Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In this video, we’re going to take a look
at the unborn god who would have been the most powerful god in all of Greek mythology.
Were he born, Zeus was fated to be overthrown by him. Like the rising sun bringing a new
day, his coming would have been the inauguration of a new age. This god's power would have
been supreme, unrivaled by any other. All other gods would have been forced to bend
the knee or face destruction, Zeus most of all.
To understand this story, we have to take a look at the Greek creation myth, for which
the driving force is a vicious cycle of son supplanting father, each generation more powerful
than the one before.
From chaos, the great void, emerged five primordial deities. One of these, Gaia, the personification
of the earth, independently produced three second generation primordial deities, aspects
of the observable world. These were Ourea, the mountains, Pontus, the sea, and Uranus,
the sky. Gaia took Uranus as her consort, and from their union came the Hecatonchires,
the Cyclopes, and the first generation of Titans. Uranus thought the Hecatonchires and
the Cyclopes were abominations, so he kept them trapped inside of Gaia; but he allowed
the titans to be born. Having many of her children trapped inside of her was excruciating
for Gaia, so she beseeched her children to champion her and rebel against their father.
Only Cronus, the youngest, was audacious and ambitious enough to answer his mother’s
plea. With a grey sickle of adamant, Cronus hid. The next time Uranus went to envelope
Gaia in a sexual embrace, Cronus ambushed him and castrated him, casting the severed
genitals into the sea. This act separated earth from sky and ushered in a new era, the
rule of the titans, with Cronus as king of the cosmos, but he would not keep the crown
forever. A prophecy revealed to him by Uranus and Gaia, told Cronus that he was destined
to be usurped by one of his sons as his father had been usurped by him. To preempt himself
being cast down, he swallowed his children as soon as they were born, but this course
would fail him. His wife, the Titan Rhea, couldn’t bear to watch her youngest child
be swallowed, so she swaddled a stone in baby’s wrappings and proffered it in Zeus’ stead.
Cronus was taken in by the ruse and swallowed the stone without even a cursory inspection.
Zeus was then raised in secret, and when he was grown, he came out of hiding, freed his
siblings, and overthrew the titans.
With Zeus ensconced on mountain Olympus and the titans who fought against him imprisoned
in Tartarus, the final hierarchy that ordered the universe crystalized. But this almost
wasn’t what transpired. The cycle of son supplanting father nearly repeated itself,
but was prevented from doing so at the last moment.
Zeus was a notorious philanderer. He was such a prolific adulterer that his infidelities
were too numerous to count. Many mortal women fell prey to him, but he also bedded many
goddesses. One of the goddesses whose bed Zeus shared was Metis, who was one of the
Oceanids, a group of 3,000 sea nymphs who were the daughters of Oceanus, a first-generation
titan and the personification of the great river that encircled the world.
Like his father before him, a foretelling from Gaia was revealed to him; it prophesied
that one of his children, if they were born, would challenge and strike him down. He was
told that by metis he would sire two children: first, a daughter, wise and strong, then a
son, bold and mighty. Both children would be exceedingly powerful, but ultimately it
would be the son who would end Zeus’ rule. But this never came to pass. Zeus swallowed
Metis while she was pregnant with their first child, a daughter. And there’s a bit of
irony here, for in one version, it was Metis who provided Zeus with the emetic that forced
Cronus to disgorge his children. Had she known her fate, which was to be swallowed like the
gods she was helping free, I very much doubt her loyalties would have been where they were.
Later, an exquisite pain racked Zeus’ head. It was so unbearable, that he asked Hephaestus
- Prometheus in other versions - to strike his head with an axe. The blow split Zeus’
head, and out sprung Athena, fully grown, clade in armor, powerful and wise. Though
Athena was born, the son that was to follow never was, so the cycle ended with Zeus, who
remained highest of all, ruling all, mortal and divine alike. But had the son been born,
he would have been indomitable, a being of unmatched power, and by his hand, Zeus would
have been deposed, perhaps cast down to the infernal plane with the Titans, perhaps castrated
and then left alone, stripped of power and authority, like Uranus.