And so Uranus kept them all—all his progeny with Gaia—imprisoned within the crevasses and caverns of the Earth.
Uranus’ fear of his Titan children poisoned him so much that his later children were all monstrous, from having only one eye to having a hundred arms and fifty heads.
Gaia moaned in pain. Her children were thwarted when they should have been thriving. What had happened to tenderness? Where had mercy gone? Her husband had become monstrous.
And so Gaia swallowed her sobs and picked up a great curved blade—the sharpest sickle. She spoke to the children within her. “Your father is evil. Listen to me. Do as I say. Then you can lead free lives.”
The children, large as they were, strong as they were, many as they were, huddled together, uncertain. How could their mother say such things? Uranus was their father.
But the youngest Titan, Cronus, didn’t huddle. “Mother, I will do the deed.” He took the sickle.
Cronus, the Titan son of Gaia, Mother Earth, and Uranus, Father Heaven, lived deep in the Earth, where his father had locked him and his brothers and sisters. While the others quaked in fear at their father and hid in the shadows of their mother, Cronus just watched and listened.
Gaia suffered. The cruelty of this father toward his children was unbearable. She tore her hair, she gnashed her teeth. And in the end, she offered her children an adamantine sickle—lustrous and unbreakable—to confront their father with. Horrified, the children retreated. All but Cronus. Where his courage came from, he didn’t know, but he never hesitated. He waited until nightfall, when his father was asleep. Then silently, stealthily, he struck. Wicked Uranus—his fear became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Cruelty is the snake that bites its own tail.
The blow was powerful. Not lethal—no, the old man lived on. But withering—he became a shadow of himself, his strength a memory. An immortal god humiliated for all time.
The blood of Uranus splattered across Gaia. Gaia spun and spun. Yes, she had wanted freedom for her children, yes and yes. But, oh, the cost was so dear. She could do nothing but spin through the whole year. And as she spun the blood drops seeped deep within her. From them sprang three more groups of children.
The furious Erinyes immediately took to the air and flew above Gaia, screaming for vengeance. They were their father’s daughters. They wept blood as their serpent hair snapped at the winds.
The giants lumbered forth heavily armed, with breastplates and spears at the ready. They looked around, dazed by their sudden existence, knowing nothing about who was at fault—mother or father, who could know? But one thing was for sure: They had to find a way to wage battle.
The numerous nymphs didn’t hesitate; they were their mother’s daughters. They ran over the boundless earth, hiding in streams and woodland glades and cool grottoes. They laughed and played, confident already that they would bring delight to a world that so clearly pined for them.
Parts of Uranus splattered across the seas, as well, and thus sprang up the very last child that he would ever father, riding on the sea foam: Aphrodite, who even as a child caused those who viewed her to fall to their knees in wonderment at her beauty.
THE RULE of the Titans
Gaia and Uranus had 12 Titan children. Cronus was leader, with Rhea as wife. Oceanus encircled the world in water, while Tethys was mother to land rivers. Hyperion was lord of light, with Theia shining beside him. The other Titans were important mostly because their descendants were remarkable. Titans ruled in the Golden Age but were overthrown by younger gods—the Olympians. One Titan, though—Themis—had lasting importance throughout Greek mythology. She was goddess of right and wrong, embodiment of justice.
The sun rising over the horizon
Not every little thing was right with the universe, but all was far better than it had been for Cronus and his brothers and sisters; they were free. Cronus crowed at his victory. Both his mother and father looked at him with fear. Each parent, separate and hushed, prophesied to him that he would be stripped of his power by his own son.
The prophecy ate at him, for no one knew better than Cronus the destruction that a child could wreak. He grew sleepless, wild-eyed. Cronus, who had felt no fear as a child, now felt nothing but fear. He distrusted at random, and for no reason at all locked his brothers, the Cyclopes and the hundred-handed ones, in the deepest part of the Underworld, dark Tartarus. He could tolerate the company only of his fellow Titans.
Then his Titan sister Rhea caught his eye. She was too lovely to resist. So he took her as his wife. But each time she gave birth— producing glorious children, the daughters Hestia and Demeter and Hera, the sons Hades and Poseidon—he panicked and swallowed them. Cannibal? No. No no. He told himself this was simply self-protection.
Rhea, like Gaia before her, felt herself drowning in grief. And, like Gaia before her, she finally reached the dreadful conclusion, the only conclusion: She must stop the brutality. When she recognized the first stirrings of a new baby within her, she asked her parents, Gaia and Uranus, for help. They shepherded her off to the island of Crete, where she gave birth in secrecy to her son Zeus.
Then she left her newborn son for her mother to raise, swaddled a stone, and hurried home to Cronus, who quickly seized the false babe and swallowed it. Wretched Cronus, completely duped, completely ignorant that his son Zeus lived, completely doomed.
Cronus’ fear of his children transformed his body into their prison—swallow, swallow, five times. But the sixth time he swallowed the swaddled stone and began his own demise.
Young Zeus clambered up the rocks behind a billy goat. He walked the mountain ridge and stopped on the highest peak of Crete to look out over the salt-white sea that stretched to Africa. He turned and there was Gaia, his grandmother, who had raised him.
“You’re strong enough,” she said. “It’s your turn.”
Zeus’ heartbeat raced. It filled his head. It filled his whole self. He needed no further information or encouragement. His father, Cronus, had swallowed his brothers and sisters at their births. Zeus had escaped only because his mother, Rhea, had fooled the fear-crazed man into swallowing a stone instead. The boy had grown strong, fearsome, clever. He now went quickly to meet his father for the first time. He was primed for this. Armed. This was the moment of defeat or victory, yet his nerves were steady. He felt strangely elated.
While Zeus journeyed, Gaia reached out to Cronus and crooned in rocking tones that penetrated in that deep way only a mother’s voice can. The suggestion was too powerful; Cronus doubled over. The stone and children within spewed forth from his