“Including us three goddesses?” Demeter prompted. “We can fight too, you know.”
“Sure!” Zeus smiled nervously. “Did you think I’d forgotten you?”
“Yes,” said Demeter.
“Uh, anyway,” Zeus continued, “we fly over to Mount Othrys, smash anybody who’s left standing, and take them all prisoner.”
Hestia wrapped herself in her plain brown shawl. “I still think we should make peace.”
“NO!” the others yelled.
Hera tapped the dirt map. “It’s a crazy plan. I like it.”
So that night, under cover of darkness, the gods and their allies climbed Mount Olympus for the first time.
The next morning, as Helios rode his chick magnet into the sky, King Kronos awoke to a sound like thunder. Probably because it was thunder.
Storm clouds rolled in from every direction. Zeus hurled a lightning bolt that blasted the tallest tower into black marble shrapnel. The Hundred-Handed Ones chucked so many boulders toward Mount Othrys that when Kronos looked out his window, it seemed to be raining major appliances.
The beautiful palace domes imploded in mushroom clouds of dust. Walls crumbled. Columns fell like dominoes. The Hundred-Handed Ones had built Mount Othrys, and they knew exactly how to destroy it.
As the palace shook, Kronos grabbed his scythe and called his brethren to attack. But the thing was a) scythes really don’t do much against boulders and lightning, b) nobody could hear him over the noise, and c) the palace was disintegrating around him. Just as he was saying, “Titans, let’s go!”, a three-ton section of the ceiling collapsed on his head.
The battle was a massacre, if you can have a massacre where nobody dies.
A few Titans tried to counterattack, only to be buried in an avalanche of rubble and boulders.
After the initial assault, the gods flew over and mopped up the resistance. Poseidon summoned earthquakes to swallow their enemies. Hades popped up in random places and yelled, “Boo!” His helmet of terror (or his Boo Cap, as the others called it) sent Titans fleeing straight off the sides of cliffs, or into the waiting arms of the Elder Cyclopes.
When the dust settled and the storm clouds lifted, even the gods were in awe of what they’d done.
Not only was Kronos’s palace gone, but the entire top of Mount Othrys had been sheared away with it.
Did I tell you Othrys was the highest mountain in Greece? Not anymore. Today Mount Olympus, which used to be the smaller mountain, is over nine thousand feet tall. Mount Othrys is only five thousand and change. Zeus and the Hundred-Handed Ones had basically cut the mountain in half.
The Cyclopes dug the Titans out of the rubble and began chaining them up. None of them got away. General Atlas and the four brothers who controlled the corners of the earth were dragged before Zeus and made to kneel.
“Ah, my dear uncles!” Zeus chuckled. “Koios, Krios, Hyperion, Iapetus—you four are going straight to Tartarus, where you will remain for all time!”
The four brothers hung their heads in shame, but General Atlas laughed at his captors.
“Puny gods!” he bellowed. Even wrapped in chains, he was intimidating. “You know nothing of how the universe works. If you throw these four into Tartarus, the entire sky will fall! Only their presence at the four corners of the earth keeps the wide expanse of Ouranos from crashing down upon us.”
“Maybe.” Zeus grinned. “But fortunately, Atlas, I have a solution! You’re always boasting how strong you are. From now on, you’re going to hold the sky up all by yourself!”
“What?”
“Brontes, Arges, Steropes,” Zeus called. “He’s all yours.”
The Elder Cyclopes dragged Atlas to a distant mountaintop where the sky was very close. I don’t know how they did it, but they caused the sky to form a new central support pillar—a single funnel cloud, like the bottom point of a spinning top. They chained Atlas to the mountain and forced the entire weight of the sky onto his shoulders.
Now you’re thinking, Why didn’t he just refuse to hold it, and let the sky fall?
