However, that is not to say that the Olympian was unknown to the primordial gods. No being could exist in a universe without Chaos, and for this reason, Zeus relies on the primordial god. Poros in this case was the lesser god of “plenty,” and the story within “Symposium” appears to be the only example of this deity. This Poros should not be confused with Plato’s Poros, the son of Metis. His brother, Skotos, was the “darkness of night,” or what obscured the path, while Tekmor, was “the marker.” This is similar to the primordial siblings, with Skotos often compared to Nyx and Tekmor with Erebus. Poros is the child of Thetis (who Alcman believed was the first god) and was “the path,” the unseen structure of the void. One such case is Poros, a Greek god that rarely appears elsewhere. However, it is sometimes worth referring to as it includes Greek gods and stories not found elsewhere. Who is Poros?Īncient Greek poet, Alcman, had a theogony (or encyclopedia of the gods) that was not quite as popular as Hesiod’s. Many were the children of other primordials. However, there were twenty-one separate beings identified as primordials throughout history. The most important of the primordial gods were Chaos, Nyx, Erebus, Gaea, Chronos and Eros. According to these ancient scholars, all the gods in the pantheon were just as beholding to these core concepts of the universe, just like man. While sometimes personified like other gods, early Greek philosophers would also refer to the protogenoi the same way we would to air, water, or earth. The Primordial Gods, or “Protogenoi,” are the elements that ancient Greeks believed made up the universe. The roman poet, Ovid, opened his famous poem Metamorphoses by describing Chaos as “a rude and undigested mass, and nothing more than an inert weight, and the discordant atoms of things not harmonizing, heaped together in the same spot.” Who Were The Primordial Gods? She was “the gaps”, or “the randomness” of the universe, into which everything exists. What Did The Greek God Chaos Do?Ĭhaos’ role was as part of all the elements of the universe. Today, the word is also used in mathematics.Īccording to Oxford, the term “gas” in the field of chemistry may have evolved from the word “chaos.” The term was used in this way during the 17th century by noted Dutch chemist Jan Baptist van Helmont, referring to the alchemical usage of the “Chaos” but using a “g” as was typical for dutch translations of many words with the “ch” start. Using the word to simply mean “confusion” is a very English definition and only became popular after the 1600s. The word “chaos” would continue to refer to voids and abyss well into the 15th century. In Hebrew, the word translates to “void” and is believed to be the same word used in Genesis 1:2, “And the earth was without form, and void.” “Chaos,” or “Khaos,” is a Greek word that literally means a “chasm” or “void” that is impossible to measure. What is The Etymology of The Word “Chaos”? Chaos was also mother to Erebus and Nyx:Īt the first Chaos came to be, but next wide-bosomed Earth, the ever-sure foundations of all the deathless ones who hold the peaks of snowy Olympus, and dim Tartarus in the depth of the wide-pathed Gaia, and Eros, fairest among the deathless gods, who unnerves the limbs and overcomes the mind and wise counsels of all gods and all men within them.įrom Chaos came forth Erebus and black Night but of Night were born Aether and Day, whom she conceived and bare from union in love with Erebus. According to the Greek poet Hesiod, Chaos was the first of the Greek gods, followed by Gaia (or Earth). Nyx (or Night), Erebus (darkness), and Tartarus were other primordial gods. He mated in deep Tartarus with dark Chaos, winged like himself, and thus hatched forth our race, which was the first to see the light. Firstly, blackwinged Night laid a germless egg in the bosom of the infinite deeps of Erebus, and from this, after the revolution of long ages, sprang the graceful Eros with his glittering golden wings, swift as the whirlwinds of the tempest. Earth, the air and heaven had no existence. The chorus of Aristophanes’ comedy, Birds, states:Īt the beginning there was only Chaos, Night, dark Erebus, and deep Tartarus. Who is Chaos From Greek Mythology?Ĭhaos is the parent of all Greek gods. It is this personification that led to her presentation in Aristophanes’ play. When “personified,” however, early versions of Chaos have her represented as a goddess of the invisible air and the birds which fly in it. As such, they are one of the “deathless gods,” without form or gender, and often referred to as an element instead of a being. What is Chaos in Hermeticism and Alchemy?Ĭhaos is one of the primordial gods of early Greek myth.Who Was The Father of Chaos in Greek Mythology?.What is The Etymology of The Word “Chaos”?.
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