1 00:00:04,082 --> 00:00:10,089 In this part of our story, we see the war. Zeus and Kronos go at each other. 2 00:00:10,089 --> 00:00:17,054 It's a ten-year battle that the stakes of the universe are up for grabs in their 3 00:00:17,054 --> 00:00:21,073 conflict. Just before we detoured into the story of 4 00:00:21,073 --> 00:00:29,012 humans and that episode on the, in the in, in at Mekone we have a mention, remember, 5 00:00:29,012 --> 00:00:34,788 that Hesiod tells us just in a few sentences there, that at a certain point 6 00:00:35,040 --> 00:00:40,059 Earth tricks Kronos into vomiting back up his children and Zeus is involved. 7 00:00:40,059 --> 00:00:45,091 Zeus allies with the cyclopses and gets the thunderbolt so that he can rule the 8 00:00:45,091 --> 00:00:48,043 Cosmos. That happens on page eighteen. 9 00:00:48,043 --> 00:00:53,367 Hesiod is here looking forward to the very end of the story where Zeus is going to be 10 00:00:53,367 --> 00:00:57,069 in control of everything. There we can jump right into Zeus already 11 00:00:57,069 --> 00:01:02,043 being in control the later period, and we've got humans and this episode with 12 00:01:02,043 --> 00:01:07,018 Mekone, and at the end of that, we jump back to witness this ten-year battle 13 00:01:07,018 --> 00:01:11,073 between Zeus and Kronos. The battle is nasty and deeply violent. 14 00:01:11,073 --> 00:01:17,048 A thunderbolt is not a gentle weapon. Now, Zeus gets these weapons by means of 15 00:01:17,048 --> 00:01:21,050 persuasion. He frees the cyclopses from their nasty 16 00:01:21,050 --> 00:01:27,002 place under the under the Earth. This is where the Titans had kept them, 17 00:01:27,002 --> 00:01:32,886 not showing them proper deference. Zeus was used as a way to try to persuade 18 00:01:32,886 --> 00:01:36,462 the cyclopes. And if they, now, he, he would go ahead 19 00:01:36,462 --> 00:01:42,506 and free them, and after he did, he was friended by them and they give him his 20 00:01:42,506 --> 00:01:46,054 thunderbolt. Now, with that thunderbolt, Zeus can rule 21 00:01:46,054 --> 00:01:50,039 the Cosmos. And is the nuclear weapon of its day. 22 00:01:50,268 --> 00:01:54,068 It's enough to annihilate whatever is in opposition. 23 00:01:54,068 --> 00:01:58,017 Now, with the thunderbolt, he crushes the Titans. 24 00:01:58,230 --> 00:02:01,048 And the Titans had a terrible, terrible time. 25 00:02:01,294 --> 00:02:07,004 They wind up down in nasty Tartarus. Zeus has them chained down there to the 26 00:02:07,004 --> 00:02:11,098 very bottom of the Tartarus. They are living at the utter far edges of 27 00:02:11,098 --> 00:02:16,068 the, underneath part of the cosmos. This war is nasty. 28 00:02:16,068 --> 00:02:20,036 It's awful. Zeus so wins by means of this thunderbolt, 29 00:02:20,036 --> 00:02:25,040 he also wins by means of making alliances. Te gets this hundred handers on his side. 30 00:02:25,215 --> 00:02:27,741 These are like, you know, the huge tanks of today. 31 00:02:27,898 --> 00:02:32,546 Three of them, he talks over to coming to his side, they also were offspring of the 32 00:02:32,546 --> 00:02:35,488 titans that were not treated well by the Titans. 33 00:02:35,488 --> 00:02:39,962 Though there's a pattern developing in both the cyclopses and the hundred 34 00:02:39,962 --> 00:02:42,987 handers, the Titans don't treat their subordinates well. 35 00:02:42,987 --> 00:02:47,192 Zeus then sees an opportunity, jumps in and starts to be kind to them and pulls 36 00:02:47,192 --> 00:02:51,066 them over to his side. Using persuasion, now, he gets this 37 00:02:51,066 --> 00:02:55,445 excessive violence, his thunderbolt and also the hundred handers. 