Gaia
GY-uh
Attested elsewhere in ancient sourcesEarth. In Hesiod she comes into being after Chaos, broad-breasted and the sure foundation of all, and then bears Ouranos equal to herself so that he might cover her entirely.
Everything after that is descent from her. She makes the sickle that Kronos uses on his father, she hides Zeus from Kronos, and she bears Typhon last of all against the Olympians.
She is the one power in this account whose presence needs no explanation. Any being that dwarfs the Moirai is older than they are, and Hesiod put only one thing in that position.
Sources
- Hes. Theog. 116-138
- Hes. Theog. 820-822
References are to the standard divisions of the ancient texts, not to any one edition.
Discussed in the papers
Acenes of Sparta: The Dragon Slayer
A dragon is the reason the 300 died. Leonidas used the magic of the gods to bind Kalaxes beneath Taygetus, and the price was his life and his men's. Sixty-two years later a seven-year-old of the agoge falls into the dragon's crypt and inherits the unpaid balance.
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