Are the Titans gods of time? Where did the universe begin? How many titans were there? The hundred-handed and cyclops are their children? Why was Uranus castrated? What is the secret of Aphrodite's birth? How were the Titans defeated by the Olympian Gods? Where did the titans live and where was the king of the titans exiled?

The Titans were the six elder gods of time named Kronos, Kay, Krios, Iapetus, Hyperion, and Oceanus, who ruled the cosmos before the Olympians came to power. They were the sons of Uranus (heaven) and Gaia (earth).

After the titans, Gaia and Uranus gave birth to six monstrous giants - three hecatoncheirs, which means "hundred-armed", and three one-eyed cyclops. Uranus was frightened by the monsters he spawned and imprisoned them in the bowels of the earth, which caused Gaia to suffer greatly. She hated Uranus and, wanting to prevent the appearance of new, even more terrible children, ordered the youngest of the titans, Kronus, to castrate her father. From drops of the blood of castrated Uranus that fell into the sea, Aphrodite was born.

Titans are 6 sons and 6 daughters of Uranus (heaven) and Gem (earth). They gave birth to a new generation of gods: Prometheus, Helios, the Muses, etc.

The image of Aphrodite in the process of development of Greek mythology has undergone, perhaps, the most significant changes. Being one of the oldest deities, Aphrodite originally personified the elemental productive force of nature. But during the Olympic period, she turned into a golden-haired beauty - the goddess of beauty and love. Later myths say that she was born from sea foam, and her name is often translated as "Foamborn".

When Uranus imprisoned their storm giant brothers, the Cyclopes and the Hundred Hands, and imprisoned them in the belly of mother earth, she convinced her Titan sons to rebel. Led by Cronus, five of the six brothers ambushed their father and he descended to lie on Earth: Hyperion, Crios, Caius and Iapetus, stood watch in the four corners of the world, seized him, and held Uranus, while Kronos, in the center, castrated him with an unbreakable sickle. After they seized control of the heavens, the Titans freed their giant brothers from Gaea's belly, only to have them thrown into Hell in Tartarus, earning their mother's fury.

Then there was a prophecy that the son of Kronos would overthrow the Titans, and thus the Titan King, in fear for his throne, began to devour each of his descendants as soon as they were born. Only Zeus escaped this fate through the intervention of his mother Rhea and Gaia, who hid him safely far away in a cave on the island of Crete.

According to one legend, the titans were incinerated by the lightning of Zeus, and people appeared from this soot.

Reaching adulthood, he forced Cronus to regurgitate his siblings, and with an army of divine allies made war with the Titans, and led them into the pit of Tartarus, from where they were headed to eternity. Some say that Kronos retired to Elysium. The sisters of the six Titans, Rhea, Thea, Mnemosyne, Themis, and Tethys, were known as the Titanides (female Titans), and many of their sons and daughters were also given this name, including Helios, Atlas, and Prometheus.

The titans of Greece and everything connected with them. Eleven half-brothers and sisters, a dozen half-brothers and thirty thousand ugly dog-faced bats - scary, but it remains to be seen what you will give birth to with such a lifestyle! Yes, that's how many vile children the ancient Greek ruler of the sky had - about three dozen more or less well-known and a myriad of Erinyes, goddesses of revenge. But our entertainment portal will not now remember each of them - only the most famous and impressive offspring, titans, will appear to your attention.

1. Big kids are big problems. Not very attractive in appearance and, at the same time, having a gigantic size, the titans, since childhood, had the opportunity to earn many complexes of approximately the same size - at least on the basis of their father's dislike. And, if today's youth has a chance to complain to the guardianship authorities, or at least to the police, then the titans of Greece could not do this. And who can complain if your father is the coolest pepper in the universe?!

Indeed, at that time, Zeus was the biggest and most serious bump, and, moreover, on Earth. Moreover, he turned this very Earth, hmm ... Exactly on what you thought about - and in the most direct sense. After all, the Earth-Gaia was the mother of the titans and at the same time the wife of the supreme deity.

