| Aphrodite | [af-roh-DYE-tee] (Venus) Goddess of love and beauty; in Hesiod, she was born from the castration of Uranus; in Homer, she was the daughter of Zeus and Dione.
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| Athene | [uh-THEE-nuh] (Minerva) Virgin daughter of Zeus born from her father's brain, she was goddess of wisdom, women's handicrafts, and victory in war.
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| Chaos | In Hesiod, a yawning chasm or Void, one of four primal entities from which the universe evolved. In Ovid, it was the primal disorder or dark confusion of matter that was later shaped into an ordered system (cosmos).
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| cosmogony | A theory about the origin or birth of the universe (cosmos).
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| cosmology | A theory or belief describing the natural order or structure of the universe.
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| Cronus | [KROH-nuhs] Titan son of Gaea (Gaia) and Uranus, he deposed his father and ruled the cosmos until overthrown by his youngest son, Zeus. The Romans later identified him with Saturn.
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| Enuma Elish | Ancient Babylonian creation epic celebrating Marduk's victory over an older generation of gods, a Near Eastern counterpart to Hesiod's Theogony.
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| Eros | [AIR-ohs] (Cupid) God of love and sexual desire, he was represented as an unbegotten primal force (Hesiod) or as the son of Ares and Aphrodite (Homer).
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| Fate | The mysterious power of destiny that shapes human lives and history. (See Moirae.)
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| Gaea | [JEE-uh] (Gaia) The Greeks' original Earth Mother, a primal divine power coeval with Chaos. After producing Uranus (Sky), she mated with him to produce the Titans.
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| Hades | [HAY-deez] (Dis) (1) Son of Cronus and Rhea, and brother of Zeus, he was given dominion over the Underworld; he is also called Pluto. (2) The subterranean realm of the dead, which is named after its gloomy ruler.
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| Hephaestus | [he-FES-tuhs] (Vulcan) Son of Hera (Hesiod) or of Hera and Zeus (Homer), he was god of fire and the forge, the master of metalcraft who built the Olympians' palace and fashioned armor for Achilles. He was married to Aphrodite, who preferred Ares as her lover.
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| Hera | [HEE-ra] (Juno) Daughter of Cronus and Rhea and sister and wife of Zeus, she was goddess of marriage and domesticity. Her matriarchal spirit ill .t the patriarchal rule of Zeus.
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| Marduk | Chief god of the Babylonian pantheon, the son of Ea (god of wisdom), and creator/hero of the Enuma Elish.
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| Metis | [MEE-tis] Personification of wise advice; Zeus's first wife, whom he swallowed to produce Athene.
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| Mnemosyne | [nee-MAHS-ih-nee] Personification of memory, daughter of Uranus and Gaea, and, by Zeus, the mother of the Muses.
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| Muses, the | The nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, patrons of literature and the fine arts.
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| Nike | Personification of victory, to whom a temple was dedicated on the Athenian Acropolis.
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| Ocean (Oceanus) | (1) In primitive Greek geography, a gigantic river that encircled the earth. (2) A Titan son of Gaea and Uranus, he was the father of all rivers.
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| Rhea | [REE-a] Titan wife of Cronus and mother of Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Hera, and Hestia, she was sometimes identified with the Asiatic goddess Cybele.
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| sparagmos | [spuh-RAHG-mohs] The ritual tearing asunder of a young male sacrificial victim, a dismemberment associated with Osiris, Dionysus, Pentheus, and Orpheus, as well as numerous Near Eastern dying and rising gods, such as Attis, Tammuz, and Adonis.
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| Tartarus | [TAHR-tahr-uhs] The dark abyss beneath Hades' realm where Zeus chained the fallen Titans and where the wicked suffered torment.
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| Titans | Race of giant gods whom Gaea and Uranus begot and whom Zeus overthrew and imprisoned in Tartarus.
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| Typhoeus | [tye-FEE-uhs] A monstrous giant, in appearance half-human and half-reptile, with one hundred dragon heads; the child of Gaea and Tartarus, a manifestation of the dragon of chaos that Zeus had to defeat before assuming control of the cosmos.
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| Typhon | A reptilian child of Hera, an incarnation of storm winds.
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| Uranus | [OOR-a-nuhs] The original sky god and son-husband of Gaea, he was castrated and deposed by his "crafty" son Cronus.
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