A COMPLETE LIST OF PRIMORDIAL GODS & GODDESSES

The first born of the immortals, who formed the very fabric of the universe, were known in Greek mythology as the Protogenoi (protos meaning "first," and genos "born"). They were, for the most part, purely elemental beings - Uranus was the literal sky, Gaea the body of the earth, etc. A few of them were ocassionally described or portrayed in anthropomorphic form, however these forms were inevitably inseperable from their native element. For example Gaea or Thalassa might appear as a woman half risen from the earth or sea.

AETHER AITHER (Aether) was the primordial god (protogenos) of light and the bright, blue ether of the heavens. His mists filled the space between the solid dome of the sky (ouranos) and the transparent mists of the earth-bound air (khaos, aer). In the evening his mother Nyx drew her dark veil across the sky, obscuring the ether and bringing night. In the morn his sister and wife Hemera dispersed night's mist to reveal the shining blue ether of day. In the ancient cosmogonies night and day were regarded as elements separate from the sun.

ANANKE ANANKE was the primordial goddess (protogenos) of necessity, compulsion and inevitability. In the Orphic cosmogony she emerged self-formed at the dawn of creation--an incorporeal, serpentine being whose outstretched arms encompassed the breadth of the cosmos. Ananke and her mate Khronos (Chronos) (Time), their serpentine coils entwined, crushed the primal egg of creation splitting it into its constituent parts of earth, heaven and sea to form the ordered universe. After their act of creation Ananke and Khronos encircled the cosmos to drive the rotation of the heavens and the eternal passage of time. They were beyond the reach of the younger gods whose fates they were sometimes said to control.

CHAOS (Khaos) The Protogenos of the lower air. She filled the gap between the bright mists of the heavenly aither and the floor of the earth. From Chaos were descended the other airs: Erebus (darkness), Nyx (night), Aether (light), Hemera (day); as well as the birds. Only late classical writers describe Khaos as a primeval mixture of the elements.

CHRONOS  KHRONOS (Chronos) was the primordial god of time. In the Orphic cosmogony he emerged self-formed at the dawn of creation. Khronos was envisaged as an incorporeal god, serpentine in form, with three heads--that of a man, a bull, and a lion. He and his consort, the serpentine goddess Ananke (Inevitability), enveloped the primordial world-egg in their coils and split it apart to form the ordered universe of earth, sea and sky. After this act of creation the couple circled the cosmos driving the rotation of heaven and the eternal passage of time.

EREBUS (Erebos) The Protogenos of the mists of darkness. His dark element was sunk into the hollows of the earth, and encircled the dismal realm of the underworld.

EROS  EROS was the primordial god (protogenos) of procreation who emerged self-formed at the dawn of creation. He was the driving force behind the generation of new life in the cosmos. The Orphics named him Phanes, a primal being hatched from the world-egg. He was also equivalent to Thesis (Creation) and Physis, (Nature).

The younger Eros, a mischievous godling armed with bow and arrows, was a son of the goddess Aphrodite.

GAEA GAIA (Gaea) was the goddess of the earth. She was one of the primoridal elemental deities (protogenoi) born at the dawn of creation. Gaia was the great mother of all creation--the heavenly gods were descended from her through her union with Ouranos (Uranus) (Sky), the sea-gods from her union with Pontos (Sea), the Gigantes (Giants) from her mating with Tartaros (the Pit), and mortal creatures born directly from her earthy flesh.

HEMERA HEMERA was the the primordial goddess (protogenos) of the day. She was a daughter of Erebos (Darkness) and Nyx (Night) and the sister and wife of Aither (Aether, Heavenly Light).

HYDROS The Protogenos of water. Together with the earth he formed the primeval Mud. Hydros was usually equated with the earth-encircling, fresh-water Titan Oceanus.

NESOI The Protogenoi of the islands. Their rocky forms were broken from the earth by Poseidon and cast into the sea.

NYX  NYX was the goddess of the night, one of the primordial gods (protogenoi) who emerged as the dawn of creation.

She was a child of Khaos (Chaos, Air), and coupling with Erebos (Darkness) she produced Aither (Aether, Light) and Hemera (Day). Alone she spawned a brood of dark spirits including the three Fates, Sleep, Death, Strife and Pain.

