Greek gods

Gaea, or the earth, was the first deity of the Greek cosmological order, born of the chaos that reigned before life. She gave birth to Uranus (the heavens), and together they conceived giants, cyclopes, and titans. Uranus was not pleased with his monstrous offspring, so he locked all his children away deep within the earth.

And Gaea was not pleased with Uranus for this. So she enlisted the titan Kronos to attack his ungrateful father and seize power. But Kronos was an even less tolerant father than Uranus, and was soon dealt the same blow by his own son Zeus. And with Zeus's ascension to power, so begins the Greek era of the Olympians.

Now controlling the entire cosmos, Zeus decided to divide the spoils between his brothers Poseidon and Hades. The drawing of lots decided that Zeus would retain his title as ruler of the gods, while Poseidon would take possession of the seas. Hades was left with control of the underworld, and felt slighted, but there he ruled nonetheless, an angry and jealous deity.

Meanwhile, Zeus's marriage to Hera (the goddess of marriage and community) was not going well. His many affairs left her as angry and jealous as Hades, but she never openly challenged Zeus, and took her frustrations out upon other enemies instead.

Still, the pair had many children. Zeus showed open favoritism toward Athena, who became the goddess of wisdom and warfare. Unlike her brother Ares (the god of warfare), Athena was judicious and benevolent, choosing her battles to promote civilization and advancement. To Ares it was irrelevant which side prevailed in a battle; he only wanted ample bloodshed to assuage a violent nature. Ares even took his children—Phobos (fear), Deimos (terror), and Enyo (horror)—into battle with him.

But Ares was cowardly and quick to flee when things turned against him, and was even publicly mocked by his own brother Hephaestus.

Hephaestus (god of the forge and blacksmiths) had caught Ares having an affair with his wife. While said to be the ugliest of all deities, somehow Hephaestus married Aphrodite, the very goddess of love and beauty. But she rarely reciprocated his love, preferring instead the war god Ares.

Meanwhile, Zeus continued to have extramarital trysts of his own, many of which bore offspring—most famously Artemis (goddess of archery) and Apollo. God of wisdom, truth, music, the sun, and —among other things—healing, Apollo proved to be one of the most revered Olympians. A childhood act of goodwill set the precedent for Apollo: a giant serpent called Python greedily guarded the Oracle at Delphi (a well from which sprang prophecies of the future). The serpent ravaged the nearby countryside, poisoning rivers and wells, destroying crops, and razing entire villages. The young Apollo defeated Python and liberated the Oracle.

Despite his good nature, Apollo was not always treated with respect, especially by his half-brother Hermes. Fleet of foot with winged sandals, Hermes was the messenger to all Olympian gods. But he was mischievous as well—and even while still wrapped in swaddling, he stole cattle from Apollo. Apollo demanded their return, but ended up giving in to Hermes as a result of his skill on the lyre. Hermes thus became the god of music.

In any case, Zeus did not limit his trysts to goddesses—mortal women also appealed to him. One such mortal was Semele, whom Zeus "visited" in the night as a divine presence. Semele did not know who the father was, but was pleased to have coupled with deity, and bore the child Dionysus, god of wine and celebration.

This naturally disturbed Hera, whose jealousies over Zeus's affairs never abated. She convinced Semele to uncover who the father was, even while knowing that no mortal woman could survive an encounter seeing Zeus in the flesh. Semele was killed.

But Hera was not yet satiated, and even had Dionysus murdered. Rhea brought him back to life and Zeus was forced to enrage Hera further by extending Dionysus divine protection.