| Gaia and the Birth of the Olympians |
| The Banishment of Ouranos |
| Briareos, Gyes and Kottos |
| Gaia and Typhoeus |
| Gaia and Orion |
| Gaia and the Silver Race of Mortals |
| Gaia in Various Text References |
Gaia is the ancient Greek goddess of Earth ... she was the second Immortal, after Chaos, to come into existence.
Gaia’s first act of creation was a son named Ouranos, the starry Heavens ... he was her equal in all ways but proved to be a devious and sometimes dangerous son and lover. Gaia then created Ourea, the Mountains ... her third creation was Pontos, the barren Sea.
With her own children, Gaia gave birth to all manner of immortal creatures including: the Titans, Okeanos (Ocean), the Giants, Erinys (Fury), the Nymphs of the Ash Trees, the Cyclops and the Roaring Goddess, Hekate (Hecate).
Although Gaia is gigantic and all encompassing, her body is very subtle and she does not take on any sort of human form but is sometimes portrayed in artwork as a normal looking human female. Her presence is noted on Mount Helicon with the other Immortals as they bestow the gift of insight to chosen mortals. The poet, Hesiod, proclaimed her presence when he was herding his lambs on the holy mountain and was taught the art of song by the Muses.
The Titans were also children of Gaia and Ouranos (the Heavens) ... the name Titan was aptly chosen for this generation of Immortals by Ouranos ... their name means Strainers or Stretchers and essentially means that Ouranos thought that they would eventually pay a heavy price for their indulgences because they Strained and Stretched the bounds of propriety and abused their seemingly limitless powers.
One of the most notorious Titans, Kronos (Cronos), was given a warning by Gaia ... she predicted that just as Kronos had deposed his father, Ouranos, he too would be replaced by one of his sons. Kronos could not prevent the birth of his children but he devised a devious plan that would imprison them forever inside his own body ... as each child was born from his wife (and sister), Rheia (Rhea), Kronos swallowed the infant. When the sixth child was due to be born, Rheia secretly substituted a stone for the infant and the unwitting Kronos swallowed it down thinking that he, and his authority, would never be challenged. Gaia assisted Rheia in hiding the child, Zeus, from his father and when Zeus grew to manhood, he returned to confront his father. Zeus kicked Kronos in the stomach and the swallowed children were disgorged ... after a fierce ten year war with Kronos and the other Titans, the children of Kronos took Mount Olympos (Olympus) for their home and became known as the Olympian gods.
As one of the primal goddesses, Gaia was the mother of many of the Immortals. Her child and consort, Ouranos, was the ruler of the heavens in the same way that Gaia was the master of the earth. His dominion was absolute but he became too concerned with the affairs of Gaia and tried to dominate her as well. When Gaia was pregnant with Kottos (Cottos), Briareos and Gyes, Ouranos would not let them be born for fear that they would usurp his power. In desperation, Gaia begged her Titan children to slay Ouranos but only Kronos was willing to step forth and do the deed. Gaia created flint and formed a sickle for Kronos to use as a weapon. Kronos attacked Ouranos with the enormous sickle and castrated him. From the blood of Ouranos’ injury were born a race of Giants, the Eumenides (Furies), the Nymphs of the Ash Trees (the Meliae) and the beautiful Aphrodite (goddess of Love). (Theogony, lines 106, 125, 127 and 155)
Briareos, Gyes and Kottos (Cottos) are sons of Gaia and Ouranos. All three have fifty heads and fifty arms sprouting from their massive shoulders ... of all of her children these three brothers were the most terrible. Ouranos saw these three powerful brothers as a potential threat to his dominion and began plotting against them as soon as they were conceived ... his plan was simple and effective, Ouranos simply refused to allow Briareos, Gyes and Kottos to be born.
