home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
HaCKeRz KrOnIcKLeZ 3
/
HaCKeRz_KrOnIcKLeZ.iso
/
anarchy
/
essays
/
term
/
greekpro.txt
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1996-04-27
|
2KB
|
79 lines
The Greeks believed that the earth was
formed before any of the gods appeared.
The gods, as the Greeks knew them, all
originated with Father Heaven, and Mother
Earth.
Father Heaven was known as Uranus, and
Mother Earth, as Gaea.
Uranus and Gaea raised many children.
Amoung them were the Cyclopes, the Titans,
and the Hecatoncheires, or the Hundred-
Handed Ones.
Uranus let the Titans roam free, but he
imprisoned the Cyclopes and the Hundred-
handed Ones beneath the earth.
Finally, Gaea could not bear Uranus's
unkindness to the Cyclopes and the
Hundred-Handed Ones any longer.
Gaea joined Cronos, one of the Titans; and
together, they overcame Uranus, killed him,
and threw his body into the sea.
Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty,
later rose from the sea where Uranus's
body had been thrown.
Now Cronus became king of the universe.
Cronos married his sister, Rhea, and they
had six children.
At the time of Cronos's marriage to Rhea,
Gaea prophesied that one of his children
would overthrow Cronos, as he had
overthrown Uranus.
To protect himself, Cronos swallowed each
of his first five children -- Hestia, Demeter,
Hera, Hades, and Poseidon -- immediatly
after birth.
After the birth of her sixth and last child,
Rhea tricked Cronos into swallowing a rock
and then hid the child -- Zeus -- on earth.
Zeus grew up on earth and was brought
back to Mount Olympus as a cupbearer to
his unsuspecting father.
Rhea and Zeus connived against Cronos by
mixing a noxious drink for him.
Thinking it was wine, Cronos drank the
mixture and promptly regulated his five
other children, fully grown.
Then Zeus and his brothers waged a mighty
battle against Cronos and the other
Titans.
Cronos and the Titans were defeated when
Zeus ambushed them with the help of the
Cyclopes and the Hundred-Headed Ones, and
they panicked and retreated.
Cronos and the Titans were imprisioned in
the Earth where their fighting still causes
earthquakes from time to time.
Zeus and his brothers and sisters went to
live on Mount Olympus, where they ruled
over the earth.