I did mention the chains, right? He couldn’t run away without getting flattened. Also, it’s hard to appreciate unless you’ve done it (which I have), but holding the sky is kind of like being stuck under a loaded barbell during a bench press. All your concentration goes into keeping that thing from crushing you. You can’t lift it, because it’s too heavy. You can’t release it, because it will squash you as it drops. All you can do is hold it in place, sweating and straining and whimpering “Help!” hoping somebody will walk through the gym, notice you being slowly pressed into a pancake, and lift the weight off you. But what if no one does? Imagine being stuck in that situation for eternity.
That was Atlas’s punishment. All the other Titans who fought in the war got off easy. They were pitched headfirst into Tartarus.
Which leaves us with the million-drachma question: What happened to Kronos?
There are a lot of different stories. Most agree that the Crooked One was dug out of the rubble and brought before Zeus. Most say he was bound in chains like the other Titans and tossed into Tartarus.
According to some later traditions—and I kind of like this version—Zeus took his father’s scythe and sliced him up the way Kronos had sliced up Ouranos. Kronos was thrown into Tartarus in teeny-tiny pieces. Supposedly, that’s where we get the idea of Father Time with his scythe, being deposed every January first by Baby New Year—though it’s difficult to imagine Zeus in a diaper and a party hat.
Some versions claim that Zeus released Kronos from Tartarus many years later—either to live out his retirement in Italy, or to rule the Isles of the Blest in Elysium. Personally, I don’t buy that. It doesn’t make sense if you believe that Kronos was chopped to bits. And if you know Zeus, you know he’s not exactly the forgive-and-forget type.
Anyway, Kronos was done. The age of the Titans was over.
The Titans who didn’t fight against the gods were allowed to stick around. Some, like Helios and Selene, kept their jobs. Some even intermarried with the gods.
Zeus named himself the new king of the cosmos, but he was smarter than Kronos. He sat down with his brothers and said, “Look, I want to be fair about this. How about we throw dice for control of different parts of the world? Highest roll gets first choice.”
Hades frowned. “I have rotten luck. What parts are we talking about?”
“The sky, the sea, and the Underworld,” Zeus offered.
“You mean Tartarus?” Poseidon asked. “Gross!”
“I mean the upper Underworld,” Zeus said. “You know, the nice part nearer to the surface. That’s not so bad—big caves, lots of jewels, riverside real estate on the Styx.”
“Huh,” Hades said. “What about the earth itself? Greece and all the other lands?”
“That will be neutral territory,” Zeus suggested. “We can all operate on the earth.”
The brothers agreed. Notice how the sisters were not invited to this little dice game? I know. Totally unfair. But that’s how it went down.
No surprise, Zeus got the highest roll. He chose the sky for his domain, which made sense because of the lightning bolts, and all. Poseidon got the second-highest roll. He chose the sea and became the supreme god of the waters, above Oceanus, who got pushed ever farther to the margins of the world, and Pontus, who was mostly asleep in the muck all the time anyway.
Hades got the worst roll, as he expected. He took the Underworld as his domain, but it kind of suited his gloomy personality, so he didn’t complain (much).
The Hundred-Handed Ones built Zeus the gleaming palace he’d always dreamed of at the top of Mount Olympus. Then Zeus sent them back to Tartarus—but this time as jailers to watch over the Titans. The Hundred-Handed Ones didn’t really mind. At least now they were the ones with the whips.
The Elder Cyclopes went to
work for the gods. They constructed a workshop at the bottom of the sea near the island of Lemnos, where there was lots of volcanic heat to power their forges. They made tons of special weapons and other fun collectibles, and had a good health package with a week of paid vacation every year.
As for the gods, Zeus invited them all to live with him on Mount Olympus. Each of them had a throne in the main hall, so even though Zeus was in charge, it was more like a council than a dictatorship. They called themselves the Olympians.
Well…I say they were all welcome in Olympus: but Hades, not so much. The guy had always creeped out his siblings. Now that he was lord of the Underworld, he seemed to bring doom and darkness with him wherever he went.
“You understand,” Zeus told him privately, “we can’t have an Underworld throne up here on Mount Olympus. It would make the other gods uncomfortable, and the skulls and black stone really wouldn’t go with the decor.”
