Classical Studies 2200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Middle-Earth, Omphalos
9 Dec 2015
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Document Summary
Theogony: theo + gone = birth of the gods. Hesiod: (700bce) tells us he is a farmer and poet from region of boeotia. Single performer - sung in dactylic hexameter (syllabus are long short short in each line). First only chaos - the rst thing that existed. Then gaia (earth), tartarus (below hades/hell - place of torment), eros (love/desire). Gaia produces ouranos (sky/heaven), mountains and sea by asexual reproduction. Gaia mates with ouranos, producing the 12 titans, 3 cyclopes, and 3 hundred handed ones. Ouranos doesn"t allow them to be born - trapped in gaia"s body. Gaia makes a clever plan, kronos castrates and overthrows ouranos. Kronos mates with sister rheia, produce 6 olympians: Rheia tricks kronos (gives him a stone (omphalos) wrapped in clothes), hides baby zeus in a. The third generation (1st olympians): cave on crete. Zeus grows up, overthrows kronos, tricking him to vomit up his siblings. Frees the cyclopes and hundred-handed ones imprisoned by ouranos.
