- Looks after
- The sky
- Roman name
- Caelum
Uranus
Οὐρανός
Uranus, the sky, is Gaia's first child and her partner, and the father of the Titans.
Uranus is the starry sky. Gaia bore him without a father to be an equal to herself, so that he would cover her on all sides and be a safe home for the gods. He then became her partner.
Their children were the Titans, the Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires. Uranus hated the last two groups and pushed each child back into Gaia's body as it was born. At Gaia's urging, Cronus lay in wait with a flint sickle and cut off his father's genitals. Drops of blood falling on the Earth produced the Erinyes (Furies), the Giants and the ash-tree nymphs. In Hesiod, the foam that gathered round the severed flesh in the sea gave birth to Aphrodite.
Uranus has no cult and no later stories. After the sickle he is simply the distant sky, and Cronus takes his place.
In later art and language
The planet Uranus, found by William Herschel in 1781, was named after him, and the element uranium was named after the planet.
Ancient sources
- Hesiod, Theogony 126-210