38 00:02:55,445 --> 00:03:00,453 And with the, the scenes are especially pungent with a hundred handers ripping off 39 00:03:00,453 --> 00:03:05,854 hunks of mountain and throwing all three of them hundred boulders at the time at 40 00:03:05,854 --> 00:03:08,095 the titans. They can't withstand the onslaught. 41 00:03:08,095 --> 00:03:13,055 Now, at the end of a huge war like this, there is not going to be killing. 42 00:03:13,055 --> 00:03:18,027 These are all immortal principles. Zeus though is now in a dominant position. 43 00:03:18,027 --> 00:03:23,018 So, he is able to restrain and bind the Titans down in the mystic reaches of 44 00:03:23,018 --> 00:03:26,428 Tartarus. This conflagration is so nasty as it's 45 00:03:26,428 --> 00:03:32,000 unfolding, we hear from the chasm. So, the chasm is a principle that has been 46 00:03:32,000 --> 00:03:36,743 around of course, but we know it from the very beginning but we don't hear so much 47 00:03:36,743 --> 00:03:39,882 about it. But when this war is at stake, the earth 48 00:03:39,882 --> 00:03:45,016 is shaking to such a degree that we hear that even the chasm is shaking. 49 00:03:45,016 --> 00:03:49,076 This is a, a war that shakes the universe down to its fundamental pieces. 50 00:03:49,076 --> 00:03:53,087 Zeus wins and it's final. There's going to be a later challenge to 51 00:03:53,087 --> 00:03:58,626 Zeus in this period in this episode involving this monster, Typhoeus but Zeus 52 00:03:58,626 --> 00:04:03,044 is going to win that one, too. This is, reinforces an idea that while in 53 00:04:03,044 --> 00:04:07,086 a previous generation, younger ones came up and overthrew the older ones. 54 00:04:07,086 --> 00:04:12,406 Zeus's win is going to be final. There, there is this coda afterwards with 55 00:04:12,406 --> 00:04:16,008 Typhoeus. But since Zeus overcomes Typhoeus, Zeus is 56 00:04:16,008 --> 00:04:20,774 no longer going to be vulnerable to younger generations coming and overthrow 57 00:04:20,774 --> 00:04:22,846 him. It's not going to happen to him. 58 00:04:22,846 --> 00:04:26,980 He dispatches the younger creature and tosses him in the Tartarus. 59 00:04:26,980 --> 00:04:31,105 So now, Zeus is forever going to be top dog of the universe. 60 00:04:31,105 --> 00:04:36,004 With Zeus's victory the gods at Earth's prompting make, make him king. 61 00:04:36,004 --> 00:04:40,068 So, he now has his place. He's earned it through struggle. 62 00:04:40,316 --> 00:04:45,518 He is now, top creature in the universe and he solidified himself. 63 00:04:45,518 --> 00:04:50,118 During this war, we get some details about this cosmological structure. 64 00:04:50,336 --> 00:04:54,679 S I said, it shakes this cosmology to it's, to it's fundaments. 65 00:04:54,679 --> 00:04:59,456 And in so doing, we got to kind of look back at how the whole thing is ordered. 66 00:04:59,456 --> 00:05:02,918 This is also timed with Zeus' victory over the Titans. 67 00:05:02,918 --> 00:05:06,466 So, it's as though the Cosmos is achieving order. 68 00:05:06,676 --> 00:05:12,777 As Hesiod is articulating it in a similar kind of pace to Zeus defeating the Titans. 69 00:05:12,777 --> 00:05:17,561 So, Zeus is defeating the Titans is absolutely parallel to the Cosmos 70 00:05:17,561 --> 00:05:20,685 achieving its order. We learn about Tartarus. 71 00:05:20,685 --> 00:05:25,733 It's this place way down below. Earth is a place in the middle, and the 72 00:05:25,733 --> 00:05:30,731 Heavens are a place way up above. In fact, Hesiod gives us a way of thinking 73 00:05:30,731 --> 00:05:36,152 about how this connections are made. The Heavens are so far above the Earth 74 00:05:36,152 --> 00:05:41,216 that if you dropped a bronze anvil for nine days it fell, on a tenth, it would 75 00:05:41,216 --> 00:05:44,413 hit the earth. And the Tarturus is so below the earth. 