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Figures in the ancient sources

Uranus in the ancient sources

Ancient Sources / Figures / Uranus

13 passages from 4 ancient authors that tell of Uranus, in the original with English translation, author by author in the order the Greeks read them. Uranus was a primal Greek god, symbolising the sky. According to Hesiod's Theogony, he was born by Gaea alone. Other sources say that his parents were... For the story in one place, read our article on Uranus.

Hesiod (9)

  1. Hesiod, Theogony 130–174Gaia and Uranus: the Titans, Cyclopes and Hundred-Handers (130-174)Gaia bears Pontus, the sea, and then lies with Uranus and bears the twelve Titans, among them Oceanus and Cronus, followed by the three Cyclopes and the three Hundred-Handers. Uranus hates his children and hides them in Gaia's depths, so she groans, plots against him and makes a sickle of grey flint. Only Cronus has the courage to answer her, and she sets him in ambush with the sickle.
  2. Hesiod, Theogony 100–129Invocation of the Muses; Chaos, Gaia and the first gods (100-129)The proem closes with an invocation: the Muses are asked to tell how the gods and the world first came to be. The cosmogony begins with Chaos, broad-breasted Gaia (Earth), murky Tartarus and Eros, fairest of the gods. Erebus and Night come from Chaos and bear Aether and Day, and Gaia bears Uranus (Heaven) and the hills.
  3. Hesiod, Theogony 175–209Cronus castrates Uranus; the birth of Aphrodite (175-209)Uranus comes to lie with Gaia, and Cronus, waiting in ambush, cuts off his father's genitals with the sickle. From the drops of blood come the Erinyes, the Giants and the ash-tree nymphs, and from the foam round the severed flesh Aphrodite rises and is carried to Cythera and Cyprus, with Eros and Desire as her companions. Uranus calls his sons Titans, because they strained and acted presumptuously.
  4. Hesiod, Theogony 450–479Rhea and Cronus; the birth of Zeus (450-479)Hecate is made a nurse of the young. Rhea bears Cronus Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon and Zeus, and Cronus swallows each child as it is born, because Gaia and Uranus have told him his own son will overcome him. When she is about to bear Zeus, Rhea asks her parents for a plan, and they send her to Lyctus in Crete, where Gaia receives the child.
  5. Hesiod, Theogony 900–929tZeus's marriages and children; the birth of Athena (900-929)Zeus marries Themis (the Hours and the Fates), Eurynome (the Graces), Demeter (Persephone), Mnemosyne (the Muses), Leto (Apollo and Artemis) and lastly Hera, whose children are Hebe, Ares and Eileithyia. Zeus bears Athena from his own head, and Hera bears Hephaestus without Zeus. The section recounts again how Zeus swallowed Metis, who conceived Athena, and how she was born by the river Trito.
  6. Hesiod, Theogony 480–504Zeus hidden in Crete; Cronus vomits up his children (480-504)Gaia takes the infant Zeus to a hidden cave on Mount Aegeum and gives Cronus a great stone wrapped in swaddling clothes, which he swallows. When Zeus is grown, Gaia's counsel tricks Cronus into vomiting up his children, the stone first, which Zeus sets up at Pytho. Zeus also frees his father's brothers, the Cyclopes, who give him thunder and the lightning bolt.
  7. Hesiod, Theogony 615–649Zeus releases the Hundred-Handers (615-649)Zeus and the gods, at Gaia's advice, bring the Hundred-Handers, Obriareus, Cottus and Gyes, up from the gloom beneath the earth where their father Uranus had bound them. The ten-year war between the Titans on Othrys and the gods on Olympus is evenly balanced, and Zeus feeds the three nectar and ambrosia and asks them to stand with the younger gods against the Titans.
  8. Hesiod, Theogony 650–699The Titanomachy: Zeus's thunderbolts (650-699)Cottus answers for the Hundred-Handers and the war begins, the sea, earth and heaven shaking at the clash. Then Zeus holds back his might no longer and comes from Olympus hurling lightning and thunderbolts, so that the earth burns, the sea and Ocean seethe, and the Titans are blinded by the glare.
  9. Hesiod, Theogony 700–739The Titans buried; the approach to Tartarus (700-739)The heat of battle seems to bring heaven and earth together, and the Hundred-Handers hurl three hundred rocks at a time at the Titans, overwhelm them and bind them beneath the earth. Hesiod then describes Tartarus, as far beneath the earth as heaven is above it, with its bronze fence and gates, where the Titans lie hidden and the Hundred-Handers stand guard.

Homer (1)

  1. Homer, The Homeric Hymns 30.1–33.19Hymns 30 to 33: Earth, Helios, Selene and the DioscuriFour hymns to cosmic and heroic figures. Earth, mother of all, feeds every creature and gives or takes away the means of life, and Helios drives his chariot, the son of Hyperion and Euryphaessa. Selene, the Moon, rides with a radiance that fills the sky, and the Dioscuri, Castor and Polydeuces, are saviours of ships in storms.

Apollodorus (1)

  1. Apollodorus, The Library (Bibliotheca), with the Epitome 1.1.1–7Uranus, the Titans and the birth of ZeusSky (Uranus) and Earth have the Hundred-handers, the Cyclopes and the Titans, and Sky casts the Cyclopes into Tartarus. At Earth's urging the Titans attack their father, and Cronus mutilates him with an adamantine sickle, so that the Furies are born from the blood. Cronus takes the sovereignty, binds his brothers again, marries Rhea and swallows his children at birth, until Rhea hides the infant Zeus in a cave in Crete among the Curetes and nymphs and gives Cronus a stone to swallow.

Diodorus Siculus (2)

  1. Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, Books 4 to 6 (the Greek myths) 6.1.1–11Euhemerus on the godsIn a fragment on the gods the historian is quoted as dividing them into eternal ones, such as the sun and moon and stars, and terrestrial ones, such as Heracles and Dionysus, who were honoured as gods for their benefactions. He then summarises the account of Euhemerus, who sailed from Arabia to the island of Panchaea, where a golden stele recorded the deeds of Uranus, Cronus and Zeus as kings.
  2. Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, Books 4 to 6 (the Greek myths) 5.41.1–5.46.7Hiera and PanchaeaBeyond Arabia lie islands in the southern ocean. The historian describes the frankincense and myrrh of Arabia and the island of Hiera, whose Panchaean people sell them, and then Panchaea itself, with its temple of Zeus Triphylius, its wild animals, its cities, and its priests, soldiers and farmers.