Atlas ("supporting"), in Greek mythology, a titan, the son of the titan Iapetus and the oceanic Clymene. The ancients believed that he supported the vault of heaven near the garden of the Hesperides as punishment for participating in the battle with Zeus on the side of the titans. The most famous event in his life was a meeting with Hercules, sent by King Eristheus to the Hesperides for the apples of eternal youth, which they guarded and which were presented by Gaia for the wedding of Hera and Zeus.

Atlas volunteered to bring them to Hercules if he did not hold the firmament for long instead of him. Returning with apples, the titan offered to deliver them to Eristheus, because Hercules did an excellent job. The hero for appearances agreed, but asked Atlas to temporarily hold the burden until he made a pillow and placed it under the sky, after which he fled, leaving the deceived Atlas to do his duty alone. In Roman mythology, Atlanta corresponds to the titan Atlas.

Kronos, in ancient Greek mythology titanium. Kronos was one of the titans, born from the marriage of the sky god Uranus and the earth goddess Gaia. He succumbed to the persuasion of his mother and castrated his father Uranus in order to stop the endless birth of his children. To avoid repeating the fate of his father, Kronos began to swallow all his offspring. But in the end, his wife could not stand such an attitude towards their offspring and let him swallow a stone instead of a newborn. Rhea hid her son, Zeus, on the island of Crete, where he grew up, fed by the divine goat Amalthea.

He was guarded by kuretes - warriors who drowned out the cry of Zeus with blows to the shields so that Kronos would not hear. Having matured, Zeus overthrew his father from the throne, forced him to rip out his brothers and sisters from the womb, and after a long war took his place on the bright Olympus, among the host of gods. So Kronos was punished for his betrayal. In Roman mythology, Kronos (Chroos - "time") is known as Saturn - a symbol of inexorable time. V Ancient Rome festivities were dedicated to the god Kronos - saturnalia, during which all rich people changed their duties with their servants and fun began, accompanied by abundant libations.

Prometheus ("foreseeing"), in Greek mythology, the son of the titan Iapetus and the oceanic Clymene, according to another version - Asia or the goddess of justice Themis. He sided with his cousin Zeus during a power struggle with Kronos. The fate of the titan was determined by his attachment to the kind of people, the creator of which he was according to a number of testimonies and to whom he bestowed the divine fire hidden by the Thunderer Zeus. Prometheus kidnapped him and brought him to earth.

Enraged, Zeus chained the rebellious titan to a rock in the Caucasus, where an eagle pecked out his liver, which grew again overnight. Prometheus was released by Hercules at the behest of Zeus, in exchange for the secret that the son of the sea nymph Thetis, who was simultaneously cared for by Zeus and Poseidon, would become more powerful than his father. Having given Thetis for a mortal king, the gods protected themselves from danger, since Achilles, born of Thetis, although he became a great warrior, was still mortal. Prometheus gave people fire, essential element civilization, however, which also had disastrous consequences: along with the manufacture of tools, weapons of war were forged in blazing forges for centuries.

Very early attempts began to group the myths about the numerous gods of Ancient Greece through genealogies, to bring ideas about them into a system corresponding to the course of phenomena of the real world. In these theosophical constructions of religious concepts, physical upheavals, the traces of which were still visible or preserved by echoes of ancient myths, were represented in the form of wars waged among themselves by different tribes or generations of gods, and from which both Zeus and other Olympian gods who mastered the universe and gave it its present order. So, the myths about the origin of the gods of ancient Greece represented the cosmos in the current perfection of its accomplishment as the result of a long development from rough elemental principles into a harmonious organism; the course of the history of the universe, according to the Greeks, was an ascent, not a fall, an improvement, an improvement, and not a corruption. The bright region of the ether (sky) was in all the myths about the gods of Ancient Greece the most important department of the universe; whoever possesses the shining throne of the kingdom of heaven is also the ruler of the rest of the universe; everything in the whole universe takes on a form consistent with the qualities of the one who rules in the region of the ether. The oldest myths about the origin of the gods and the universe were collected by Hesiod. He was from the Boeotian city of Askra. His systematic body of myths is called Theogony. This is a poem. Summary Theogony is:

