It is a term that comes from the Greek εογονία and that means the origin of the gods. As its name indicates, the Theogony explains the origin of each god in various cultures around the world and, speaking of the gods understood as the creators of the universe and everything that exists, Theogony will always be related to Cosmogony, that is, the mythological history that each culture has to explain the origin of the universe. On the other hand, theogony tries to explain not only the origin, but also the genealogy of the gods, that is, their descendants, families of gods, relationships, unions, etc.
We must bear in mind that, according to most of the scholars of Theogony, Hesiod presents the different relationships of the gods and their participation in the lives of men not as literary history but as something completely true (according to various historical sources acquired by Hesiod) this knowledge of a revelation from the Muses of Mount Helicon). The histories of the history of Hesiod allow us to know an era, a mentality and the remote origin of Western culture, because we must not forget that many concepts and ideas of the Theogony are present in art, philosophy or history itself. At the same time, it is not difficult to give examples of the trace cultural left by Theogony in our language (words like hypnosis, funeral, eroticism, typhoon, ocean, chronology, bread, harmony and many others).
In this case we can establish that the theogony does not hesitate to determine the existence of three generations of gods:
- The generation of heaven and earth. This is mainly made up of Gaea and Uranus, a first pair of gods who were responsible for shaping animals, humans, mountains, rivers, seas.
- The generation of titans. In this second generation of gods, figures like Cronus (Time) and Rhea (Nature) are among the descendants of Hestia (goddess of the hearth), Hera (goddess of marriage), Poseidon (god of the seas), Demeter (goddess) of agriculture) or Hades (goddess of the dead). All that without forgetting Zeus either.
- The generation of the Olympian gods. Regarding this, it is established that it is the result of the triumph of Zeus over the Titans that led him to marry Hera to, from there, rule from Olympus. As a result of this relationship, many other gods emerged, such as Apollo or Artemis, among others.
