Domain: The Earth, the primordial mother, generation itself Symbol: The earth, fruit and grain, the serpent Roman Equivalent: Terra (Tellus)
Overview
Gaia is the Earth — not a goddess who rules the earth but the earth as a living, generative power, one of the first beings to emerge out of Chaos at the beginning of things. From herself alone she brought forth Uranus (the sky), the mountains, and the sea, and then, lying with Uranus, she became the mother of the Titans, the Cyclopes, and the hundred-handed giants. Everything that follows in Greek myth — the Titans, the Olympians, mortals — descends from her.
She is the deep substrate the later, brighter gods are built on: older than Olympus, slower, and not finally governable. The Greeks swore their most binding oaths by her.
Key Myths
The castration of Uranus. When Uranus imprisoned their monstrous children inside her body, Gaia forged a sickle and called on her sons to act. Only Cronus dared; he castrated his father and took his place. Gaia is thus the author of the first overthrow — and she would author the next.
Grandmother of the Olympians. When Cronus in turn devoured his own children, it was Gaia who helped Rhea save the infant Zeus and later counselled his victory. The pattern she sets — each generation overthrown by the next — is the engine of the whole cosmogony.
Related
- Uranus — Sky; her consort and first son
- Cronus — Titan son who overthrew Uranus
- Rhea — Daughter; mother of the Olympians
- Zeus — Grandson; the order she helped to power
- Greek Mythology Index