The Greek Gods

Podcast Transcript

The ancient Greeks had a polytheistic religion and a pantheon of gods.

They didn’t just have many gods; they had a LOT of gods. Gods that ruled over many different aspects of human endeavor and the natural world.

These gods had a mythology that bound them up together in a very dysfunctional and often disturbing family tree.

You’re probably familiar with some of them, but others are pretty obscure.

Learn more about the Greek gods and their mythology on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

I’ve been working on doing some episodes on the religion and gods of several different ancient civilizations, including the Egyptians, Babylonians, Norse, Romans, and Greeks.

I figured I’d start by focusing on the Greeks because, alongside the Romans, most people are familiar with them, and there are many references to the Greek gods in Western culture.

There is no way I can go through every single Greek god, so what I hope to do in this episode is go over the major gods and their mythology. Given the sheer number of gods, that means I’m going to be leaving some of them out.

I should also provide fair warning that many of the stories of the gods while being totally mythological, are pretty disturbing. The stories of the Greek gods are a cross between a soap opera and a horror movie. There are some adult themes in these stories, and while I’ll try to soften the language, the mythology is what it is.

So, with that, we have to start with the primordial deities. These were the very first gods that existed at the beginning of the cosmos.

It started with the entity known as Chaos. Chaos was the void or formless state from which everything emerged.

Chaos, like most of the other primordial deities, was a personification of abstraction and wasn’t worshiped like other gods.

From Chaos sprang the other primordial gods.

First was Gaia, who was Earth, the first solid entity and mother of many.

The third primordial god was Tartarus, the deep abyss, both a place and a deity.

Fourth was Eros, the primordial force of attraction, not to be confused with the Olympian Eros of the same name.

Fifth was Erebus, the personification of darkness, followed by Nyx, the personification of night.

From this family tree, I’m going to focus on the descendants of Gaia, from which the most interesting and important gods come.

Gaia, by herself, with no father because gods can do that, gave birth to Uranus, the personification of the sky, Pontus, the personification of the sea, and Ourea, the personification of the mountains.

Uranus was not only her son but also became her husband…..I warned you this was going to be like a disturbing soap opera.

Together, they created the second generation of Greek gods, which were known as the Titans….. as well as some other deformed offspring that they literally threw into the cellar.

There were twelve Titans who were the offspring of Gaia and Uranus.

The leader of the Titans and the youngest was Cronus, the god of time.

The next was Rhea, the Titaness of fertility who later became the wife of Cronus.

Third was Oceanus, the Titan of the world-encircling river.

Fourth was Tethys, the Titaness of fresh water, who became the wife of Oceanus.

Fifth was Hyperion, the Titan of light.

Sixth was Theia, the Titaness of sight and vision and the wife of Hyperion.

The children of Hyperion and Theia were Helios, god of the Sun, Selene, goddess of the Moon, and Eos, god of the dawn.

The seventh Titan was Coeus, the Titan of intellect.

Eighth was Phoebe, the Titaness of prophecy and the wife of Coeus.

The children of Coeus and Phoebe were Leto and Asteria. Leto became the mother of Apollo and Artemis.

The ninth was Iapetus, the Titan of mortality.

The tenth was Themis, the Titaness of divine law and order.

Eleventh was Mnemosyne: Titaness of memory.

…and the final Titan was Crius, the Titan associated with constellations.

Collectively, the Titans were known as the Titanomachy.

I also mentioned that Uranus and Gaia had some children they threw into the cellar.

They had three Cyclopes, which were giant one-eyed craftsmen.

They also had three Hecatoncheires. The Hecatoncheires were three giant beings in Greek mythology with a hundred hands and fifty heads, known for their immense strength.

Evidently, when Gaia and Uranus were making children, they ordered way too many hands and heads and not enough torsos.

Uranus so hated the Hecatoncheires and the Cyclopses that he had them thrown into the abyss, Tartarus.

The Titans overthrew the primordial gods when Cronus led a rebellion against his father, Uranus.

With Gaia’s help, Cronus ambushed Uranus and castrated him with a sickle Gaia made with a substance called adamant, seizing power and establishing the rule of the Titans.

After Cronus castrated Uranus, the severed genitals fell into the sea, creating a white foam from which Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, was born. Meanwhile, from Uranus’ spilled blood, Gaia gave birth to the Furies, the Giants, and the Meliae, who were the nymphs of the ash trees.

Uranus, however, gave a prophecy to Cronus that he, too, would be overthrown by one of his own children.

The Golden Age of the Greek gods refers to the period of Titan rule under Cronus, following his overthrow of Uranus. It was considered an era of peace, prosperity, and abundance, where humans lived in harmony with nature, free from toil, suffering, or aging. According to Greek mythology, mortals did not need to farm or work, as the earth provided everything they needed, and there were no wars or conflicts

Cronus married his sister, Rhea. Together, they had five children: Demeter, Hestia, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon.

Because Cronus feared his children usurping him, immediately after each child was born, he ate them….which, to be fair, would technically solve that problem.

Why Rhea continued to have children after the father ate the first one is not explained in mythology, but having more children, she did.

After five children, she sought out the help of Gaia. Together, they devised a plan to get back at Cronus for what he did to his father and his children.

She gave birth to a sixth child, but this time, she fled to the isle of Crete, where she gave birth to Zeus away from Cronus.

