Talk:Greek primordial deities

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 24 August 2018 and 18 December 2018. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Shaunods.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 22:43, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Picture
I've edited the caption for the sculpture of "Gaia" to indicate that it is a modern work of art - as it stands it appears to be an authentic ancient Greek depiction of the goddess, which is very misleading. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.216.229.63 (talk) 00:17, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Eros?
Was Eros not described as a Protogenos by Hesoid? --jftsanglol 22:11, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Quoted from Wikisource:Theogony:
 * (ll. 116-138) Verily at the first Chaos came to be, but next wide-bosomed Earth, the ever-sure foundations of all4 the deathless ones who hold the peaks of snowy Olympus, and dim Tartarus 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 Chaos came forth Erebus and black Night; but of Night were born Aether5 and Day, whom she conceived and bare from union in love with Erebus. And Earth first bare starry 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 Hills, graceful haunts of the goddess-Nymphs who dwell amongst the glens of the hills. She bare also the fruitless deep with his raging swell, Pontus, without sweet union of love. But afterwards she lay with Heaven and bare deep-swirling Oceanus, Coeus and Crius and Hyperion and Iapetus, Theia and Rhea, Themis and Mnemosyne and gold-crowned Phoebe and lovely Tethys. After them was born Cronos the wily, youngest and most terrible of her children, and he hated his lusty sire.
 * Isn't it should be like


 * (1) Chaos (Void, Air, arche) – (sometimes poetically female)
 * Erebus (Darkness) – male and Nyx (Night) – female
 * Aether (Light) – male and Hemera (Day) – female
 * (2) Gaia (Earth) – female
 * Uranus (Heaven) – male
 * The Ourea (Mountains) – male
 * Pontus (Water, the Seas) – male
 * (3) Tartarus (the great stormy Hellpit, which was seen as both a deity and the personification) – male
 * (4) Eros (Procreation) – male


 * or a list like/similar to the above one? -- TX55   TALK  14:18, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Eros response

 * I think you're right, TX55. I'm studying Hesiod in a graduate philosophy seminar right now and Eros is one of the original four according to Clay Strauss and Mitchell Miller and, well, Hesiod. I'll make the change.

CircularReason (talk) 22:10, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Protogonoi or Protogeneis or Protogennetoi but not a word Protogenoi in LSJ

 * Check LSJ: prôto-gonos,prôto-genês,prôto-gennêtos, but a rare Πρωτόγενος may have been created in later antiquity.
 * Proposal for merge with Greek primordial gods or rather deities. Catalographer (talk) 10:10, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Suprised they are missing
Moon, Sun, Life (the force causing life), Death (the force ending life). Are they not considered Protogenoi, or simply no ancient Greek evidence has been found naming them as Protogenoi? Or is this a case of ethnocentrisim on my part? 76.90.227.163 (talk) 11:48, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

No I am not Suprised Moon,Sun,Life, and Death are missing. Death(Thanatos) is a child of Nyx(night) Moon and sun are titans and Olympian gods NOT Protogenoi there not a Protogenoi, titan, or Olympian god of Life.184.101.38.32 (talk) 20:21, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Pontos?
In this article it says Pontos is "not offspring of Gaia", but in Pontus (mythology) says that he is a son of Gaia. Which one article tells the truth?


 * In the italian article Ponto (mitologia) there's written that there are two version of the legend about his creation: one has him born from Gaia via auto-fecundation, the other tells he was born from Gaia and Aether.


 * 94.37.251.186 (talk) 01:09, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

What I heard about pontos is that he is born from Gaia alone like Uranus but I might be wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.17.164.31 (talk) 00:40, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Corrections and comments
I this this article needs some work. Somebody needs to clean up and clarify the content.

The list of the Prôtogenoi was part of the introduction. I decided to make a paragraph out of it and place it below the contents. The introduction didn't look too good and was too long.

I do not understand the meaning of the indentation of the Prôtogenoi. I hope somebody can explain it.

If I interpret correctly "Phanes (Appearance) or Himeros or Eros elder (Procreation) or Protogonos (the First Born) – male", the same god had four names. If that is the case, Himeros is not Phanes since the two do not point to the same god/link.

I changed the spelling of Erebus, Pontus and Tartarus to match the table on the right side of the page and avoid confusion to the reader.

Phusis, Ourea, Nesoi and Thetys do not show in the table on the right side of the page. I assume some should be included while others should not.

It is not clear what "with Aither (not offspring of Gaia)" means. Some explanation is necessary. The previous discussion raises a point regarding Pontus. Either one of the two solutions should be used. However, either of the two clearly points out that Pontus came after Gaia.

Oceanus and Thalassa seem to be both sea gods. Is it normal to have duplicates gods of the sea? There must be some difference between the two.

The difference between Oceania and Thalassa is Oceanus is a god and Thalassa is goddess however they are both titans. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.17.164.31 (talk) 23:50, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

I moved the sculpture of Gaia to the right of the page. It looks much better and the section is easier to read.

In the "Deities" section, Moros appears as a god for the first and only time in the article. Apparently, he is an offspring of Erebus and Nyx. I am not sure if he should be considered a Protogenos.

