The most famous Greek account of the origins of the universe is the Theogony by Hesiod. The word "theogony" means "birth/generation of the gods" (theos – god + gon – generation/birth). Hesiod was a Greek epic poet who flourished in Boeotia, northwest of Athens, in the 700's bce. Next to Homer, Hesiod was the most famous and honored old Greek poet.
Works of Hesiod:
· Theogony, a cosmological work describing the origins and genealogy of the gods.
o Contains stories of origins, Chaos, Ouranos/Uranus and Gaia (Heaven and Earth), Kronos and the Titans, Zeus and the Olympians, the Titanomachy (battle between the Olympians and Titans), the war between Zeus and Typhoeus, and the 7 divine wives of Zeus.
· Works and Days, on the subjects of farming, morality, and country life.
· Lost or fragmentary poems:
o Catalogues of Women.
o Eoiae.
o Astronomy.
I have attached two versions of Hesiod's Theogony below, as well as a PowerPoint Presentation covering it, with lots of pictures from ancient art.
"Hesiod_Handout_Short_PrimarySources_MJK.doc" -- This one is shorter, and I have edited it to make it just a bit more user-friendly. It contains parts of Hesiod's Theogony along with part of Apollodorus' Library, and it only covers the early divinities.
"Hesiod_Theogony_Eng_1914_Loeb.doc" -- This one is the whole Theogony with footnotes.
-- Greek theos = Latin deus. Compare also Greek Zeus (pronounced Sdeus or Dseus).