A World Of Gods: As The Gods Turn.

It was a quiet night. A handful of us were huddled around a fire, our stomachs only half filled with spoiled food. We were trying to keep our mind off the fact that tomorrow we go to battle. Tomorrow many of us will die, maybe all of us. But, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t shift my mind to different thoughts. I was wishing for a distraction when an old man finally broke the silence, “you know, several of you may die tomorrow, and I bet most of you don’t even know where you came from. Why our homeland is sacred and has to be defended from those damn Romans, do you?”

Zeus

The statue of Zeus in the temple at Olympia stood
more than 40 feet high.(Copyright Lee Krystek, 2011)

We all looked to one another and shook our heads. “Not really,” I said, “I mean, I know it’s something about Zeus and Mt Olympus, right?”

“Yes,” he chuckled, “It is something like that, but there is so much more to it. Greece is the birthplace of all the races of gods and men.”

“In the beginning,” he continued, “there was only chaos, and out of this chaos was born Erebus god of darkness and Nyx goddess of the night. Erebus and Nyx had sex”

One of the boys interrupted “you didn’t say you were going to tell us a dirty story Uncle Homer.”

“Yeah, well there is a lot of it.” Homer replied, “And if you interrupt me every time it comes up, we will never finish this story.

“That would be fine with me,” another boy said, “means we wouldn’t have to fight tomorrow.”

A Depiction of Gaia the Earth Goddes

Homer cleared his throat “anyways, Nyx then laid a giant, golden egg an egg she sat on for ages. Slowly, life began to stir in the egg, until one day it finally hatched and

Eros, the God of Love, was born. When his shell broke the bottom of it fell and became the Gaia (earth). The top became Uranus (heaven). Nyx and Erebus had several other children including Tartarus the God of a place of torment, and pain that exists beneath the underworld. When you die and are judged, if you are a wicked person of deserve divine punishment you will be sent to Tartarus. Then Eros made Uranus fall in love with Gaia, and from their union sprang many children. Their first three children were monsters with fifty arms on each side, and fifty heads. Uranus, who never wanted offspring to begin with, trapped them in Tartarus. They were the most hated of his children. Uranus and Gaia then conceived many other children Oceanus, Coeus and Crius and Hyperion and Iapetus, Theia and Rhea, Themis and Mnemosyne and gold-crowned Phoebe and lovely Tethys. She delivered the Cyclopes, who were strong spirited and stubborn-hearted. They would be the ones to give Zeus the thunder and made the thunderbolt: in all else, they were like the gods. But they had only one eye, and it was set in the midst of their fore-heads. Uranus trapped all of his children in Tartarus. Last she conceives Cronos, the King of the Titans. Gaia conspired with her children against heaven but they were all gripped by fear. Only Cronos was willing to ambush his father. Gaia laid herself out and soon Uranus came along bringing night with him. Uranus spread himself upon her and Cronos sprung from his hiding place and castrated his father. He flung the severed member into the ocean where a maiden grew from it, Athena goddess of fertility.”

“Whoa! So Cronos cut off his own fathers penis?” Someone asked. I looked up and noticed the size of our little group had grown slightly. About a dozen men standing around listening intently to this old man’s story.

“Yes, he did, and in doing so, he freed his brothers and sisters.” Homer answered. “Cronos then became the king over all the other titans which, which were all his brothers, sisters, and cousins. Because he was the one who had over thrown Uranus. Cronos takes his sister Rhea as his queen, and took to living on Mt Olympus, and all was well. But then Uranus decided to take steps toward his revenge. Cronos and Rhea are delighted in the news that Rhea is with child, Hades the god of the underworld. During the celebration Uranus told Cronos that it is his destiny that he be overthrown by his son, just like Cronos over threw his father (Uranus). These seeds of doubt grew in Cronos’ mind and he knew what he must do. As soon as Hades, was born Cronos ate him.”

“Cronos did what?!” exclaimed another new audience member. The number of people listening had nearly doubled in the last few moments.