When Cronus came looking for the baby to eat, Rhea gave him a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes. The stone became known as the Omphalos.

Cronus asked Rhea to nurse the child one last time before he ate it, and she pressed the stone against her breast. The milk that came out became the Milky Way.

Having successfully deceived Cronus, and Cronus not knowing the difference between a rock and a child, Zeus was raised in secret.

Zeus was hidden away, raised by nymphs, and protected by the Curetes, warrior figures who clashed their weapons to drown out his cries. In some tales, the nymph Amalthea—either as a goat or a caretaker—nursed him, and a divine eagle brought him nectar and ambrosia.

Gaia, still resentful of Cronus for imprisoning her monstrous children in some versions of the story, supported Zeus’s survival, seeing him as a tool to end Titan’s rule.

Once grown, Zeus returned to challenge Cronus. His first move was to liberate his swallowed siblings, who remained alive but trapped inside their father’s belly.

I’m not an expert on the physiology of Greek gods, but I’m guessing having five living children in your stomach for that long would eventually cause problems.

To do this, Zeus needed help. In some versions, he partnered with Metis, his first wife and the daughter of Oceanus and Tethys, who provided him with a special potion. In other versions of the story, Gaia or Rhea supplied the mixture. Zeus tricked Cronus into drinking it—perhaps disguised as wine—causing him to vomit violently.

First, Cronus spewed up the stone, which landed at Delphi and became a sacred relic. Then came the siblings in reverse order of their swallowing: Poseidon, Hades, Hera, Demeter, and Hestia. Now freed, these gods—grateful and vengeful—joined Zeus, forming the nucleus of the Olympian rebellion. They declared war on Cronus and the Titans.

Of Zeus’s regurgitated siblings:

Poseidon became the God of the sea, earthquakes, and horses.

Demeter became the Goddess of agriculture and the harvest.

Hera became the Queen of the gods, the goddess of marriage and childbirth, and became Zeus’ wife.

Hestia became the Goddess of the hearth and home.

Hades became the God of the underworld and the dead.

Zeus and his siblings, minus Hades, who had no concern for such events, recruited several more gods to challenge Cronus.

Here, I should note that Zeus….really got around. While he was married to Hera, he didn’t limit himself to her. He had children with many other goddesses and even mortals, many of whom would be punished by a jealous Hera.

The gods he recruited for his rebellions came from his primary children.

The others were the aforementioned Aphrodite.

Athena, the Goddess of wisdom, whom he sired without his wife after eating the head of Metis.

Artemis, Goddess of the hunt.

Her brother Apollo, God of the sun.

His child with Hera, Ares, the God of war and violence.

Hephaestus, the God of fire and blacksmithing and the son of Hera and Zeus.

And finally, Hermes, the messenger of the gods and the son of Zeus and the nymph Maia.

These gods became known as the Olympians, named after their base on Mount Olympus, the highest peak in Greece.

Cronus rallied most of the Titans to defend their reign, basing themselves on Mount Othrys in central Greece.

Zeus, however, had a trick up his sleeve. Zeus descended into Tartarus, where Cronus had imprisoned Gaia’s monstrous offspring from Uranus.

He freed the three Cyclopes and the three Hecatoncheires in exchange for their loyalty.

The cyclopes forged weapons. Zeus’s thunderbolts, Poseidon’s trident, and Hades’s helm of invisibility.

The Hecatoncheires, the hundred-handed, fifty-headed giants, provided their raw power would prove decisive.

The war against the Titans lasted ten years, a cosmic clash that shook the universe. The Greek poet Hesiod describes it vividly: “The boundless sea roared, the earth resounded, and the heavens trembled.”

After ten grueling years, the Olympians gained the upper hand. The Hecatoncheires’ relentless bombardment and Zeus’s lightning barrage broke the Titans’ resistance. Cronus, once the sickle-wielding usurper, was overpowered and defeated alongside his loyal siblings.

The victorious Olympians cast Cronus and the rebellious Titans into Tartarus, the same abyss where the Cyclopes and Hecatoncheires had been held. In a poetic twist, Zeus appointed the Hecatoncheires as their eternal guards, ensuring no escape. Some Titans, like Oceanus or Rhea, faced lighter fates or remained free due to neutrality or familial ties.

With Cronus deposed, Zeus divided the cosmos among his brothers by drawing lots: Zeus took the sky, becoming king of the gods. Poseidon claimed the sea. Hades ruled the underworld.

If this seems complicated, it kind of is, and it actually gets much more complicated than this once you get into some of the lesser gods and other deities. You’ve also probably noticed that the mythology is sort of messed up and disturbing, with a fair amount of cannibalism and incest.

Yet, these stories were the basis of the of the entire Greek religion.

The Executive Producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The Associate Producers are Austin Oetken and Cameron Kieffer.

Today’s review comes from listener Jamie Pfeffer over on Apple Podcasts in the United States They write.

Tremendous

I adore Everything Everywhere. And I learn something every podcast. Even if the topic is something that I know reasonably well, I still benefit because Gary prepares thoroughly, and he always has an original perspective.

Thanks, Jamie! I’m glad you enjoy the show and that you learn something in every episode. That is why the motto of this show is “learn something new every day.”

Remember, if you leave a review or send me a boostagram, you too can have it read the show.