OCEANUS OKEANOS (Oceanus) was the primordial Titan god of the great, earth-encircling River Okeanos, font of all of the earth's fresh-water - rivers, wells, springs and rain-clouds. He was also the god who regulated the heavenly bodies which rose from and set into his waters. Okeanos' wife Tethys "the Nurse" was probably envisioned distributing his nourishing waters across the earth through subterranean acquifers. Their children were the Potamoi, gods of rivers, and the Okeanides (Oceanids), nymphs of springs and fountains. Unlike his Titan-brothers Okeanos did not participate in the castration of their father Ouranos nor join the war against Zeus and the Olympian gods.

OUREA THE OUREA were the primordial gods (protogenoi) of the mountains. Each mountain was believed to have its own ancient deity. Mountains were depicted in classical art as old, bearded men partially emerged from between a pair of crags.

LIST OF OUREA (MOUNTAIN-GODS)

• AITNA (Etna) The volcano of Sikelia (Sicily) and its goddess.
• ATHOS A mountain of Thrake (Thrace) (north of Greece) and its god.
• HELIKON (Helicon) A mountain of Boiotia (Boeotia) (central Greece) and its god. He entered a singing contest with the neighbouring Mount Kithairon (Cithaeron).
• KITHAIRON (Cithaeron) A mountain of Boiotia (Boeotia) (central Greece) and its god. He entered a singing contest with the neighbouring Mount Helikon (Helicon)..
• NYSOS (Nysus) A mythical mountain and its god. He was the nurse of the god Dionysos.
• OLYMPOS (Olympus) A mountain in Thessalia (Thessaly) (northern Greece) and its god. Olympos was the home of the gods.
• OLYMPOS (Olympus) A mountain of Phrygia (in Anatolia) and its god.
• OREIOS (Oreus) The mountain-god of Mount Othrys in Malis (central Greece).
• PARNES A mountain between Boiotia (Boeotia) and Attika (Attica) (central Greece) and its god.
• TMOLOS (Tmolus) A mountain of Lydia (in Anatolia) and its god. He was the judge of a musical contest between Apollon and Pan.
• PHANES The Protogenos of generation, the creator-god. He was sprung from a silver egg, the seed of creation, at the beginning of time, and set the universe in order. Phanes was also named Eros or simply Protogonos (the First Born). According to some Zeus swallowed him whole o gain supremacy over the universe.
• PHUSIS The Protogenos of nature. "Mother Nature" was one of the first beings to emerge at creation. She was related to both Gaea and Tethys.
• PONTUS (Pontos) The Protogenos of the sea. He sprung from Gaea the Earth at the beginning of creation, when the elements of the universe were set in their proper order.
• TARTARUS (Tartaros) The Protogenos of the great stormy pit which lay beneath the roots of the earth. He was the anti-heaven: just as the dome of heaven arched high above the earth, Tartarus arched beneath her. The Titans were imprisoned in his depths.
• TETHYS The Protogenos of the flow of fresh-water. She was an aspect of all-nourishing Mother Nature. From Tethys and her husband Oceanus the rivers, springs and clouds drew their waters.
• THALASSA The Protogenos of the sea or sea's surface. She was born of Aether (light) and Hemera (day). Mixing with the deep waters of Pontus (sea) Thalassa spawned the schools of fish.
• THESIS The Protogenos of creation. She was similar to Tethys, Mother Nature's great nurse.
• URANUS (Ouranos) The Protogenos of the solid dome of heaven, whose form stretched from one horizon to the other. He sprung forth from Gaea the Earth at the beginning of creation. Later his son Cronus, seized and castrated him, as he descended to consort with Mother Earth.

PONTOS PONTOS (Pontus) was the primordial god (protogenos) of the sea. He was the sea itself, not merely its resident deity, who was born from earth at the dawn of creation.

Pontos and Gaia (Gaea, the Earth) were parents of the ancient deities known as the Old Men of the Sea. By Thalassa, his watery female counterpart, he was the father of fish and other sea creatures. Poseidon, king of the sea, wed Pontos' eldest granddaughter Amphitrite.