76 00:05:44,413 --> 00:05:49,138 And if you dropped a bronze anvil from the level of earth for nine days, on the 77 00:05:49,138 --> 00:05:51,625 tenth, it would hit the bottom of Tartarus. 78 00:05:51,625 --> 00:05:56,369 Revealing huge expanses in Hesiod's imagination, such that can be only 79 00:05:56,369 --> 00:05:59,232 described in these grand and grandiose ways. 80 00:05:59,232 --> 00:06:04,013 We also hear of the principle of the Styx, the river Styx, which runs through the, 81 00:06:04,013 --> 00:06:09,217 through Tartarus and is the body of water on which even the gods are able to take an 82 00:06:09,217 --> 00:06:13,444 oath, an oath is something that you can swear but you have to swear on, on some 83 00:06:13,444 --> 00:06:16,333 punishment. Oftentimes, that punishment could be death 84 00:06:16,333 --> 00:06:18,624 but the gods, there is not going to be death. 85 00:06:18,624 --> 00:06:23,508 They swear an oath on Styx, the Styx is so powerful and mighty and holy in their own 86 00:06:23,508 --> 00:06:27,465 minds, they're in awe of it. That it he's, he's a very detailed 87 00:06:27,465 --> 00:06:33,041 punishment of God, is in a coma, for many years, if it violates an oath of Styx. 88 00:06:33,041 --> 00:06:37,065 It's not going to die but it has a horrible, horrible punishment. 89 00:06:37,065 --> 00:06:41,095 We also hear about the ocean. This is a river that circles the earth, 90 00:06:41,095 --> 00:06:47,497 out of which all the waters come and out of which kind of Principle of coursing 91 00:06:47,497 --> 00:06:53,074 energy is present in the Cosmos. Now, when Zeus overcomes the Titans, yes, 92 00:06:53,074 --> 00:06:59,099 he's achieved his position as the highest in the ordering, ordering hierarchy of the 93 00:06:59,099 --> 00:07:06,044 universe so an order has been established. There's a strong acknowledgment of that 94 00:07:06,044 --> 00:07:11,020 order from all of his peers. There's also, interestingly, in this part 95 00:07:11,020 --> 00:07:14,677 of the epic, a handover of the powers of reproduction. 96 00:07:14,677 --> 00:07:19,806 And that's something we're going to turn to in this next segment. 97 00:07:19,806 --> 00:07:25,494 Using a tool that we developed at the University of Pennsylvania, we can 98 00:07:25,494 --> 00:07:31,042 actually see, visualize how Zeus appropriates this power of reproduction, 99 00:07:31,042 --> 00:07:34,684 and how fully it moves over into his purview. 100 00:07:34,684 --> 00:07:40,789 At the very beginning of our story, we'll remember that Gaia was the one who mainly 101 00:07:40,789 --> 00:07:45,101 was the reproducer. We see here all of her offspring connected 102 00:07:45,101 --> 00:07:50,466 to her by blue lines, and her consorts are connected to her by green or red lines. 103 00:07:50,466 --> 00:07:53,694 These are the creatures that are connected to Gaia. 104 00:07:53,694 --> 00:07:56,516 You can see she's powerful and reproductive. 105 00:07:56,516 --> 00:07:58,361 She has lot's of creatures connected to her. 106 00:07:58,361 --> 00:08:02,846 Now, we might think that lot's of these other creatures surely must have given 107 00:08:02,846 --> 00:08:06,024 birth to other things, too. Let's look for example at Themis. 