“Oh, sure,” grumbled Hades. “I see how it is.”
Anyway, that’s how things got started with the gods on Mount Olympus. Eventually there would be twelve thrones in the council chamber, and a whole bunch of other gods who didn’t have thrones.
The Olympians figured that now they could settle down and rule the world in peace.
There was only one problem. Remember that the Earth Mother Gaea was taking a nap all this time? Well, eventually she would wake up. And when she got home and found out her favorite kids, the Titans, had been thrown into Tartarus, Zeusie was going to have some explaining to do.
But that’s a tale for another day.
Now it’s time to meet the gods, up close and personal. Just be warned, some of their stories might make you feel like Kronos after a big glass of mustard nectar.
ZEUS
WHY IS ZEUS ALWAYS FIRST?
Seriously, every book about the Greek gods has to start with this guy. Are we doing reverse alphabetical order? I know he’s the king of Olympus and all—but trust me, this dude’s ego does not need to get any bigger.
You know what? Forget him.
We’re going to talk about the gods in the order they were born, women first. Take a backseat, Zeus. We’re starting with Hestia.
HESTIA CHOOSES BACHELOR NUMBER ZERO
IN SOME WAYS, Hestia was a lot like her mom, Rhea.
She had an honest smile, warm brown eyes, and black hair that framed her face in ringlets. She was gentle and good-natured. She never said a bad word about anybody. If you walked into a party on Mount Olympus, Hestia wouldn’t be the first girl who caught your eye. She wasn’t flashy or loud or crazy. She was more like the goddess next door—sweet and pretty in an unpretentious way. Usually she kept her hair tucked under a linen shawl. She wore plain, modest dresses and never used makeup.
I said earlier that nobody took her seriously, and it’s true the other gods weren’t good about taking her advice. Kronos had swallowed Hestia first, so she’d gotten barfed up last. Because of that, her siblings tended to think of her as the youngest rather than the oldest—the last one to emerge. She was quieter and more peaceful than her siblings, but that didn’t mean they didn’t love her. Like Rhea, Hestia was a hard person not to love.
In one important way, though, Hestia was not like Rhea. Her mom was known for being…well, a mom. The Great Mother. The Ultimate Mama. La Madre Grande.
Hestia wanted nothing to do with being a mom.
She didn’t have a problem with other people’s families. She loved her siblings, and once they started having kids, she loved them, too. Her fondest wish was for the whole Olympian family to get along and spend quality time together around the hearth, chatting or having dinner or playing Twister—really any wholesome activity.
Hestia just didn’t want to get married herself.
If you think about it, you can see why. Hestia had spent years inside Kronos’s gut. She had a very good memory, and could even recall Kronos gulping her down when she was a newborn. She remembered the sound of her mother wailing in despair. Hestia had nightmares that the same thing might happen to her. She didn’t want to get married only to find out her husband was actually a baby-swallowing cannibal.
She wasn’t being paranoid, either. She had proof that Zeus could be as bad as Kronos.
See, after the war with Kronos, Zeus decided it would be a good idea for him to marry a Titan, sort of to show there were no hard feelings. He married one of Oceanus’s daughters, a girl named Metis, who was the Titan of good advice and planning—kind of like the Titans’ life coach.
Metis was smart about advising others, but apparently she wasn’t so bright when it came to her own life. When she was pregnant with her first kid, she told Zeus, “My husband, I have good news! I foresee that this child will be a girl. But if we have another child together, it will be a boy. And—you’re going to love this—he will be destined to rule the universe some day! Isn’t that awesome?”
Zeus panicked. He thought he was going to end up like Ouranos and Kronos—chopped into little pieces—so he took a page out of Kronos’s playbook. He opened his mouth super-wide and created a tornado that sucked Metis right down his throat, compressing her so small that he could swallow her whole.
That kind of freaked out the other Olympians, especially Hestia.
What happened to Metis and her unborn child down there in Zeus’s gut? We’ll get to that later. But Hestia saw the whole thing, and she said to herself: Getting married is DANGEROUS!