The beginning of the origin of the gods

Initially, before the emergence of the gods, there was Chaos, a formless primitive space in which Tartarus (matter, gloomy voids) and Eros (Eros, Eros, generative force) were located. The movements of Tartarus under the influence of Eros gave birth to Erebus (primordial fog) and Night. Eros began to act in them, and they gave birth to Ether and day (Hemera). Matter, which was in Chaos, formed into the first goddess - "broad-breasted" Gaia (earth), the mother and nourisher of everything, producing all living things, and again accepting everything produced into her dark bosom. Gaia, having risen, gave birth to Uranus (the starry sky), and he spread out like a vault over her; descending, she gave birth to the sea (Pontus), and it spread out under her; she gave birth to mountains.

Origin of the Titans

Then the next stage of the origin of the ancient Greek gods began. Eros again began to act in the universe, attracting the male and female elements to the union, and she, combined with Uranus stretched over her, gave birth to the gods; these gods were the Titans, the Cyclopes, and the Hecatoncheires, the volcanic and Neptunian forces of nature, whose activity still continued on the continent of Greece, and especially on the islands, but seemed already weakened compared to what it was before. There were twelve Titans: six males and six females. Some of them chose the sky as their dwelling, others the earth, others the sea. The titan and titan woman who settled in the sea were the Ocean and Tethys (water), from which, according to other theogonic systems, everything originated. According to the myths about the origin of the gods of Ancient Greece, the Ocean is a river flowing around the earth and the sea covered by the earth; it is a deep and ring-shaped belt of flowing water; its course is circular; he is the limit of the world, and he himself is limitless. When the concept of the river Ocean is personified in the form of Titan, this god, who retains the name Ocean, is a kind, meek old man. This titan and his wife, the progenitor of rivers and streams, live in the far west, which was generally a wonderland in ancient Greek myths. All rivers rushing through the gorges, like mighty bulls or victorious heroes, making their way through the barriers of the mountains, all the quiet rivers of the plains, all streams and sources were considered in the myths of Ancient Greece as the sons and daughters of the gods of the Ocean and Tethys. Their firstborn children were Styx and Aheloy. Styx (Greek, feminine name) was the Black River; her personification, the ancient Greek goddess Styx, lived in the distant west, where the sun hides, where is the land of night; her dwelling was a magnificent house standing between the rocks, with silver columns rising to the very sky. In the myths of ancient Greece, she was the keeper of the sacred river flowing in a gloomy gorge, by whose waters the gods swore when they made an inviolable promise. - Aheloy, the "silver river", was in mythology the representative of the rivers that feed the vegetation. Ancient Greek myths located the source of this sacred, great river near Dodona, and the Dodona region irrigated by Aheloy, the homeland of the Pelasgians, was “full of grass and bread, goats, sheep and herds of cattle walking with a heavy step.” At the Ocean, where the garden of the Hesperides and where the sources of ambrosia, Zeus combined with Hero, the goddess of the clouds, the queen of the sky, who was brought up by the Ocean and Tethys.

In the shining sky, according to ancient Greek mythology, lived the titan Hyperion "high-rising" and the titan Theia (shine); from them the gods Helios (Sun), Selene (Moon) and Eos (Dawn; Eos in Greek is a feminine word) were born; another couple also lived in the sky, Kay and Phoebe (light), the parents of Leto (night silence) and Asteria (Starlight). The children of the Titanic Eos were the gods-Winds; there were four of them: Zephyr, Boreas, Not and Eurus.

