Greek Mythology

Tutki kreikkalaisen mytologian sukupuuta — Khaoksesta ja alkujumalista titaanien kautta Zeukseen ja olympolaisiin, sankareihin ja puolijumaliin — elävänä karttana jumalallisista syntymistä, liitoista ja matkoista RootsLoressa.

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• Gaia · ? — The primordial goddess of the Earth, who emerged at the dawn of creation and bore the sky-god Uranus, then lay with him to birth the twelve Titans. When Uranus imprisoned her children, she forged the sickle her son Cronus used to overthrow him — the first of myth’s violent successions. (Hesiod, Theogony)
• Uranus · ? — The primordial sky, born of Gaia and then her consort, by whom he fathered the Titans, the Cyclopes and the Hundred-Handers. A tyrant who buried his offspring within the Earth, he was castrated and dethroned by his son Cronus — and from his spilled blood and flesh sprang the Furies, the Giants and the goddess Aphrodite.
• Cronus · ? — Youngest and boldest of the Titans, he overthrew his father Uranus to rule the cosmos through a golden age. Warned that his own child would supplant him, he swallowed each baby at birth — until his wife Rhea hid the infant Zeus, who freed his siblings and cast Cronus down, repeating the cycle of usurpation.
• Rhea · ? — Titaness and earth-mother, sister and wife of Cronus, who bore the first six Olympians. To save her youngest from her child-devouring husband, she smuggled the newborn Zeus away to Crete and gave Cronus a swaddled stone in his place — the stratagem that doomed the Titans’ reign.
• Oceanus · ? — Eldest of the Titans, the vast fresh-water river imagined to encircle the whole world. With his sister-wife Tethys he fathered the three thousand river-gods and the Oceanid nymphs, and alone among the Titans he took no part in the war against the Olympians.
• Tethys · ? — Titaness of the world’s fresh water, sister and wife of Oceanus and mother of the rivers and the countless Oceanid nymphs. In myth she nursed the young Hera during the war with the Titans, and her name survives in that of the ancient Tethys Ocean.
• Hyperion · ? — Titan of heavenly light, whose name means “the one who watches from on high”. By his sister Theia he fathered the great lights of the sky — Helios the Sun, Selene the Moon and Eos the Dawn — and so was reckoned the very source of the celestial cycle.
• Theia · ? — Titaness of sight and of the shining blue of the clear sky, believed to give gold and gems their gleam. Wife of her brother Hyperion, she bore the three luminous powers Helios, Selene and Eos — the sun, the moon and the dawn.
• Coeus · ? — Titan of the inquiring intellect and of the heavenly axis about which the constellations turn. By his sister Phoebe he fathered Leto and Asteria, making him grandfather of the Olympian twins Apollo and Artemis.
• Phoebe · ? — Titaness of bright prophecy, linked to the oracle at Delphi before it passed to her grandson Apollo. With her brother Coeus she bore Leto, and through her the gift of prophecy descended into the Olympian line.
• Metis · ? — An Oceanid embodying wisdom and cunning, the first consort of Zeus. Foretold to bear a child mightier than its father, she was swallowed whole by Zeus while pregnant — yet counselled him from within, and their daughter Athena later burst fully armed from his head.
• Leto · ? — Daughter of the Titans Coeus and Phoebe and a gentle love of Zeus. Hounded by the jealous Hera across the earth while heavily pregnant, she found refuge at last on the floating isle of Delos, where she bore the twin archers Apollo and Artemis.
• Helios · ? — The Titan who drives the blazing chariot of the Sun across the heavens each day and sees all that passes below. It was he who revealed Aphrodite’s affair to her husband and Persephone’s abduction to Demeter; his reckless son Phaethon died trying to steer his fiery car.
• Selene · ? — The Titan goddess who draws the Moon across the night sky in a silver chariot. Famed for her love of the shepherd Endymion — granted eternal sleep so she might visit him forever — she was later merged with Artemis as a goddess of the moon.
• Eos · ? — The rosy-fingered goddess of the Dawn, who rises each morning from the eastern ocean to herald her brother Helios. Cursed by Aphrodite with endless desire, she carried off many mortal youths — but forgot to ask eternal youth for her beloved Tithonus, who withered until he became the cicada.
• Hestia · ? — Eldest child of Cronus and Rhea and the gentle goddess of the hearth, home and sacred flame. She swore perpetual virginity, refusing both Poseidon and Apollo, and yielded her Olympian seat to keep the peace — yet received the first share of every sacrifice.
