Greek Mythology Family Tree: Primordials, Titans & Olympians

today I'm going to show you the family tree of Greek and Roman gods I'll be using my Greek mythology family tree chart which by the way is available as a poster from my website useful charts calm in most cases each Greek god had a Roman equivalent for example the Greek god Zeus was called Jupiter by the Romans in this video I'll be using the Greek names throughout but please note that the Roman names are in fact listed on the chart as well so I'll be looking at three generations of gods the primordial gods of the Titans and the Olympians and one other thing I should mention before we begin there are several different ancient sources that talk about these gods and sometimes they differ when it comes to who was the parent or child of who so in some cases I had to make a choice and therefore you might disagree with that choice but just remember we're talking about mythology here and therefore there's really no such thing as a correct version of events [Music] we're going to start up here with the first generation of God's the primordial gods who according to some sources are said to have been born out of chaos these include eros elder not to be confused with the younger Aerys whom the Romans called Cupid then we have Tartarus the original god of the underworld Gaia mother earth the most important of the primordial gods Erebus god of darkness and nyx god of night now there are two gods here at the top that don't really fit anywhere on the tree being that they exist beyond space and time there's Cronus old father time and Anan K the goddess of Destiny don't confuse this Cronus spelt with a CH with the Titan named Cronus spelled with a k or C whom we'll meet later so the tree really starts from Gaia from Gaia came three gods the mountains the sky and the sea named Oriya Uranus and pontus take note of the colors because I use them throughout the chart green represents earth gods light blue represents sky gods and dark blue represents Sea gods now Gaia and Uranus actually became a couple and from them came the cyclops monsters with one big eye the hecka tongue curries monsters with fifty heads and one hundred arms and most importantly the twelve Titans but before we look at the Titans let's look at the rest of the primordial gods from Tartarus the god of the underworld comes several monsters shown in brown such as Cerberus the three-headed dog that guards the gates of hell the dragon from which jason and the argonauts stole the Golden Fleece and the Sphinx who had the face of a human the body of a lion and the wings of a bird some of the other Fame monsters from Greek mythology came from Pontus the original god of the sea these include the harpies the sirens and the Gorgons the most famous Gorgon was of course Medusa who had snakes for her hair one look at her face would turn anyone to stone the descendants of Pontus also included the gray II they are three grey witches who share an eye and a tooth and can see the future finally from pontus comes Nereus another important sea god sometimes known as the old man of the sea he's the father of the narrates a large group of female sea nymphs the last group of beings that fall under the primordial category are those that came from Erebus and Nix these include Charon the ferryman to the underworld as well as several figures that are personifications of various concepts such as death or sleep note that on this chart whenever you see a black square that means a god or creature that lived in the underworld whenever you see a red square that means a God that is a personification of a particular concept and who doesn't really fit into a category such as earth sky sea or underworld ok so now it's time to look at these second generation of gods the Titans as I mentioned earlier the Titans are the children of Gaia and Uranus and there are 12 of them let's start over here on the left first we have Oceanus and tethers god of the ocean and goddess of the rivers they take the place of Pontus in this second generation of gods and are the parents of the ocean it's the ocean EDS were a large group of sea goddesses many of whom were the mothers of other important gods which we'll get to later next we have Hyperion god of light and Thea goddess of the ether from them we get Helios the original god of the Sun and Selene the original goddess of the moon the Roman names for these gods are the basis for our terms solar lunar at this point I should note that some of the twelve Titans are grouped together as couples but some are not one that is not is crius he married a daughter of Pontus and from them came Pallas the original God of War Pallas married Styx and together they were the parents of Kratos in recent years Kratos has become well-known because he shows up in the God of War video game series he had a sister named Nike who the famous shoe company is named after we then get Cronus god of the harvest and Raya goddess of fertility we'll come back to them in a second but for now note that in this generation we get a couple for the sea a couple for the sky and a couple for the earth the rest of the Titans include famous goddess of law and order yep adesh god of mortal life Mnemosyne goddess of memory Koya s-- the celestial axis and phoebe a minor moon goddess out of these five Yepez is perhaps the most important because he was the father of ad 'less the god who is often shown with a globe on his back as well as Prometheus and Epimetheus gods of foresight and hindsight Prometheus is the God who created mankind and Epimetheus is the God who married the first woman pandora whenever you see a purple box on this chart that indicates that that person is either a mortal human or a demigod demigod meaning that that person had one parent who was a god and one parent who was a human let's go back to Cronus and Rhea they are shown here in the middle because they are the king and queen of the gods in this second generation originally Uranus and Gaia were the main gods but according to one Greek myth they were replaced by Cronus and Rhea because of the following