According to the myths about the origin of the gods of Ancient Greece, from the titans and titans who lived on earth, some were the personifications of human qualities and phases human development; Iapetus and his sons, who are also called titans, had such a meaning: Atlas (or Atlas), supporting the sky; haughty Menetius; cunning Prometheus; weak-minded Epimetheus; ideas about them provided rich material for thoughtful myths and great works of ancient Greek poetry. The Titans who lived on earth were the personifications of beneficent forces that give human life improvement or noble pleasures; such were Themis, the goddess of justice, legal order; her daughters and Zeus were in the myths about the gods of Ancient Greece Ora (Horai, hours of the day, seasons), the goddess of the correct course of annual changes in nature and the correct arrangement of human life; Eurynome, mother of Charit (Graces), the goddess of everything sweet, attractive in nature and in human life: fun, beauty, grace; Mnemosyne, whose daughters from the union with Zeus were the goddesses of singing, muses; the formidable Hekate, the goddess of fate, who was highly respected; she was the first of all deities to be prayed to by sacrificers of atonement; from it came good and evil to people. Subsequently, Hekate became the goddess of roads and crossroads in the myths of Ancient Greece; crossroads were places of burial, and on them, near the tombs, in the mysterious light of the moon, ghosts appeared; therefore Hekate became a terrible goddess of sorcery and ghosts, accompanied by the howling of dogs.

Cyclopes and Hekatoncheirs

In the myths about the origin of the gods of Ancient Greece, Gaia, in addition to the titans, gave birth to the Cyclopes and Hecatoncheires from marriage with Uranus. Cyclopes, giants with a large, round, fiery eye in the middle of their foreheads, were the personifications of clouds sparkling with lightning. There were three. There were also three Hekatonkheires, "Hundred-armed" giants, who personified earthquakes and stormy waves of the sea flooding the earth. These huge monsters were so strong that, according to the myths about the origin of the gods, Uranus himself began to fear them; therefore he bound them and cast them into the depths of the earth; they now rage in its bowels, produce eruptions of fire-breathing mountains and earthquakes.

Cyclops Polyphemus. Painting by Tischbein, 1802

Cron's ossification of Uranus

Gaia, suffering from this, decided to take revenge on Uranus. She made a large sickle out of iron and gave it to crown, the youngest of the titans, who alone of all of them agreed to fulfill the mother's plan. When Uranus descended at night on the bed of Gaia, Cronus, who hid near that place, cut off with a sickle and threw away his father's penis. Gaia took the drops of blood that fell at the same time, and from them she gave birth to three Erinyes, giants and Melian nymphs. In the myths of Ancient Greece, Erinyes, who had snakes instead of hair on their heads, walk with torches all over the earth, pursuing and punishing villains; there are three of them: Tiziphone (killing avenger), Alecto (tireless pursuer) and Megara (terrible). Giants and Melian nymphs were in the myths of Ancient Greece personifications of revenge, violence, bloodshed. The penis cut off from Uranus fell into the sea and swept over the waves; from the white foam of these waves was born Aphrodite (Anadiomene, "rising from the water"), who was formerly part of the being of Uranus (formerly Urania), now becoming a special being. Uranus cursed the titans. - According to the scientist Preller, Kron was at first in ancient Greece the god of the ripening of bread and became the personification of time, going in an imperceptible way to the time of ripening, and quickly cutting off what is ripe, "the god of the withering heat, which stops the rains of his father, the sky."

Uranus and Gaia. Ancient Roman mosaic 200-250 A.D.

The origin of Nereus and the gods of the sea

According to the myths about the origin of the gods, Gaia also had children from cohabitation with Pontus, the sea. The first of these children of hers was Nereus, kind, benevolent to people, the sea god, the father of numerous daughters, Nereids, beautiful sea nymphs, who were the personifications of a calm sea, quiet bays, a bright life near safe bays. The next children of Gaia from cohabitation with Pontus, the sons of Thaumas and Forkid and the daughter of Keto, were personifications of the majestic and terrible phenomena of the sea. The daughter of Phorkid and the oceanid Electra ("brilliant") was Irida, the rainbow; their other daughters were in the ancient Greek myths Harpy, the goddess of destructive storms, whirlwinds, death.

Hercules and Nereus. Boeotian vessel c. 590-580 BC

Grays, Scylla and Gorgons

From the cohabitation of Phorkid and Keto, the ugly Grays, terrible monsters Scylla and Gorgons were born; they lived on the edge of the universe, where the sun sets, in the land of the Night and its children. - Grays, three sisters, were already at birth gray-haired old women; all three, they had only one eye and one tooth, which were used alternately. Gorgons, of which Medusa was the most terrible, were winged monsters with human heads, on which snakes were instead of hair, and with such a terrible expression on their faces that all living things turned into stone at their sight.

