Uranus (Ouranos, meaning "sky" or "heaven" in Greek) was the son and husband of Gaia (Earth) alone, though, as "Caelus" the Romans claimed his parents were Aether (the upper air) and Dies (day or daylight). In the cult of Orpheus he was the son of Nyx (night). Uranus and Gaia were the parents of the first generation of 12 Titans, and the ancestors of most of the Greek gods, as well as various monsters. According to Hesiodos, every night he came to cover the earth and mate with Gaia, but he hated the children she bore him. He imprisoned his youngest children, the monsters, in Tartarus, deep within earth, where they caused pain to Gaia. She forged a flint-bladed sickle and asked her sons to castrate her husband, but only Kronos (time), the youngest of the Titans, agreed. He ambushed and castrated his father, whose testicles were thrown into the sea. Aphrodite (the goddess of love) emerged from the severed genitals, while the Giants, the Erinyes (the avenging Furies), the Meliae (the ash-tree nymphs), and the Telchines (skilled brass and iron workers who had flippers and dogs' heads, who caused hail, snow, and rain storms) came from the blood that spilled on the ground. In the 5th century Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius postulated that the severing marked Chaos off from fixed and measured Time as determined by the revolving Heavens (Caelum), and the semina rerum ("seeds" of things with physical existence), the elements from which the world is made, come from Caelum. After Kronos deposed his father he re-imprisoned his monstrous siblings, causing Gaia to predict that he would in turn be overthrown by his son (Zeus).
Uranus (Ouranos, meaning "sky" or "heaven" in Greek) was the son and husband of Gaia (Earth) alone, though, as "Caelus" the Romans claimed his parents were Aether (the upper air) and Dies (day or daylight). In the cult of Orpheus he was the son of Nyx (night). Uranus and Gaia were the parents of the first generation of 12 Titans, and the ancestors of most of the Greek gods, as well as various monsters. According to Hesiodos, every night he came to cover the earth and mate with Gaia, but he hated the children she bore him. He imprisoned his youngest children, the monsters, in Tartarus, deep within earth, where they caused pain to Gaia. She forged a flint-bladed sickle and asked her sons to castrate her husband, but only Kronos (time), the youngest of the Titans, agreed. He ambushed and castrated his father, whose testicles were thrown into the sea. Aphrodite (the goddess of love) emerged from the severed genitals, while the Giants, the Erinyes (the avenging Furies), the Meliae (the ash-tree nymphs), and the Telchines (skilled brass and iron workers who had flippers and dogs' heads, who caused hail, snow, and rain storms) came from the blood that spilled on the ground. In the 5th century Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius postulated that the severing marked Chaos off from fixed and measured Time as determined by the revolving Heavens (Caelum), and the semina rerum ("seeds" of things with physical existence), the elements from which the world is made, come from Caelum. After Kronos deposed his father he re-imprisoned his monstrous siblings, causing Gaia to predict that he would in turn be overthrown by his son (Zeus).
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