TETHYS TETHYS was the Titan goddess of the primal font of fresh water which nourishes the earth. She was the wife ofOkeanos (Oceanus), the earth-encircling, fresh-water stream, and the mother of the Potamoi (Rivers), the Okeanides (Oceanids) (nymphs of springs, streams and fountains), and the Nephelai (Clouds). Tethys, daughter of Gaia (Earth), fed her children's springs with the waters of Okeanos drawn through subterranean acquifers. Her name was derived from the Greek word têthê meaning "nurse" or "grandmother".

THALASSA THALASSA was the primordial goddess (protogenos) of the sea. Mingled with Pontos (Pontus), her male counterpart, she produced the fish and other sea creatures. Thalassa was the literal body of the sea and in the fables of Aesop, manifests as a woman formed of sea-water rising from her native element.

Poseidon and Amphitrite, the anthropomorphic king and queen of the sea, were the rulers of the elemental Pontos and Thalassa.

Thalassa is depicted in Greco-Roman mosaics as a matronly woman, half-submerged in the sea, with crab-claw horns, seaweed for clothes, and a ship's oar in her hand.

OURANOS OURANOS (Uranus) was the primordial god (protogenos) of the sky. The Greeks imagined the sky as a solid dome of brass, decorated with stars, whose edges descended to rest upon the outermost limits of the flat earth. Ouranos was the literal sky, just as his consort Gaia (Gaea) was the earth.

Ouranos and Gaia had twelve sons and six daughters. He locked the eldest of these--the giant Kyklopes (Cyclopes) and Hekatonkheires (Hecatoncheires)--away inside the belly of Earth. Gaia suffered immense pain and persuaded her Titan sons to rebel. Four of these positioned themselves at the corners of the world, ready to grasp their father as he descended to lie with Earth, while the fifth, Kronos (Cronus), took his place in the centre and there castrated Ouranos with an adamantine sickle. The sky-god's blood fell upon the earth, producing the avenging Erinyes and the Gigantes (Giants).

COSMOGONY OF HESIOD

"Declare to me from the beginning, you Mousai who dwell in the house of Olympos, and tell me which of them first came to be.

In truth at first Khaos (Air) came to be, but next wide-bosomed Gaia (Earth), the ever-sure foundation of all the deathless ones who hold the peaks of snowy Olympos, and dim Tartaros (the Pit) in the depth of the wide-pathed Earth, and Eros (Love), fairest among the deathless gods, who unnerves the limbs and overcomes the mind and wise counsels of all gods and all men within them. From Khaos (Air) came forth Erebos (Darkness) and black Nyx (Night); but of Nyx (Night) were born Aither (Light) and Hemera (Day), whom she conceived and bore from union in love with Erebos. And Gaia (Earth) first bore starry Ouranos (Heaven), equal to herself, to cover her on every side, and to be an ever-sure abiding-place for the blessed gods. And she brought forth long Ourea (Mountains), graceful haunts of the goddess Nymphai who dwell amongst the glens of the hills. She bore also the fruitless deep with his raging swell, Pontos (Sea), without sweet union of love.

But afterwards he [Gaia, Earth] lay with Ouranos (Heaven) and bare deep-swirling Okeanos, Koios and Krios and Hyperion and Iapetos, Theia and Rhea, Themis and Mnemosyne and gold-crowned Phoibe and lovely Tethys. After them was born Kronos the wily."            

  - Hesiod, Theogony 115

COSMOGONY OF ARISTOPHANES

"At the beginning there was only Khaos (Air), Nyx (Night), dark Erebos (Darkness), and deep Tartaros (Hell's Pit). Ge (Earth), Aer (Air) and Ouranos (Heaven) had no existence. Firstly, black-winged Nyx (Night) laid a germless egg in the bosom of the infinite deeps of Erebos (Darkness), and from this, after the revolution of long ages, sprang the graceful Eros (Love) with his glittering golden wings, swift as the whirlwinds of the tempest. He mated in deep Tartaros (Hell-Pit) with dark Khaos (Air), winged like himself, and thus hatched forth our race [the birds], which was the first to see the light. That of the Immortals did not exist until Eros had brought together all the ingredients of the world, and from their marriage Ouranos (Heaven), Okeanos (Ocean), Ge (Earth) and the imperishable race of blessed gods (Theoi) sprang into being."                                        

  - Aristophanes, Birds 685