Scylla. Boeotian red-figure crater of the second half of the 5th c. BC

Hesperides and Atlas

Not far from the Gorgons, at the border of eternal darkness, lived the Hesperides, the daughters of Night; their singing was beautiful; they lived on a charming island, which seafarers did not reach, and where the fertile land produces its most excellent gifts to the gods ”; The Hesperides guarded the golden apples that grew on this island. Next to the gardens of the Hesperides stood the titan Atlas (Atlant), the personification of the Atlas Range; he held on his head, supporting with his hands, "the wide vault of heaven." - The mother of the Hesperides, Night, was a good goddess who gave birth to light; at the end of each day, she, overshadowing the earth with her wet wings, gives sleep to all nature.

moira

Moira, the goddess of birth and death of people, were either also daughters of the Night, or daughters of Zeus and Themis. In the myths of Ancient Greece, there were three of them: Clotho spun the beginning of the thread of human life, Lachesis continued spinning the thread started by her sister, Atropos (inevitable) cut the thread. Goddesses of human fate, they were the keepers of the laws of necessity, on the action of which order, improvement in nature and in human society is based.

Tanat and Kera

The children of the night were also the inexorable god of death, Tanat, and the terrible Kera, the goddess of fate, mainly that fate that gives people death in battles; on the battlefields, they were “terrible in appearance, in bloody clothes”, dragged and tormented the wounded and killed.

God Kron

Uranus, the sky that gives rain that fertilizes the earth, was, according to the myths of the origin of the gods of Ancient Greece, deprived of dominion by Kronos, the personification of that power of the sky that gives ripening to the fruits of the earth. Kron became lord; his reign was a golden age; then "there was ever ripe fruit, and ever was the harvest." But the curse of his father took away his strength to renew his youth, therefore, in the myths about the origin of the gods, he is a symbol of old age, a pale, withered old man, with gray hair and a long beard, bent over, gloomy. It was foretold to him that his children would overthrow him, as he had overthrown his father; therefore, he absorbed all the children that his wife, Rhea, the personification of the productive power of mountains and forests, the “mother mountain”, later identified with the Phrygian goddess of nature, Cybele, the founder of cities, wore a crown made in the form of a city wall.

Zeus and the struggle of the gods with the titans

According to ancient Greek myths, Kronus absorbed all his children; but when the last son, Zeus, was born, the mother gave Kronus to swallow a stone wrapped in diapers and hid the beautiful baby in a cave. The nymphs fed him there with milk and honey, and the curetes and corybantes - the personification of thunderclouds - danced around, hitting their shields with spears so that the cry of the baby could not be heard by the parent. Zeus quickly grew up and, with the help of Rhea's cunning, forced his father to regurgitate the swallowed children. The stone he swallowed was also cast out; Zeus placed it "for eternal remembrance at Delphi" on the winding slope of Parnassus. Zeus freed the Cyclopes; they gave him thunder and lightning, and he, according to the ancient Greek myths about the origin of the gods, began to fight with Kron for dominion over the universe.

"Zeus of Otricoli". Bust of the 4th century BC

All the gods of Ancient Greece took part in the struggle; some took the side of Cronus, others on the side of Zeus. The war of the gods lasted ten years. The camp of the titans was on Otrida, the camp of the deities of the younger generation on Olympus. At the basis of the ancient Greek myth about this “war with the titans” (Titanomachy), perhaps, are memories of earthquakes, during which a breakthrough of the seaside ridge, the Tempe Gorge, was formed, and the waters of the Thessalian plain received a drain into the sea. Under the feet of the fighting gods, the earth trembled to the depths of Tartarus. God Zeus finally showed all his strength, continuously threw lightning, so that all the forests were on fire, the whole earth was on fire, the sea was boiling; the eyes of the titans were blinded by the brilliance of lightning, and the ancient Chaos itself moved in its depths, thinking that the hour of its dominion had come, that both heaven and earth would fall into it. But the Titans still held on irresistibly. Zeus called to his aid hundred-armed, fifty-headed hecatoncheirs; they began to throw huge rocks at the titans, three hundred rocks at a time, and overthrew the titans into Tartarus, which is as deep below the earth as the sky is above it. According to ancient Greek myths, the overthrown titans were chained there. But not all titans were against Zeus; Themis, Oceanus and Hyperion fought for him and were accepted as celestials.