The brothers were trapped in Gaia’s womb until another of Gaia’s children, the Titan, Kronos, attacked and wounded his father, Ouranos. Briareos, Gyes and Kottos were allowed to be free, but their freedom was not to last ... Kronos had helped his mother, Gaia, to free the monstrous brothers but, like his father, he too feared their strength and beauty and so he too imprisoned them under the earth where they remained until the War of the Titans in which the Olympians fought with the Titans for control of all creation.
As the leader of the Olympian gods, Zeus brought Briareos, Gyes and Kottos back into the light of day and gave them nectar and ambrosia to renew their vitality. In gratitude, the three monstrous brothers gave Zeus thunderbolts and lightning which Gaia had kept hidden from the other Immortals. With their newly acquired freedom and strength, Briareos, Gyes and Kottos joined the Olympians in the war against the Titans ... after ten years of war, Zeus let loose all his fury and heaven and earth trembled under his newly acquired thunderbolts ... at that moment, Briareos, Gyes and Kottos bombarded the Titans with three-hundred boulders which buried the Titans and ended the war.
After the War of the Titans, Gaia became the consort of Tartaros (Tartarus) ... he was of the same generation as Gaia and manifested himself as The Underworld ... like Gaia, Tartaros was one of the four original Immortals after Chaos. Gaia and Tartaros had a son named Typhoeus ... Typhoeus was truly a formidable dragon god with one hundred heads like snakes ... each head had flickering tongues and breath of fire ... the voices of the different heads each created a different sound: one head spoke in a voice that the Olympian gods could understand, another made the hissing sound of a snake, another was like the roar of a lion, another was like a furious bull and another made whelping noises.
Zeus saw the threat that Typhoeus posed to all the Immortals and quickly moved to subdue the beast ... the battle began ... with the thunderbolts of Zeus and the fire belching from Typhoeus, the earth trembled and sea boiled. Zeus finally burned the hundred heads from Typhoeus’ necks and cast him under the earth to the darkness of Tartaros ... molten rock and vile winds spewed from the earth where Typhoeus was buried and the damp and boisterous winds were born. Some authors (Pindar and Tzetzes) say that Typhoeus was buried under Mount Etna (Aetna) on the island of Sicily but the poet, Homer, says the location was in Kilikia (Cilicia) in what would now be the southern portion of modern Turkey.
Gaia also enters into the life and death of the most renowned hunter of all time, Orion. He was the son of Poseidon (lord of the Sea) and Euryale, the daughter of King Minos of the island of Crete. Poseidon gave Orion the power to walk on water as if it were land and this, no doubt, added to his hunting abilities as well as his arrogance.
When Orion went to the island of Chios he became drunk and offended a young woman named Merope, the daughter of Oenopion. Outraged at such crass behavior, Oenopion blinded Orion and he was forced to flee Chios and take refuge on the island of Lemnos. While on Lemnos, the god Hephaistos (Hephaestus) saw the plight the blind hunter and gave Orion a servant named Kedalion (Cedalion) to act as his guide ... Orion carried Kedalion on his shoulders to point out the roads and help him find his way around the world. During his travels, Orion was noticed by Helios (the Sun). Helios pitied the blind hunter and healed him but Orion had learned nothing from the punishment Hephaistos had meted out and immediately resumed his prideful and self indulgent way of life. When Orion ventured to the island of Crete he hunted with the goddesses, Artemis and Leto ... his zeal for hunting made him boast that he would kill every wild animal on the earth. Hearing this haughty and distressing talk, Gaia sent a giant scorpion to kill Orion. After his death, Artemis and Leto persuaded Zeus to place Orion in the heavens as a constellation. (Astronomy, fragment 4)
The Silver Age was the second race of mortals on the surface of the earth. Zeus is officially credited with the creation of the Silver Age mortals but the poet, Hesiod, reasoned that since silver was the symbol of Gaia, she must therefore be responsible for that particular race of humans. Hesiod’s theory is not confirmed by other texts and might be thought of as a theological deduction and not necessarily a fact.
