Did you know that every aspect of the world in ancient Greece had its own presiding God or spirit? [Music] Hello and welcome to World History Encyclopedia! My name is Kelly, and today's video is all about how the ancient Greeks understood the way their universe came into existence, their creation myth, as given in Hesiod's "Theogony." Don't forget, the easiest way to support us is by giving this video a thumbs up, subscribing to our channel and hitting that bell icon for notifications so you don't miss out on any new uploads. World History Encyclopedia is a non-profit organisation, and you can find us on Patreon - a brilliant site where you can support our work and receive exclusive benefits in return. Your support helps us create videos twice a week, so make sure to check it out via the pop-up in the top corner of the screen or via the Patreon link down below. A cosmogony is a creation myth: a myth that explains how the universe as we know it came into existence and is a type of story found in most, if not all, cultures that have surviving literature. Creation myths explain how the universe began and how the world came to be as it is, and often cultures will have more than one creation myth. The best-known ancient Greek creation myth comes from Hesiod in the 8th Century BCE; the oldest and only complete surviving ancient Greek creation myth, which had a profound influence on the myths that came after him. Hesiod's 'Theogony" not only tells us of the origin of the universe or Cosmos, (the cosmogony) but also provides the theogony: the origin of the gods. As the universe is created, the gods are created, and he includes in his account how the gods were all connected - a huge feat considering myths could change over time, and different regions sometimes had different versions. Hesiod starts his "Theogony" by invoking the muses: the goddesses of poetry, the arts and music. To help him tell the tale of the creation of the universe and after invoking the muses and listing the Olympian gods and the purpose of his poem, introduces the first of the gods and the beginning of creation. "Sing to me these things, Muses who live on Olympus! From the beginning, tell me which gods first came into being! First of all, chaos came into being, then broad-breasted Earth, the ever-safe foundation of all the deathless ones, who live on the peaks of snowy Olympus and shadowy Tartarus in a hiding place of the earth with its wide ways, and Eros, who is the most beautiful of all the deathless gods, who relaxes the limbs and overwhelms the mind and wise counsel in the breasts of all the gods and men." Before there was anything, there was Chaos, not chaos as we would think of it as disorder or confusion, but as an abyss - swirling nothingness, and from this nothingness came Gaia, the Earth; Tartarus, the shadowy depths of the pit below the Underworld, and Eros, sex and the concept of universal love. These gods are primeval or primordial; they existed from the very beginning of time, and they didn't assume physical forms. From the shadowy depths of Chaos spraying Erebus, god of darkness, and Nyx, the goddess of night. Nyx and Erebus together brought forth their opposites. From Darkness came Aether and Hemera, brightness and day. From the pit and the Earth, came Typhon, a horrible monster that would go on with the monster Echidna to have more horrible monster children. Now that we have Earth, love, night and day, from Gaia came Uranus: the starry sky who covered her all around, but she didn't stop at the sky; she bore Ourea, the mountains and the nymphs who lived in the woods; and she bore Pontus, the sea itself. Rather than continue bearing children on her own, Gaia and Uranus united and gave birth to Oceanus, the ocean river from which all rivers flowed and the group of gods known as the Titans. Why they're known as the Titans is unknown, even Hesiod was unsure. From Gaia and Uranus came Coeus and Crius, Hyperion and Iapetus, Thea, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Tethys, and crooked Cronus. Other gods are also considered Titans, but these are the first generation of them. The generation that is more shrouded in mystery than the younger generation. Earth and Sky bore the mighty one-eyed Cyclopes, and the Hecatoncheires, who were 100-armed and 50-headed; truly the most formidable of Sky and Earth's children but were hated along with the Cyclopes by their father from the very beginning, and so the six children were hidden away in the Earth. Gaia, not being too chuffed about her children being hidden inside her, asks one of them to take up the adamant sickle and use it against their father. Only her son Cronus stood up and accepted the challenge, and so after hiding in the bushes, Cronus emerged and castrated Uranus, flinging his removed appendage into the sea. From the blood of Uranus that showered the Earth, came forth the Erinyes or Furies, the goddesses of vengeance; the Gigantes or Giants; and the Meliae, the nymphs of the ash tree. Where the genitals of Uranus hit the sea, it started to churn and from the seafoam arose Kythera, better known as Aphrodite; the Olympian goddess of love. Now, back to one of the first beings. On her own, Nyx brought forth a number of aspects of darkness and night. She bore Ker, or mortal allotment, Moros or doom; Hypnos, the god of sleep; Thanatos, the god of death and the gods of dreams, the Oneroi. Night bore Momos and Oizys, blame and doom; and the Hesperides, the three goddess nymphs of sunset. Nyx also brought forth Nemesis, the goddess of retribution; the Moirai, the three goddesses of fate; Apate, Philotes, Geras and Eris, the gods of deceit, sex, old age and strife. From Strife came forth a whole number of plagues on the earth, including, forgetfulness (lethe), toil (Ponos) and starvation (Limos). From the sea came Nereus, the old man of the sea and with Gaia, the sea begot the deities who were responsible for the wonders and the dangers of the ocean: Thaumus, Phorcys, Ceto and Eurybia. Nereus with the ocean nymph Doris gave birth to 50 goddesses known as the Nereids, including Amphitrite and Thetis, and although Hesiod goes on to list them, I will spare you from that. Not to mention the 25 rivers and 3,000 ocean nymphs or