The division of the universe between Zeus, Poseidon and Hades

The victory was celebrated with a brilliant holiday, with military dances and games. After that - continue the myths about the origin of the gods of Ancient Greece - the sons of Kronos divided among themselves, either by lot or by choice, dominion over the universe. Zeus received supreme power in heaven and on earth, Poseidon dominion over the sea and all waters; Hades (Pluto) became the lord in the depths of the earth, where the dark dwellings of the dead are. The earth and Olympus remained the common possession of all the gods and goddesses. But some of them took under their special patronage those countries and cities that they especially loved and in which they were especially honored. The titans cast down to Tartarus remained there, bound in chains. Poseidon protected Tartarus with a strong wall with copper gates. Hecatoncheires, the terrible forces of the earthquake, in ancient Greek myths guard the titans so that they do not escape from Tartarus, do not destroy the bright world of the Olympic gods. And the titans remained forever in Tartarus, the children of the angry earth, disorderly, evil elements of nature, opposed to the dominion of the gods and the moral improvement of life. So they told ancient myths about the origin of the gods. But when the morals of the ancient Greeks softened, poetry freed the titans from darkness and bondage, transferred them to the islands of the Blessed, placed there the "ancient" god Kron as king over the chosen dead of ancient blessed times.

Poseidon (Neptune). Antique statue of the 2nd century. according to R.H.

Typhon

Zeus had to defend his dominion against new enemies. Gaia combined with Tartarus and gave birth to her last child, the most terrible of all, Typhon (or Typheus), the personification of gases rushing from the bowels of the earth and producing volcanic upheavals. In ancient Greek myths, it was a colossal monster that had a hundred dragon heads with black tongues, flaming eyes, and the hiss of its heads was terrible. Typhon was the most terrible of all the enemies that fought with the Olympians. He almost took over the world. Zeus struck him with lightning. The struggle was such that the heights of Olympus and the bowels of the earth trembled from it to its deepest foundations. Zeus finally beat off all the heads of the monster with lightning, and it fell; his body burned with such fire that the earth became hot as hot iron, and melted and flowed. Zeus threw the headless but living monster into Tartarus. But even from there, Typhon sends death to the land and the sea, emitting sultry winds and other harmful effects of heat.

Fight of gods with giants. pergamon altar

Twelve children originated from Earth and Heaven: six brothers - Hyperion, Iapetus, Kay, Krios, Kronos, Oceanus, and six sisters - Mnemosyne, Rhea, Teia, Tefida, Phoebe, Themis.

One of the six titan brothers, Kronos, was the father of Zeus (the main god of Olympus). Zeus overthrew and castrated his father. After that, the titans stood up to protect their brother and unleashed a war, which in has the name "Titanomachy". The war was lost by the titans after a ten-year battle. And the gods of Olympus came out victorious. The Titans were cast into the terrible Tartarus on the advice of Prometheus. Later, reconciliation took place between the enemies and the titans submitted to Zeus, recognizing his power in full power over them. For this, the Thunderer granted them freedom.

If the gods of the first generation were cosmic forces (Chaos - the original emptiness and abyss), then the gods of the second generation - the titans - were archaic creatures representing natural elements and disasters. They did not possess wisdom and rationality, they did not know order and measure. They were distinguished by primitive savagery and rudeness, primitiveness and actions. The main tool for them was brute force and primordial power. They did not yet have that heroism, wisdom and cosmic harmony that later distinguished the gods of Olympus - Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Hera, Hermes, etc.

Marriages and children of the titans

All twelve titans and titanides entered into marriages among themselves and gave birth to another generation of ancient gods.

Geperion and Theia had three heavenly children: Helios, personifying the sun, Selena, the image of the Moon, and Eos, the dawn. Eos became the wife of Astrea and bore him a myriad of children - all the stars in the sky (including Phosphorus and Hesperus - the morning and star), all the winds on (Boreas, Not, Eurus and Zephyr).

