only system received at the date of the poem itself. Homer knows nothing of Uranos, in the sense of an arch-God anterior to Kronos. Uranos and Gæa, like Oceanus, Tethys and Nyx, are with him great and venerable Gods, but neither the one nor the other present the character of predecessors of Kronos and Zeus.[1] The Cyclôpes, whom Hesiod ranks as sons of Uranos and fabricators of thunder, are in Homer neither one nor the other; they are not noticed in the Iliad at all, and in the Odyssey they are gross gigantic shepherds and cannibals, having nothing in common with the Hesiodic Cyclops except the one round central eye.[2] Of the three Centimanes enumerated by Hesiod, Briareus only is mentioned in Homer, and to all appearance, not as the son of Uranos, but as the son of Poseidôn; not as aiding Zeus in his combat against the Titans, but as rescuing him at a critical moment from a conspiracy formed against him by Hêrê, Poseidôn and Athênê.[3] Not only is the Hesiodic Uranos (with the Uranids) omitted in Homer, but the relations between Zeus and Kronos are also presented in a very different light. No mention is made of Kronos swallowing his young children: on the contrary, Zeus is the eldest of the three brothers instead of the youngest, and the children of Kronos live with him and Rhea: there the stolen intercourse between Zeus and Hêrê first takes place without the knowledge of their parents.[4] When Zeus puts Kronos down into Tartarus, Rhea consigns her daughter Hêrê to the care of Oceanus: no notice do we find of any terrific battle with the Titans as accompanying that event. Kronos, lapetos, and the remaining Titans are down in Tartarus, in the lowest depths under the earth, far removed from the genial rays of Hêlios; but they are still powerful and venerable, and Hypnos makes Hêrê swear an oath in their name, as the most inviolable that he can think of.[5]
- ↑ Iliad, xiv. 249; xix. 259. Odyss. v.184. Oceanus and Têthys seem to be presented in the Iliad as the primitive Father and Mother of the Gods:—
Ὠκεανόν τε θεῶν γένεσιν, καὶ μητέρα Τηθύν. (xiv. 201).
- ↑ Odyss. ix. 87.
- ↑ Iliad, i. 401.
- ↑ Iliad, xiv. 203-295; xv. 204.
- ↑ Iliad, viii. 482; xiv. 274-279. In the Hesiodic Opp. et Di., Kronos is represented as ruling in the Islands of the Blest in the neighborhood of Oceanus (v. 168).
