:: Greece mythology

Chaos
He is the first Greek god, a dark abyss from which all things came to life. He is the father of Earth, the goddess Gaea.

Gaea
Mother Earth, the daughter of the god Chaos, who gave birth, alone, to Ourea (mountains), Pontus (sea) and Uranus, Father Heaven, who became her lover; from they union were born the Titans, the Cyclopes and the Hecatonchires.

Uranus or Ouranos
Son of Gaea, he became her lover and her husband. Fearing the great powers of their children, he hid them in the depths of Gaea; she got angry and asked one of her sons, Cronus, to help her deliver his brothers and sisters. Cronus hid during the night, attacked Uranus by surprise and cutted of his father’ genitals and threw them away. From the blood running from the wound on the earth (Gaea) were born the Erinyes (the Furies, avengers of wrong), and the Giants (monstrous giants who were buried underneath volcanoes, crating earth’s explosion and earthquakes). In some other versions of this myth, it is said that Cronus threw Uranus’ organs into the sea and from the foam they created was born the goddess of love and beauty, Aphrodite.

The Cyclopes
Brontes, Steropes and Arges were Sons of Gaea and Uranus, and were giants with a single eye in the middle of their foreheads; they were strong and violent, as well as skilled metal workers who made Zeus’ thunderbolts, Poseidon’s trident and Hades’ Helmet of Darkness. They were kept prisoners deep within Gaea by their father, Uranus, who hated all of his children. When Cronus, a Titan, defeated Uranus, he first freed his brothers the Cyclopes but then, fearing that they would take his power, he sent them into Tartarus (place of punishment in the underworld). The Cyclopes were freed by Zeus and helped him to destroy the Titans, in the Titanomachy; to thank them, Zeus offered them a place to stay on the Olympus, the home of all gods, where they became helpers of Hephaestus.
The second generation of Cyclopes were sons of the god of the sea, Posseidon, and were living in Sicily; the most famous is Polyphemus, the one that got blinded by the hero Odysseus who tried to escape, as the Cyclope has imprisoned Odysseus and his men. Poseidon, enraged by Odysseus’ action, avenged his son by sinking Odysseus’ ship and drowning all his men.

The Titans
Personifications of the forces of nature, the Titans were twelve giants (six sons and six daughters), children of Gaea and Uranus. Each son married and had children with one of his sisters: Coeus with Phoebe, Crius with Mnemosyne (personification of memory, seduced by Zeus), Hyperion with Theia, Oceanus with Tethys and Cronus with Rhea. Lapetus and Themis didn’t marry one another but Themis was loved by her nephew, Zeus, and Lapetus married the nymph Clymene (daughter of Oceanus and Thetys).

Coeus and Phoebe
They gave birth to Leto and Asteria (Stars). Phoebe owned the oracle at Delphi, before giving it to Apollon, her grandson.

Lapetus and Clymene
Their sons were Atlas (the famous God bearing heavens upon his shoulders), Menoetius, Prometheus (the famous hero who stole the fire from the gods and, was for that punished to be chained in the Caucasus for eternity, where an eagle was eating his insides, until Heracles freed him) and Epimetheus.

Themis and Zeus
One of the Titans, daughter of Uranus and Gaea, Themis gave birth to Horae ( Eunomia, good order, Dike, justice and Eirene, peace, goddesses of nature and order), when uniting with Zeus, and to the the Moirae (Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos, who were controlling and deciding the fate of every living creature).

Mnemosyne and Zeus
From her union with Zeus, Mnemosyne gave birth to the Muses (the young women who gave inspiration to all artists and engineers: Clio, muse of History, Urania, muse of Astronomy, Melpomene, muse of Tragedy, Thalia, muse of Comedy, Terpsichore, muse of Dance, Calliope, muse of Epic Poetry, Erato, muse of Love Poetry, Euterpe, muse of Lyric Poetry and Polyhymnia, muse of the Songs to the Gods).

Oceanus and Thetys
Oceanus is the personification of the ocean and with his wife, Thetys, he fathered the rivers and the river nymphs, the Oceanids (springs, ponds and lakes).

Hyperion and Theia
They had three children: Helios (Sun), Eos (Dawn) and Selene (Moon).

Cronus and Rhea
Cronus and Rhea are the most famous couple of the Titans. They gave birth to the first of the Olympians Gods: Demeter (the fertility goddess), Hades (god and Lord of the dead, ruler of the underworld), Hera (goddess of marriage and birth), Hestia (goddess of domestic life), Poseidon (god of the sea) and Zeus (supreme ruler of the Mount Olympus, the kingdom of the gods).
Cronus, fearing to be overthrown by one of his children, swallowed all his newborns. Only Zeus escaped, with the help of Gaea and his mother Rhea who gave to Cronus a stone wrapped in clothes to swallow instead of her child. Zeus was hidden in a cave in Crete. When he became adult, he returned to his parents’ kingdom and killed his father, Cronus, making him disgorge all his brothers and sisters that he had swallowed.