The ocean and Tethys gave birth to all the rivers on earth. And from the nymph Thetis, the Ocean gave birth to oceanid daughters.

Phoebus and Kea were not so prolific. They had only two daughters - the beautiful goddess Leto, who later became the mother of Apollo and Artemis, and Asteria, who later gave birth to the sinister Hecate - the goddess of moonlight and the underworld.

Titanis Themis was associated with Zeus (the main Olympus) and bore him six daughters. Three daughters were Moira (Parks) - the goddesses of fate. Atropos wove the thread of fate, Clotho created a fancy pattern from these threads, and Lachesis finished life path cutting the thread of fate.

The other three daughters of Themis and Zeus were eternally young Ores. Eunomia represented legitimacy, Dike was the spokesman for the truth, and Eirene brought peace with her. These three sisters guarded in white robes the gates of Olympus and the retinue of the goddess of love and beauty Aphrodite.

In ancient Greece, religion originated long before our era. People could not explain the natural phenomena occurring on earth, the issues of life and death. They thought that everything happens according to the will of the gods.

Instruction

According to ancient Greek history, about two thousand years BC. Eternal Chaos reigned on earth, which contained everything to create the world of people and gods. The goddess of the earth, Gaia, who appeared from Chaos, gave her strength and power to the birth of life on earth. At the same time, Tartarus arose in the bowels of the earth, an abyss filled with eternal darkness. From Chaos, Eros was also born, love that animates everything around. Eros and Gaia began to create life. Other gods began to appear, many of whom lived on the high Mount Olympus, inaccessible to mortal man. They looked like ordinary people: fate also controlled their lives. Of the large number of gods that make up the ancient Greek pantheon, certain duties were assigned.

At the head of the Olympic gods was the mighty Zeus, the sky, which, with the help of thunder and lightning, instilled terrible fear. The power of Zeus over other gods, people and nature was considered unlimited. The ancient Greeks represented him as mature, with a strong strong figure and a dark beard, like a king sitting on a throne. Many Olympic gods were related to the lord of the sky.

Hera, the wife of Zeus and the queen, had a very cool character. She patronized women and marriage, was considered the goddess of the starry sky. Hera was portrayed as a beauty, wearing a crown and holding a royal lotus in her hands.

Poseidon was the brother of Zeus, under his control was the entire water world. Earthquakes, droughts and floods occurred at the command of Poseidon. Sailors and fishermen lived under the auspices of this god. The ancient Greeks represented Poseidon as a dark-bearded, strong man of mature age, whose attribute was a trident.

Hades, after the overthrow of the father of Kronos in Tartarus, the brothers Zeus and Poseidon into the possession of the underworld. He ruled over a realm into which not a single ray of sunlight could penetrate, as well as a variety of human emotions. In the middle of the lifeless space, Hades sat on the golden royal throne, next to him were the main judges - Rhadamanthus and Minos. The Erinyes also settled here. Hypnos often came here to visit, whose drink was able to lull anyone. The terrifying sight of Hekate, who has three bodies and three heads and often gets out, frightens mortals, on whom she sends nightmares. The three-headed Cerberus does not allow anyone to leave the realm of the dead. The symbol of Hades is a two-pronged pitchfork, indicating that life and death are subject to him. The ancient Greeks, afraid to pronounce the name of Hades, only mentioned it in an allegorical form.

Athena continued and fulfilled the plans of her father Zeus. The goddess of wisdom and just war had a guiding intelligent power, patronized the craft. Athena is a goddess, stately and beautiful, who took a vow of celibacy and chastity. Among the female goddesses, one Athena was depicted as a warrior: in a helmet with a raised visor, a spear and a shield in her hands.

Golden-haired Apollo and young Artemis are twins, deeply loving friend friend and his mother Latona. The ancient Greeks considered Apollo the god of arrows, the patron of the arts. The images of Apollo are different: a young man in a laurel wreath, in whose hands is either a cithara, or a bow and arrows. His sister Artemis