Replica of the Omphalos stone. It is located in Delphi.

“He ate baby Hades.” Homer replied, now having to speak a bit louder for everyone to hear. “Now where was I? Oh yes, Cronos ate Hades because he was afraid of his child rising up against him. Now, just like we have seen with past the first generation of gods, just because they don’t want kids doesn’t mean they stop having sex. Cronos and Rhea conceived four other children that Cronos also ate Hera, Poseidon, Hestia and Demeter. At this point, Rhea is distraught - she desperately wants to have a child that she could watch grow up. So, she conspired against Cronos with Gaia and Uranus. Rhea was pregnant with her sixth baby, Zeus. Uranus and Gaia agreed to help Rhea conceal the child. When Zeus was born, before Cronos saw him, Gaia switched the baby with a special stone. The same stone that we have in our home city at Delhpi.”

“I wish we could eat rocks” mumbled a soldier near him as his stomach growled.

Homer sighed and continued “Rhea swaddled the stone in baby blankets and presented it to Cronos, who ate it without giving it a second look. Gaia raised Zeus in a cave on Mt Ida, far from where Cronos would look for him. Years passed and young Zeus grew strong, he was often reminded of his brothers and sisters still living and growing to adult hood in his father’s stomach. Uranus helped sow seeds of hate, towards Cronos, in Zeus. Zeus formed alliances with Cronos’ brothers the Giants, the Cyclopes, and Cottus, Briareos, and Gyes the beasts with fifty arms and heads. Together with his uncles, Zeus stormed Mt Olympus and brutally defeated Cronos and the other Titans. Zeus took a blade and split his father’s belly, releasing his trapped brothers and sisters. Zeus took the defeated Titans and cast them deep into Tartarus, and took the throne as King of The Gods.”

“Zeus is great” exclaimed an excited listener. I looked up to see the crowd was still growing.

“Now, Gaia didn’t exactly like how roughly Zeus had treated the Titans because, after all, most of the Titans were her children. So to punish him for his deeds, she sent two of her other children to fight him, the monsters Typhon and Echidna. It was a magnificent battle, ending with Zeus standing victorious. After Zeus defeated Typhon, he trapped him in a mountain, but he allowed Echidna to live. As the newly crowned King of The Gods, Zeus needed a queen. So, he married his sister, Hera. Together they had several children, And Zeus ha many more childeren without Hera, but that is another story. Zeus saw that the world was far too empty now that the Titans had been locked awaty in Tartarus. So, together, with two other gods Prometheus (fore-thought) and Epimetheus (after-thought), Zeus started working on the races of the world. The Gold men came first, followed by the the Silver men, the Bronze men were third, and finally the Iron men. The Gold men lived in a paradise. Crops grew wildly everywhere, meat and fish was plentiful. Everyone was peaceful and they never fought any wars.” Homer sighed wistfully, “if only we had the fortune to live in those days, huh?”

“Unfortunately all good things end, and one day, for no known reason, the gold men disappeared. Zeus soon replaced them with the Silver men, but these men were a weak race. They spent most of their lives as infants, they had a short time of healthy adulthood and then they had a long, agonizing period of old age. Zeus didn’t take much time in replacing them with the bronze men. But, these men were too vicious and very quickly killed each other off. Zeus finally found the right ingredient when he made us, the Iron men. He made us after multiple failed attempts and finally got it prefect.”

Bust of Homer (British Museum, London)

Homer stood up, and looked out at his audience. Now there were too many heads for me to count in such low light. “So you see men, you need not be scared of the battle tomorrow. For we are the men made of Iron, nothing is stronger than Iron!” He yelled. His statement was met with thunderous applause. "With the true Gods on our side, we cannot lose!"

“Now men, it’s late and we all have something we have to do tomorrow,” he chuckled. “But, I’ll tell you what, for those of you who are brave enough to survive, tomorrow night I’ll tell you about the first women, Prometheus bringing fire to the humans, the many children of Zeus, and the trials of Hercules. Goodnight men.”