Zeus apologized to the Titans and the gods for swallowing Metis. He promised never to do it again. He decided to marry another Titan, but as you can guess, there weren’t a lot of volunteers. Only one agreed: Themis, the Titan of divine law, who happened to be Hestia’s favorite aunt.
Themis had sided with the gods in the war. She understood right and wrong, and she knew that the gods would be better rulers than Kronos. (Notice I said better, not good.)
Like Hestia, Themis was modest and veiled and wasn’t interested in marriage, especially after what happened to Metis; but in the name of peace, she agreed to marry Zeus.
(And yeah, Themis was technically Zeus’s aunt, so feel free to get sick about them getting married. But let’s move past that.)
The marriage didn’t last long. Themis had two sets of triplets. The first set wasn’t so bad—three sisters called the Horai, who ended up being in charge of the changing seasons.
(You’re thinking, Wait, only three seasons? But remember, this was Greece. I guess they’ve never had much of a winter.)
The second set of triplets, though—they gave everyone the creeps. They were called the Morai, the Three Fates, and they were born old. Right out of the cradle, they grew from three shriveled babies into three shriveled old grannies. They liked to sit in the corner and make thread on a magic spinning wheel. Each time they snipped a piece of the line, some mortal down in the world died.
The Olympians quickly realized that the three Fates could not only see the future, they could control it. They could bind anyone’s life to their magical yarn—literally making a lifeline—and when they snipped off that piece? Sayonara! Nobody was sure if they could do the same thing with immortals. But even Zeus was afraid of those girls.
After fathering the Fates, Zeus pulled Themis aside and said, “You know what? I’m not sure this marriage is going to work out. If we keep having more kids like those Fates, we’re all going to be in trouble. What’s next—the Three Doomsday Bombs? The Three Little Pigs?”
Themis pretended to be disappointed, but actually she was relieved. She didn’t want any more kids, and she definitely didn’t want to get sucked down the tornado of Zeus’s throat.
“You’re right, my lord,” she said. “I will gladly step aside and let you take another wife.”
Hestia witnessed all this, and she was thinking: I never want that to happen to me. With my luck, I would marry some god and give birth to the Thre
e Stooges. No, the possibility is too horrible.
She decided it was much better to stay single and concentrate on helping her siblings raise their families. She could be the cool aunt. The single aunt. The aunt who did not have terrifying shriveled granny babies.
There was only one problem: some of the guy gods had other ideas. Poseidon kept looking at Hestia and thinking, Hey, she’s kind of pretty. Good personality. Easy to get along with. I should marry her.
Yeah, we’re back to the whole brother-marrying-sister thing. Let’s get it out of our systems—all together, One, two, three: “GROSS!”
A younger Olympian, Apollo, also wanted to marry Hestia. We’ll talk more about him later, but it would’ve been a weird match, since Apollo was one of the flashiest gods. Why he wanted to marry quiet, plainspoken Hestia, I don’t know. Maybe he wanted a wife who would never upstage him.
As it happened, both gods approached Zeus on the same day, asking his permission to marry Hestia. Seems weird that they would ask Zeus instead of Hestia but, as you might have noticed, the males weren’t real sensitive about stuff like that. Zeus, being the king of the cosmos, had the final say on all marriages.
Meanwhile, Hestia was sitting at the big hearth in the middle of the throne room, not paying much attention. Back then you needed a central hearth, like an open fire pit, in your main room, because it provided warmth on cold days. It was also where you did your cooking, your water boiling, your chatting, your bread toasting, your marshmallow roasting, and your sock drying. Basically, it was the center of family life.
Hestia always hung out there. She had sort of taken over responsibility for keeping the home fires burning. It made her feel good, especially when her family gathered around for meals.
Zeus yelled, “Hey, Hestia! C’mere.”
She approached his throne warily, looking at Poseidon and Apollo, who were both grinning at her, holding bouquets of flowers and boxes of candy. She thought, Uh-oh.