• Demeter · ? — Olympian goddess of the grain harvest and the fertile earth. When Hades seized her daughter Persephone, her grief withered the world into the first winter; the bargain that returned the maiden for part of each year became the Greeks’ explanation of the turning seasons.
• Hera · ? — Queen of the Olympians and goddess of marriage and women, both sister and wife of Zeus. Renowned for her majesty and her jealous fury at her husband’s endless infidelities, she pursued his lovers and their children — above all the hero Heracles — through myth after myth.
• Hades · ? — Eldest son of Cronus and lord of the Underworld, who drew the realm of the dead by lot when the brothers divided the cosmos. Seldom leaving his shadowy kingdom, he carried off Demeter’s daughter Persephone to be his queen and guarded the dead with the hound Cerberus.
• Poseidon · ? — Brother of Zeus and god of the sea, earthquakes and horses, who ruled the waters when the cosmos was shared among the sons of Cronus. Quick to wrath, he raised storms and shook the earth with his trident — and his long feud with Odysseus drives much of the Odyssey.
• Zeus · ? — King of the gods and lord of sky, thunder and justice, the youngest son of Cronus who overthrew the Titans to rule from Mount Olympus. Wielder of the thunderbolt and father of gods and heroes alike, his many loves and his decrees set in motion nearly every tale of Greek myth.
• Maia · ? — Eldest and shyest of the seven Pleiades and a daughter of the Titan Atlas, who dwelt alone in an Arcadian cave. There she bore Zeus a son, the precocious Hermes, who stole Apollo’s cattle on the very day he was born.
• Semele · ? — A mortal princess of Thebes and a love of Zeus. Tricked by the jealous Hera into demanding to behold her divine lover in full glory, she was consumed by his lightning — but Zeus saved their unborn child, Dionysus, sewing him into his thigh until he could be born.
• Aphrodite · ? — Goddess of love, desire and beauty. In Hesiod’s account she is among the oldest of the gods, born from the sea-foam where the severed flesh of Uranus fell, and she stepped ashore at Cyprus; her power to stir longing in gods and mortals alike sets countless myths in motion.
• Ares · ? — Olympian god of war in its brutal, bloody aspect, son of Zeus and Hera and the lover of Aphrodite. Disliked even by his own father, he embodied the raw chaos of battle as against Athena’s disciplined strategy, and was frequently humbled in the myths he appears in.
• Hebe · ? — Goddess of youth and the cupbearer who poured nectar for the gods, daughter of Zeus and Hera. She gave up the role on her marriage to the deified hero Heracles, with whom she dwelt on Olympus — his immortal bride and reward for completing his labours.
• Hephaestus · ? — Olympian smith-god of fire, forge and craft, born of Hera alone (in Hesiod) and flung from Olympus for his lameness. From his volcanic workshop he wrought the gods’ palaces, Zeus’s thunderbolts and the armour of Achilles — the one true labourer among the immortals.
• Athena · ? — Goddess of wisdom, craft and just warfare, daughter of Metis who sprang fully grown and armoured from the head of Zeus. Virgin patroness of Athens — which she won with the gift of the olive tree — she championed heroes such as Odysseus, Perseus and Heracles.
• Apollo · ? — Olympian god of light, music, healing and prophecy, son of Zeus and Leto and twin of Artemis. Master of the lyre and the bow, he spoke through the oracle at Delphi, where he slew the serpent Python — yet his loves, like Daphne and Hyacinthus, often ended in grief.
• Artemis · ? — Olympian goddess of the hunt, the wilds and the moon, daughter of Zeus and Leto and twin of Apollo. A fierce virgin who roamed the wilderness with a band of nymphs, she protected young creatures yet punished any who trespassed on her chastity, like the hunter Actaeon.
• Hermes · ? — The swift messenger of the gods and guide of souls to the Underworld, son of Zeus and the Pleiad Maia. Patron of travellers, merchants, thieves and heralds, he invented the lyre on his first day of life and moved freely between the worlds of gods, mortals and the dead.
• Persephone · ? — Daughter of Zeus and Demeter, the maiden of spring who became the dread Queen of the Underworld. Carried off by Hades, she ate a few pomegranate seeds in his realm and so was bound to return each year — her descent and rising mirroring the death and rebirth of the seasons.
• Dionysus · ? — Olympian god of wine, ecstasy, madness and the theatre, son of Zeus and the mortal Semele and twice-born from his father’s thigh. Wandering the world with his frenzied followers to spread the vine, he was the only major god born of a mortal — and the last to take his seat on Olympus.