Greek and roman biography and mythology timeline

When studying Greek mythology, it can be challenging to know how all the stories recorded in distinct myths preserved in disparate sources go together. This timeline for Greek mythology is meant to help put each individual myth into the bigger picture. So, below is a very brief summary of the chronology of the main events in Greek mythology from the birth of Gaia to the start of the Trojan War.

The surviving myths are not always consistent about who did what and when, and here we have gone for a clear chronology over debating individual legends. These kinds of details will be covered in individual articles dedicated to specific gods, Titans, and monsters. The first thing to emerge from Chaos was Gaia, the personification of the earth and the mother of all things.

She was followed by Tartarus , a dark and fearsome place that is more-or-less the antithesis of Earth. As the great mother, Gaia is able to reproduce and she gives birth to Uranus, the sky. He then fertilizes his mother, in an act that is sometimes described as rape, and she gives birth to the twelve Titans, six males and six females: Coeus, Crius, Cronus, Hyperion, Iapetus, Oceanus, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Rhea, Theia, Themis, and Tethys.

Cronus was the last born, and after that, Uranus decided that there should be no more Titans. Uranus also seems to have considered them abominations, and he threw them into Tartarus.

Greek myths

Upset by the treatment of her children, Gaia convinced Cronus to castrate his father and take his place as leader of the Titans, which he did with his sister-wife Rhea. Cronus castrated his father with a sickle made by his mother, and from the blood that poured out of Uranus, Gaia made the Eumenides, chthonic goddesses of vengeance, the giants, a race of great strength, and the Meliae, ash tree nymphs.

The sea gushed forth from the testicles of Uranus, and also gave birth to Aphrodite. However, due to a prophecy that he would be overthrown by his own children, just like his father, Cronus swallowed them.