Many think that the first ones to exist in
Greek mythology were the gods, but that isn't
the case. Before the gods, there were the
titans, which were fourteen. Among them we
can highlight three: Uranus, the representation
of the skies, Gaea, the representation of
the Earth and Pontus, the representation of
the seas, son of Gaea, spawned by herself
without being with a male titan.
After being with Uranus, Gaea gave birth to
the other eleven titans: Coeus, Crius, Hyperion,
Iapetus, Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe,
Tethys, and the last one, Cronus, who we will
be talking about today. He was the black sheep
of the family
and had an immeasurable hatred for his father.
Cronus should not be confused with Chronos,
the god of ages, the zodiac, and of course,
time itself. Also, you might be thinking:
"But I know more titans!" That's right, but
those other titans are offsprings of the ones
we already mentioned. It's a shame, but it
would take us a looooong time to talk about
all of them, so we will have to leave them
for other videos if you guys are interested.
Gaea and Uranus didn't get along well, as
he didn't allow his children to see the sunlight.
Thus, Gaea tried to convince her children
to kill his father, but the only one who stepped
up to actually do it was Cronus. With a sickle
his mother gave him, he took Uranus' life.
From this confrontation, several beings came
to be: the first were the giants, a species
of human-like males of huge size and incredible
strength.
Then the erinyes, also known as the furies.
These were human-like females with snakes
entangled in their hair, who wept blood and
carried torches and whips with them.
They were divine forces tasked with the duty of
punishing criminals in life.
The meliads as well, also known as the primordial
nymphs. These were considered the most ancient
nymphs because they were daughters of the
skies and the earth, and were the first to
walk freely in the world.
And finally, Aphrodite, the goddess of love.
After defeating Uranus, Cronus imprisoned
the beasts that emerged due to the battle,
and ascended to the throne of the gods along
with his sister Rhea. Thus started the golden
era of his reign, named so because immorality
didn't exist then,
and everyone did the right thing.
Cronus started to have children with Rhea:
the first Greek gods: Démeter, Hera, Hestia,
Hades and Poseidon. The thing is… he would
swallow them all when they were born! Gross!
And so, Gaea warned Cronus that one of his
own children would be the one to defeat him.
Rhea, tired of this situation, hid their sixth
child, Zeus, and gave Cronus a large rock
in his place. Cronus swallowed the rock without
noticing it wasn't him.
Some versions of the story say that Zeus was
raised by a goat who lived with some korýbantes,
armed dancers who would yell and clap to cover
up his crying.
Other versions of the tale say that he was
raised by nymphs while hanging from a tree.
This is because Cronus reigned over the earth
and the skies, and thus, if Zeus was hanging
from a tree, he wouldn't be on earth nor the
skies,
and Cronus would not be able to detect him.
And yet other versions of the story simply
say that Gaea raised Zeus behind Cronus' back.
Either way, when Zeus grew up he faced Cronus
and made him regurgitate all of his swallowed
siblings using a powerful poison his grandma
Gaea had given him. Zeus also freed the hecatoncheires
and the cyclopes from Tartarus, the deep abyss
where Cronus had imprisoned them. They created
for Zeus his famous lightnings, as well as
a powerful trident for Poseidon
and an invisibility helmet for Hades.
After being freed, they all fought together
against Cronus and the rest of the Titans
in a war known as the Titanomachy. Once defeated,
the titans were imprisoned in Tartarus. Some
of the Titans had a different fate however,
like Atlas, who was sentenced to carry the
skies for all eternity.
There are different versions of what happened
to Cronus after his defeat: In some versions
of the story he is imprisoned with the rest
of the titans. In others he is imprisoned
in Nyx's cave for the rest of eternity. And
in other versions Cronus is liberated from
Tartarus by Zeus' orders, and becomes the
king of the Elysium.
Cronus went on to be known as the devourer
of sons and daughters, but also as the god
of the harvests, and has been represented
by various artists such as Francisco de Goya,
Rubens and Giorgio Vasari. There are other
indirect representations of Cronus which stay
very close to his character, such as Marvel's
intergalactic supervillain Galactus,
devourer of worlds.
Cronus also makes an appearance in God of
War 3 as one of the bosses you must defeat.
And of course, we cannot forget the anime
Attack on Titan! Although Cronus doesn't make
an appearance there, the figure of the titans
ravishing humanity is surely present.
The story of Cronus is one of the most important
pillars of Greek mythology… and we believe
it's a story of colóssal proportions! We
hope we are not the only ones!