How do Ananke, Chronos, Phanes, Phusis and Ourea link genealogically with the Prôtogenoi?

ICE77 (talk) 08:55, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Shhh... I'm hunting Weasels
"The primeval gods are depicted as a place or a realm. The best example is Tartarus who is depicted as the Underworld, Hell..." No, the all inclusive, ancient Greek "Underworld" is not by default to be considered the equivilant of the Abrahamic religion's "Hell". Tartaros is one region of the underworld, and in that region the titans from the titanomachy are there, among others. The "Underworld" includes other regions, not all of which are regions for punishment; Ellysium is in the Underworld, so are the Isles of the Blessed! To write as if the two concepts are the same; ancient Greek Underworld and Abrahamic Hell, is unacceptable. No teacher, publisher, or someone otherwise educated in Relgious Anthropology, or "Mythology" would permit it... [I would know, I messed up once too about this in High School]. Other then that, I can so far see no other problems. Only clergy from the "Supreme Council of Ethnikoi Hellenes" would be able to improve it. -Honestly, nice work! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.38.36.17 (talk) 00:39, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

The comparison to Hell has been delt with. Vivianecarstairs (talk) 01:41, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Needed move
As User:Catalographer pointed out in 2009 (above), there is no word protogenos in LSJ; a Thesaurus Linguae Graecae Search turns up no such word. I fear that Wikipedia, and/or the mixed blessing that is the very useful Theoi.com, has created a new word. A Google Books search for "protogenoi" yields no uses of the term from before the twenty-first century aside from what is said to be J. Day, God's Conflict with the Dragon and the Sea (Cambridge, 1985). This result is a mistake: the text that actually comes up is a book based upon the content of Wikipedia, as are most of the more recent "books" to use the word; the others are not reliable sources and are probably derivative of this page. JSTOR of course doesn't give any results for Protogenoi either, since the word's made up. In fact, none of the other words suggested by Catalographer were systematically used of the Greek primordial deities, which is what I propose this article be named. The term protogenoi should also be removed from this encyclopedia. — cardiff &#124; chestnut — 04:45, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Somewhere behind this is a spelling mistake: the word protogonos (plural -oi) does exist, is in LSJ, and was used as an epithet for the first generation of deities. But perhaps only once, certainly not on a regular basis. Therefore I agree with your proposed move, though I think the word protogonos, correctly spelt, should still be mentioned in our article. And rew D alby  09:00, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree that Protogonos, singular and capitalized, at least, definitely belongs in the article, in relation to Phanes and the Orphic cosmogonies/theogonies, and perhaps a mention somewhere (though prehaps not on this page) of Persephone's being Kore Protogone at Pausanias 1.31.4 and 4.1.8. Aside from the Persephone passages, I can only find the term used in any systematic way as the name of the first born god in the Orphica, who was identified with all sorts of gods and forces. Hence West, in his sort-of-stemmatology of Orphic theogonies, refers to one as the "Protogonos Theogony" (Orphic Poems, p. 69). — cardiff &#124; chestnut — 14:48, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, I knew I'd seen that in English somewhere! Thanks for reminding me. And rew D alby  16:08, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Since correcting this issue will involve editing a good number of pages, I'm holding off on the move for another day or so: it'd be best if more editors chimed in, and this weren't simply agreed upon between Andrew and me. — cardiff &#124; chestnut — 16:25, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I've moved the page, cleared out the links and hopefully deleted the term Protogenos from WP text, but won't be certain until the massive replag is cleared out. — cardiff &#124; chestnut — 20:20, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Ophion
This article lists Ophion as a representation of life, but no source is listed and, from my research, none exists that interprets him as such. Even his own article doesn't mention him as a representation of life. Does anyone have a source for this? Or sources for any of the claims made in this section? ViolaCola (talk) 04:15, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Orphic Theogony
I think pages on Hydros (water) and Thesis (creation) need to be made. I can begin them but I do not know a lot about these topics. Some information is found on theoi.com, but I have no information beyond what is found there. --Anvituteja (talk) 06:28, 26 March 2021 (UTC)


 * I agree. I mean to make them sometime if someone else doesn't.  Dave12121212 (talk) 02:33, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Be careful though not to depend on Theoi.com, which is not a reliable source, both the usual sense of that word "reliable", and in the Wikipedia sense of WP:RS. Paul August &#9742; 10:36, 20 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Yes, understood. I'm in the process of removing the theoi.com citations on this page in favour of better sources. Dave12121212 (talk) 09:18, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Alcman's Thetis
I have changed "Alcman called the water-nymph Thetis..." to "Alcman called Thetis..." as Greek Lyric Volume 2 (p. 393 - footnote 13) specifically states "not the sea-goddess, but 'Creation'".

I've also removed the citation to theoi.com and replaced it with the book Greek Lyric II (linked in last sentence).

Dave12121212 (talk) 02:29, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Ker
Under children of Nyx the name "Ker" is linked to the page for the death spirits "Keres" rather than the personification of Destiny. I am unable to find a page dedicated to "Ker". Eldritch.dragon999 (talk) 20:33, 15 September 2023 (UTC)