Oceanids, that include Doris, Clymene, Metis and Eurynome, who are the children of Oceanus and Tethys - all of the waters of the world. Thaumas was the father of Iris the goddess of the rainbow, and the messenger of the gods, and Phorcys and Ceto were the parents of many monsters, including the Gorgons, one of which is Medusa, who was the mother of Pegasus, Echidna and the Graiae. Echidna and Typhon had all sorts of monsters and creatures together, including Cerberus, the three-headed guardian dog of the Underworld; Orthrus; the Lernaean Hydra, a beast killed by Hercules; and the Chimera, a beast killed by Bellerophon. Moving back now to the first generation of Titans who decided to follow the trend of having children with your siblings. Thea with Hyperion bore Helios, the sun; Selene, the moon and Eos, the dawn. Perses, the Titan god of destruction; Pallas, the Titan god of battles and Astraeus, the Titan god of planets and stars with the children of Eurybia and Crius and Eos and Astraeus together brought forth three of the directional winds: Boreas, the North Wind; Notos the South Wind and Zephyrus, the West Wind. Eos and Astraeus also bless the world with Eosphoros, the dawn star, better known today as the planet of Venus. Pallas with Styx had Zelus (emulation), Nike or Victory, Kratos (strength) and Bia (power). All of these gods, and we still only have one of the famous Olympians so far. But, back to the Titans, Iapetos and Clymene had four children: Atlas, who would have to hold the sky upon his shoulders; Prometheus, the god of forethought; Epimetheus, the god of afterthought and Menoetius, who may have been the god of rash violence. Hesiod goes on to tell the tale of how Prometheus stole fire for humanity and also tricked Zeus into allowing humankind to eat the good part of the meat and sacrifice the bones to the gods, and in retaliation, Zeus had Prometheus chained to a rock so an eagle could eat his liver every day, only to have it grow back every night because he was immortal. Eventually, his eternal torment came to an end when the hero Heracles freed Prometheus from his chains and killed the eagle. Moving on with the Titans, we have Phoebe, the goddess of intellect and with Coeus, a Titan we really don't know much about at all, gave birth to Asteria, the Titan of falling stars who, with Perses, gives birth to the goddess of magic and witchcraft Hecate. Phoebe and Coeus are also the parents of Leto, who becomes the mother of the Olympian gods Apollo and Artemis with Zeus. Zeus is the youngest child born of Rhea and Cronos with his older siblings Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades and Poseidon, but is also the oldest because all of his siblings were swallowed by their father except for him. Cronus had been told he would be overthrown by a son, and so swallowed each of his children whole at birth. When Zeus was born, Rhea gave Cronus a rock to swallow instead of their youngest boy, who was raised in Crete on Mount Lyctus. When Zeus had grown, he made his father regurgitate his siblings, and then with the help of the Cyclopes, who made Zeus' lightning bolts, and the Hecatoncheires, that he had freed from their bonds, he and his siblings fought the Titans for the next 10 years in the Titanomachy, which eventually saw the children of Rhea and Cronos overthrow their parents and doom the Titans to be chained in Tartarus. With his queen dread Persephone, daughter of Demeter and Zeus, Hades rules the Underworld. Poseidon rules the sea and Zeus, the heavens. At this point, much of the world had been assigned to different deities and now that we have the god of the Underworld, the sea and the sky, as well as Hestia, the goddess of the hearth; Hera, the goddess of marriage and family and Demeter, the goddess of agriculture, there are only a few left. Before Zeus' first wife Metis, was able to give birth to their child, he swallowed her because he was told if she gave birth to a son, he was destined to overthrow Zeus. After swallowing Metis, Zeus eventually gave birth to his daughter, the goddess of wisdom and crafts: Athena, who emerged from his head fully grown. With Themis, Zeus was the father of the three goddesses known as the Horae (the hours) and the three Fates, and with Eurynome, he was the father of the three Charities or Graces. With Mnemosyne, the Titan of memory, Zeus was the father of the nine Muses, the goddesses of arts and oral poetry, and with his wife Hera, Zeus was the father of Hebe, the goddess of youth; Ares, the god of war and Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth. Hera, in response to Zeus giving birth to Athena from his head, gave birth to Hephaestus, the god of smiths and metallurgy, without his help, and in the deep sea, the Olympian god Poseidon and his wife Amphitrite were the parents of Triton (merman). Deimos and Phobos (terror and fear), were the children of Aphrodite and Ares, as was Harmonia, the goddess of harmony, despite Aphrodite being married to Hephaestus at the time. With the daughter of Atlas, Maia, Zeus was the father to Hermes, the messenger god, and with the mortal Semele, Zeus was also the father of the final Olympian god Dionysos, the god of wine theatre and frenzied madness. These are the main gods of ancient Greece as listed by Hesiod, and made up the foundation of the universe and the world he lived in. He was the first to achieve the feat of connecting all of the deities and establishing an order to the universe from its very creation down to natural phenomena and human emotions and experiences. Why do you think it was important that everything in the universe was represented by a god or mythological figure of some kind? Let us know what you think in the comments below! If you enjoyed this video, make sure to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to our channel so you don't miss out on our new videos every Tuesday and Friday. This video was brought to you by World History Encyclopedia. For more great articles and interactive content, head to our website via the link below. If you like my shirt, you can find this design and a bunch more in our shop at worldhistory.store, or you can find a link for it down below. 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