Greco-roman mythology: The Titans, the predecessors of the gods
Author's note: The following article was published in Spanish language on Blurt in January 17th, 2021.
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In the last post, we explained about Gaia and Uranus, the primordial divinities, creators of heaven and earth, as well as mountains and plains. We exposed about their violent relationship, on how Uranus, jealous and terrified of losing supremacy, mistreated Gaia and the children that were born from this union; such action, as you would recall, will result in his castration.
Now, what happened after Uranus' castration?, what happened after the birth yof the Erinyes, the Meliae and Aphrodite?
In his Theogony, Hesiod tells us that the Twelve Titans: Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus, Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemoside, Phoebe, Thetys and Cronus, mated with each other and with other divinities, begetting a wide offspring and gave rise a golden age, in which human beings are created so that they would worship the divinities.
Some descendants of the Titans are the rivers (born from the union of Tethys and Oceanus); the sun, the dawn and the moon (children of Theia and Hyperion); the wind, the fervor and the wisdom (children of Crius and Eurybia); and last, and most notably, the second divine generation, the Olympian Gods, all children of Cronus and Rhea: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus.
An interesting detail mentioned by Hesiod is that the same scene that has been seen with Uranus is repeated with Cronus: the fear of being dethroned by one of the children who were born from his union with Rhea. An ironic fear because it was his own parents, Uranus and Gaia, who predicted his fall at the hands of one of his children with the help of his brothers the Giants and the Hecatonchires, locked by himself in the Tartarus after the fall of Uranus.
As a reflection of his fear, Cronus decided to devour his children, one by one. Rea, desperate before that infanticide and pregnant with Zeus, turned to Uranus and Gaia, with whom she hatched a plan to save her unborn child. The plan was to send Rhea to a secluded part of Crete; there she gave birth to Zeus, whom Gaia replaced with a huge rock wrapped in swaddling clothes and later hand over it to an Uranus clinging to power. The events that happened later would give rise to a great war, the Titanomachy.
But we will talk about that story in another post.