceeded to swallow his children to make sure his rule would never end. Rhea, like Earth before her was displeased. When Kronos was about to swallow Zeus, she substituted a great stone in his place, while Zeus was raised in secret on Crete. When Zeus grew up, the War of the Titans (the Titanomachy) began. Zeus made Kronos throw up his siblings, and the stone. The stone was later placed on the Earth at Delphi, to mark the very centre of the cosmos (which is still represented at Delphi today).

The War reached its tenth year and was brutally destructive, yet no side had the advantage. Zeus went to the Underworld and offered the Giants freedom from their chains if they would side with him. They agreed, and the Cyclopes forged thunderbolts for Zeus, and the Hecatonchires were unleashed upon the Titans:

" Both sides displayed a feat of main force; and the boundless sea roared terribly round about, the Earth crashed loudly, and the broad sky quaked and groaned. Long Olympus was shaken to its foundations by the onrush of the immortals..."

                                                             - THE WAR OF THE TITANS IS BEGUN

The Titans were overpowered by the Giants and the lightning from Zeus. The younger gods hurled the Titans down to Tartarus, the deepest and darkest part of the Underworld, and sealed them behind gates of Adamantine. So deep below the Earth was Tartarus, one could drop a bronze anvil from the Earth’s surface, and it would fall for nine days and reach Tartarus on the tenth. But Earth was displeased that Zeus had imprisoned her brood. Two terrible monster gods were born to her – Echidna and Typhon. From their union, all the famous beasts of Greek myth were created – the fifty (Not three) headed canine guardian of the Underworld Cerberus, the baleful Hydra, the monstrous hybrid that was the Chimaera, the savage Lion of Nemea, the deceitful Sphinx and the demonic hound Orthus. These creatures would roam the Earth terrorising man, until great heroes would conquer them.

Mount Etna, under which Typhon was imprisoned by Zeus.
Photograph by Josep Renalias

Typhon himself was a fearsome beast, the greatest and most lethal monster in Greek mythology, with a hundred snake heads which spat fire so hot that the very Earth itself began to melt. So tall was he that his shoulders reached the stars, and his roar was so intense that all the gods but Zeus fled in panic. Zeus began a titanic battle with Typhon, which shook the Cosmos so severely that even the Titans down in Tartarus quaked in fear. Zeus launched a thunderbolt at each of Typhon's heads and hurled Mount Etna at the monster, pinning him under the Earth (The Greeks believed the eruptions of Etna to be fits of Typhon's rage, when he tries to break free, covering the land in fiery lava).

The victorious gods divided the Cosmos between them, Zeus became the King of the Gods and lord of thunder, Poseidon was given the Seas and Hades was given the Underworld to rule. So the current order was established, and the Olympians became the Masters of Heaven. A fascinating story is it not? This is the very foundation of Classical Greek mythology and identity, apart from a great story. Inspiring stuff, which forged the common links between all Greeks in a time where there was no Greece, only warring city states.

The Theogony is a short, quite readable poem and available extremely cheaply at Amazon:

United Kingdom

Penguin Classics:
Hesiod and Theognis (Classics)
(Slightly academic, but not dull)

Oxford World's Classics:
Theogony and Works and Days (Oxford World's Classics)
(Nice and readable)

Loeb Classical Library:
Hesiod: Theogony, Works and Days, Testimonia: v. 1 (Loeb Classical Library)
(For something a bit special, including the original Greek text alongside)

United States

Penguin Classics:
Hesiod and Theognis (Penguin Classics): Theogony, Works and Days, and Elegies
(Slightly academic, but not dull)

Oxford World's Classics:
Theogony and Works and Days (Oxford World's Classics)
(Nice and readable)

Loeb Classical Library:
Hesiod: Volume I, Theogony. Works and Days. Testimonia (Loeb Classical Library No. 57N) (v. 1)
(for something a bit special, including the original Greek text alongside)