South of the Gulf of Corinth, in the Peloponnese, the most important region was not Laconia (Sparta) as in historical times, but Argos with its great Mycenaean cities, Mycenae, Argos, and Tiryns. Here the second family, the Inachids, provided the main ruling line. Although it was of Argive origin (the Inachos was the largest river in Argos), other branches of this family ruled in Crete and in Thebes. Passing north from Argos and then across the Isthmus of Corinth, Boeotia, with Thebes as its main city, lies to the left, and Attica to the right. In mythical history Thebes ranked with Argos as the most important centre.
Of the Atlantids, two main lines are covered in the following tables, the earliest royal line in the second main centre in the Peloponnese, Laconia, and the Trojan royal line.
The Asopid family tree is exceptional, as it was developed to account for the common descent of the two greatest heroes of the Trojan War, Achilles and Aias (who came from different areas) as grandsons of Aiacos (who reigned in a different area again). This was a relatively late development; in the Iliadthe pair are not related. Aiacos was the first king of Aegina, a small island in the Saronic Gulf, which lies between Attica and the Peloponnese. Both of his sons were exiled. Telamon, father of Aias, went to the island of Salamis, not far to the north; Peleus eventually arrived in Thessaly where he became the father of Achilles by the goddess Thetis.
This leaves the Athenian royal line and the Pelopids. The Athenian genealogies were systematized at a relatively late period, and none of the figures before Aigeus and Theseus are associated with major heroic myth. The first four kings were earth-born. The Pelopids provided the second royal line in each of the main centres of the Peloponnese, Argos and Laconia; for Agamemnon, who ruled in Mycenae at the time of the Trojan War, and Menelaos, who ruled in Sparta, did not belong to the original ruling families covered in tables IIB and in IIIA, but were descended from Tantalos, who lived in Asia Minor, and his son Pelops, who became king of Pisa in the north-western Peloponnese. The Pelopids were displaced when Tisamenos, who ruled in both Argos and Laconia, was killed by the returning Heraclids (who were of Inachid descent).
In the following tables:
The parentage of children is indicated by swung dashes(~); where both parents are mortals, these will usually indicate a marriage also.
The names of successive kings within each centre are set in bold type, and the order of succession is indicated by small letters before their names (a, b, c, etc.). The order of succession is not indicated for the Argive line in IIB because of the complexities which arise after the kingdom is divided between Proitos and Acrisios.
In IC only the Iolcian line is indicated, and in v only the Mycenaean. For the Laconian succession after Amyclas, in IIIA, the account in 3.10.4 is followed; 3.10.3 should be consulted for alternative genealogies.
Where it has been necessary to divide family trees into two or more tables, the names of pivotal figures who appear in more than one table are enclosed in boxes.
NB. There was disagreement on many genealogies. These tables show the main lines as presented in the text of the Library, without indicating alternative traditions recorded in other sources, or variants mentioned within the Libraryitself.
The purpose of these tables is to give a clear picture of the descent and interrelationship of the more important figures, and they are by no means complete. In particular, many marriages yielded more children than are named in the tables, and the fact that names have been omitted is not always indicated; and for reasons of clarity, the names of mothers have sometimes been omitted, and children are not always presented in their order of birth. For the full picture, the text should be consulted.
The tables for the Deucalionids and Atlantids do not cover all branches of the family.
BOOK I
1. Theogony
Ouranos, Ge, and the birth of the Titans
1OURANOS was the first ruler of the universe. He married
1
Ge,* and fathered as his first children the beings known as the Hundred-Handers, Briareus, Cottos, and Gyes, who were unsurpassable in size and strength, for each had a hundred hands and fifty heads. After these, Ge bore him the Cyclopes,* namely, Arges, Steropes, and Brontes, each of whom had a single eye on his forehead. But Ouranos tied these children up and hurled them into Tartaros (a place of infernal darkness in Hades,* as distant from the earth as the earth from the sky); 3and he then fathered by Ge some sons called the Titans, namely, Oceanos, Coios, Hyperion, Creios, Iapetos, and the youngest of all, Cronos, and some daughters called the Titanides, namely, Tethys, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Dione, and Theia.
The revolt of the Titans and rule of Cronos
4. But Ge, angered by the loss of her children who had been thrown into Tartaros,* persuaded the Titans to attack their father, and gave an adamantine* sickle to Cronos; and they all attacked him, apart from Oceanos, and Cronos severed his father’s genitals and threw them into the sea. (From the drops of blood that flowed out* the Furies were born: Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megaira.) When they had driven their father from power, they brought back their brothers who had been thrown down to Tartaros, and entrusted the sovereignty to Cronos.
5But he bound them once again and imprisoned them in Tartaros, and married his sister Rhea; and since both Ge and Ouranos had prophesied to him that he would be stripped of his power by his own son, he swallowed his children as they were born. He swallowed his first-born, Hestia, and then Demeter and Hera, and after them, Pluto and Poseidon.
The birth of Zeus and his war against Cronos and the Titans
6Angered by this, Rhea went to Crete while she was pregnant with Zeus, and brought him to birth in a cave on Mount Dicte.* She gave him to the Curetes* and to the nymphs Adrasteia and Ida, daughters of Melisseus, to rear. 7So the nymphs fed the child on the milk of Amaltheia* while the Curetes, fully armed, guarded the baby in the cave, beating their spears against their shields to prevent Cronos from hearing the child’s voice. And Rhea wrapped a stone in swaddling clothes and passed it to Cronos to swallow as if it were the newborn child.
1When Zeus was fully grown, he enlisted the help of
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