sequence of events for some reason Uranus didn't like the hagit inquiries and decided to banish them deep within the earth which both hurt and angered Gaia Gaia therefore made a giant sickle and the Titans to castrate Uranus Cronus who was actually the youngest of the Titans was the only one brave enough to do so he was successful and from the blood of Uranus came the Furies goddesses of vengeance as well as several giants the ash tree nymphs and according to some sources Aphrodite because of this act crona's and his partner Raya became the new king and queen of the gods but foolishly Cronus decided to banish the Hecate on careese just like his father had done and therefore it was prophesied that one of Cronus's sons would eventually defeat him just like he had defeated his father because of this Cronus was scared of his children and decided to eat each of them as soon as they were born Cronus and Rhea had six children these children would eventually become the third and final generation of gods known as the Olympians the first five were all eaten by Cronus but when the sixth child named Zeus was born Raya decided to play a trick on Cronus she wrapped up a rock and gave it to Cronus instead of the baby Cronus ate the rock thinking it was Zeus and therefore Raya was able to hide Zeus in a safe place until which time he was old enough to launch a war against his father that war was known as the Battle of the Titans and as prophesied Zeus was able to defeat Cronus thus becoming the third and final king of the gods he also managed to cut open Cronus's stomach and release his brothers and sisters he freed the hagit encrease and instead imprisoned the Titans making the hackaton carries their guards so let's take a closer look at these six children of Cronus and Rhea first there was Poseidon Poseidon married one of the near eats and became the new god of the sea Demeter took over Cronus's role and became the goddess of the harvest zeus of course became king of the gods but was also the new god of the sky and in particular the god of thunder he married his sister Hera who became queen of the gods and was the goddess of women there was also Hades who became the new god of the underworld and Hestia who became the goddess of the hearth or home just like there are 12 main Titans there are also 12 main Olympians but because there are only six original siblings some of Zeus's children are also included in order to come up with the number 12 in fact Hades is not included in the 12 so there are actually seven of Zeus's children who are considered to be main Olympians so that we get that perfect number 12 so first there's a thena goddess of wisdom from which the city of athens takes its name she was the daughter of Zeus with his first wife Metis one of the ocean 'its then with his wife Hera Zeus had Hephaestus god of fire and Ares God of War fourth we get Aphrodite the goddess of love and beauty according to some sources she's the daughter of Zeus but according to others she was born out of the sea when Uranus was castrated fifth there is Hermes son of Zeus and Maia who was a daughter of Atlas Hermes is the messenger of the gods and is the one with the wings on his helmet he also serves many other roles though and because of this he's considered both an earth God and a sky God finally we have apollo and artemis the new god of the sun and goddess of the moon their mother was lead o daughter of coasst and phoebe apollo was also the god of medicine and the arts and artemis was also the goddess of hunting so those seven together with the five up here comprised the twelve main Olympian gods now as you've probably noticed there are a lot of gods on this chart and I've been skipping over some of the minor ones but let me take the time to point out a few more before we go most of these are considered to be the various children of Zeus by lots of different females both goddesses and mortal women so there's Persephone daughter of zoo and Demeter she was kidnapped by Hades and made the queen of the underworld then there's Daiki the goddess of justice she has a blindfold across her eyes and you can often see statues of her standing in front of courthouses there's also the muses daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne they were goddesses who inspired musicians and artists then by mortal women we have Perseus after whom Percy Jackson from the Rick Riordan books is named and of course Heracles perhaps the greatest of all the Greek heroes finally when it comes to the children of Zeus we cannot forget Dionysus god of wine and as such one of the more popular gods in the Greek pantheon sometimes he's considered one of the 12 main Olympians in place of Hestia there are a few more gods I'd like to point out the first is eros known to the Romans as Cupid he was the son of Ares and Aphrodite and is usually portrayed as a baby holding a bow and arrow it is said that whoever he hits with his arrow will fall in love with the next person they see Aphrodite also had a child with Hermes aptly named hermaphrodite Eze who was neither male or female and finally Hermes had a son named Pan who looks like a faun and is the god of shepherding although in other sources he existed long before Zeus himself so like I said there are a lot of other characters on this chart that I did not have time to mention but hopefully this video has given you a general overview of the Greek mythology family tree and how the main Greek and Roman gods are related once again if you'd like to buy the poster version of the chart you can head over to my website useful charts calm if you find history genealogy and monarchies interesting be sure to subscribe to the channel if you check the playlists you'll find that I have videos covering the family trees of famous dynasties from all over the world and to see what else I'm up to follow me on Twitter or Instagram thanks for watching

Channel: UsefulCharts

Views: 1,377,539

Rating: 4.9319711 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: O7F16sC860s

Length: 14min 40sec (880 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 16 2019