Greek primordial gods
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| Greek deities series |
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|---|---|
| Titans and Olympians | |
| Aquatic deities | |
| Chthonic deities | |
| Personified concepts | |
| Other deities | |
| Primordial deities | |
The ancient Greeks proposed many different ideas about the primordial gods in their mythology. The many theogonies constructed by Greek poets each give a different account of which gods came first.
- In Homer, Ocean and Tethys are the parents of all the gods.
- In Hesiod, Chaos ("void", "gap") stands at the beginning, followed by Gaia, Tartarus, Eros, Erebus, Pontus, Ourea, Chronos, Nyx, and then Aether, respectively. (See Protogenoi)
- Orphic poetry made Nyx the first principle. Nyx is also the first deity in Aristophanes's Birds, producing Eros from an egg.
- Alcman made the water-nymph Thetis the first goddess, producing poros "path", tekmor "marker" and skotos "darkness" on the pathless, featureless void.
- The Pelasgian belief was that Eurynome and Ophion produced the Universal Egg.
Greek philosophers and thinkers also constructed their own cosmogonies, with their own primordial gods:
- Pherecydes of Syros made Chronos ("time") the first god in his Heptamychia.
- Aphrodite and Ares were the first principles of Empedocles, who wove the universe out of the four elements with their powers of love and strife.
- In Plato's Timaeus, the demiurge models the universe on the Ideas.
