Who Is Gaia (Earth) (Gaea)?
Earth goddess, mother of all
Gaia
Gaia is the goddess of the earth in Greek mythology, the Earth itself. In Hesiod's Theogony she comes into being right after Chaos (the gap) and is the firm foundation that supports all things.
Gaia bore Ouranos (Sky), equal to herself in size, as well as the mountains and Pontus, the sea. With Ouranos she then had the twelve Titans, the Cyclopes, and the Hundred-Handers. When her children were shut away deep inside the earth, she forged a sickle from adamant, a hard metal, called on her children to take revenge on their father, and handed the sickle to Cronus. Later she hid her grandson Zeus in a cave on Crete to raise him, and told him he could win if he made the Hundred-Handers his allies. Behind each change of king across the three generations, she always plays a major role.
Her other name, Ge, is the root of "geo-" in words such as geography.
Episodes featuring this character7
NEWEpisode 1
The Universe Began with a CrackChaos and the Creation (Theogony)
On fog-wrapped Mount Helicon, Hesiod, a starving shepherd, gets roasted by the sharp-tongued Muses, then handed a laurel staff and a divine voice. A single "Gap" opens in the white void. Darkness and Night are born, then the light Hesiod's own song calls up, then Earth and the starry Sky. Twelve children stir deep inside Earth, and only the youngest glares through the ceiling at his father with golden eyes.
20 pages
NEWEpisode 2
Mother Forged a Blade. Who Will Take It?Cronus and Uranus
Ouranos, the starry Sky, has shoved his children deep inside the Earth. Their mother Gaia, groaning under the weight, forges a great gray sickle of adamant from her own body and asks which of them will take it up. The older brothers and sisters stay silent. Only the youngest and slightest of them, Cronus, steps forward.
19 pages
NEWEpisode 3
Love Was Born From a Wound in the SkyThe Birth of Aphrodite
From the drops that fell from the sky come warriors and nymphs, and from the sea foam steps Aphrodite, goddess of love. At the same dawn of the world, Night—joined with no one—gives birth to Death, Sleep, and even Affection.
19 pages
NEWEpisode 4
All the Monsters Were One FamilyMedusa and Echidna
Hesiod, a shepherd boy looking for true songs, is taken to Nereus, the Old Man of the Sea, who never tells a lie. Starting with Nereus's fifty sea-daughters, Hesiod follows one family line down to Medusa, Echidna, Cerberus, the Hydra and the Chimera. Even monsters had mothers, and brothers and sisters. And from the life of one mortal daughter, the winged horse Pegasus bursts into the sky.
19 pages
NEWEpisode 5
He Swallowed Five. Not This One.Cronus and Rhea
Cronus overthrew his father to become king, but one prophecy haunts him, so he swallows each of his five newborn children one after another. Grieving and carrying a sixth child, their mother Rhea asks Earth and Sky for help. Holding close the stone Earth gave her, she crosses the night sea, resolved that this time she will protect her child.
19 pages
NEWEpisode 6
The King of Gods Was Saved by a StoneThe Birth of Zeus and the Stone of Kronos
On a misty mountain, the Muses sing a hungry shepherd the tale of "the night a mother told her only lie." To save her youngest, Zeus, from Cronus, the boy-king who swallows his children, Rhea hands him a stone wrapped in swaddling cloth. Raised in a cave deep within the earth, Zeus overthrows his father with his grandmother Gaia's cunning and his own strength. He frees his five siblings from the light, reunites with his mother, and receives thunder from the uncles he unchains.
20 pages
NEWEpisode 8
They Were Forgotten. They Never Forgot.Zeus and the Hundred-Handers (Hecatoncheires)
On a misty mountain, the shepherd Hesiod hears a song from the goddesses of song. Ten years into the war against Cronus, the father who swallowed his own children, the fighting still hasn't ended. Then Zeus hears the voice of Gaia, Mother Earth. He goes down to the depths of the earth and, with his own hands, brings three forgotten hundred-armed brothers back into the light. Cottus swears that now it's their turn to protect him, and Zeus raises his thunderbolt for the first time. But across the divide, in the darkness, a golden eye opens.
20 pages