The Gods of Greece and Rome
In India, we have gods like Lakshmi, Saraswati, Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma etc. but as all of us know there are many other countries and cultures around the world that have different religions and with them, different gods to worship. One of the civilizations of the ancient world is Greece and another is Rome. These Gods have different qualities and domains which they rule. A short summary about these gods is given below.
The beginning
The Greeks believe that at first there was only Chaos in the universe and that later Chaos created Gaea i.e the earth. One day, Gaea created a cover to shield the earth i.e to cover herself. This layer was called Ouranus or Uranus and later married him. Together they had three sets of children.
The first set comprised three children . These children were called the hekotanchires, meaning the hundred handed ones. Unfortunately, Uranus thought that these children were too ugly and threw them into the deepest pit, also known as the pit of damnation. Next, Gaea conceived another set of triplets, these were called the elder Cyclopes (Cyclopes are sort of like huge humans with only one eye in the forehead). Again, Uranus threw them into the deepest pits of Tartarus. Gaea began to feel disgruntled as Uranus kept on disposing their children. A few centuries later, they had a final set of children: the Titans. They were twelve in number. Their names were as follows: Thetys,Iapetus,Hyperion,Oceanus,Coeus,Crius,Mnenosyne,Theia,Phoebe,Rhea,Themis and Kronos.
Kronos was the youngest son of Gaea and Uranus and was also the most cunning and blood thirstiest of all his siblings.
Kronos was the youngest son of Gaea and Uranus and was also the most cunning and blood thirstiest of all his siblings.
The rise of the Titans
As the time flew by, Gaea began to grow discontented with her husband. He started to get too domineering. One day, Gaea called a meeting of the Titans and persuaded them to rebel against their father. Kronos took the lead and one day trapped his father with the help of his siblings Iapetus, Hyperion, Crius and Coeus. Gaea crafted a scythe from the minerals of the earth and gifted it to Kronos who then used it to cut Uranus into tiny pieces. A piece of Kronos fell into the ocean and swirled in it creating the goddess of love: Aphrodite. Other pieces of Uranus fell on fertile land and gave rise to nature spirits i.e the souls of trees, streams, rivers etc. Later, Kronos was declared the king of the universe and married his sister Rhea. They gave birth to six children. At the birth of his first child, Kronos visited Gaea's seer. She predicted that Kronos would meet the same end as his did i.e his own children would kill him. These children were: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon and Zeus. Kronos swallowed each of these children. Until one day, when Rhea became tired of Kronos eating all their kids and when she was pregnant with her last and most powerful child, she traveled to an island where Gaea's presence was strong to give birth to her child. Gaea helped to disguise the birth of this child and instead of him gave a rock for Kronos to swallow in place of this child. They named this powerful son of Kronos and Rhea, Zeus .