108 00:08:06,024 --> 00:08:10,508 Well, sure, there is some offspring involved, and there is some consorts that 109 00:08:10,508 --> 00:08:15,575 she has but not nearly as much as Gaia. Going back again, we can get ourselves 110 00:08:15,575 --> 00:08:20,822 back up to Gaia and see other of her offspring and say well, surely, maybe 111 00:08:20,822 --> 00:08:24,551 Theia had a lot of offspring. Well, not quite so much. 112 00:08:24,551 --> 00:08:30,843 Back to Gaia, how to look at Rhea an important principle that comes from her. 113 00:08:30,843 --> 00:08:35,352 Well, again, not so much. Now, the generations that follow Earth 114 00:08:35,538 --> 00:08:38,878 mostly have reproductive trees that look like that. 115 00:08:38,878 --> 00:08:43,188 Yeah, under ten, under a dozen offspring for each of them. 116 00:08:43,188 --> 00:08:47,556 But when we move on to Zeus something quite different happens. 117 00:08:47,556 --> 00:08:53,002 Tracing out the lineage that brings us from Gaia to Rhea, and then having a look 118 00:08:53,002 --> 00:08:58,061 at what happens with Zeus, we enter into a new level of reproductivity. 119 00:08:58,265 --> 00:09:04,420 Zeus is an extremely powerful reproducer. Some of these creatures he produces all on 120 00:09:04,420 --> 00:09:07,150 his own. Lot's of them he produces by sexual 121 00:09:07,150 --> 00:09:11,738 relations with other divinities. He becomes the most important node of 122 00:09:11,738 --> 00:09:16,707 reproduction in this ancient scheme. And in doing so, the only, the only 123 00:09:16,707 --> 00:09:21,772 principal that could rival his position earlier on is Gaia. 124 00:09:21,772 --> 00:09:27,264 So, in doing, this he takes over the power of principal reproducer from Gaia. 125 00:09:27,264 --> 00:09:33,116 So now, Zeus is top dog in the universe in lots of different ways and not least 126 00:09:33,116 --> 00:09:37,431 because he's now at the center of the genealogical chart. 127 00:09:37,431 --> 00:09:41,725 How is it that Zeus appropriates this power of reproduction? 128 00:09:41,725 --> 00:09:46,473 How does he get it for himself? Well, there's a long string of events that 129 00:09:46,473 --> 00:09:50,456 unfolds as the story closes. You recall near the, near the very end 130 00:09:50,642 --> 00:09:55,568 Zeus has sexual relation sexual relationship with a goddess called Metis. 131 00:09:55,568 --> 00:10:00,471 When he does, she becomes pregnant. Now, before she gives birth, he swallows 132 00:10:00,471 --> 00:10:03,737 her down. Seeming to do something as awful as Cronus 133 00:10:03,737 --> 00:10:05,638 does. He never receives any nasty 134 00:10:05,978 --> 00:10:10,645 interpretation, there's never a nasty interpretation of this in the tradition. 135 00:10:10,645 --> 00:10:15,814 Instead, what people thought when they looked at Zeus swallowing Metis was they 136 00:10:15,814 --> 00:10:19,208 looked to her name. Her name means practical wisdom. 137 00:10:19,208 --> 00:10:24,332 So, when Zeus swallows Metis, what he's doing is internalizing practical wisdom 138 00:10:24,332 --> 00:10:28,385 according to the ancient reading of it. So, Zeus here, successfully appropriates 139 00:10:28,561 --> 00:10:34,036 the power of reproduction by following the scheme of internalizing practical wisdom. 140 00:10:34,036 --> 00:10:38,009 When he does look what happens, he becomes reproductive himself. 141 00:10:38,009 --> 00:10:41,059 The first thing that comes out of the offspring from Metis. 142 00:10:41,059 --> 00:10:43,827 Remember, she's gotten pregnant beforehand. 143 00:10:43,827 --> 00:10:47,647 He's ingested her. She, he, she then give birth presumably 144 00:10:47,647 --> 00:10:52,679 inside of him out of her own womb. Then he gives birth again out of himself 145 00:10:52,679 --> 00:10:57,481 out of his head and out pops Athena. So, Zeus appropriates the power of 146 00:10:57,481 --> 00:11:01,324 reproduction by assimilating practical wisdom inside of him. 147 00:11:01,324 --> 00:11:04,889 And so, he now starts to be able to reproduce on his own. 148 00:11:05,113 --> 00:11:08,724 Great power, all of a sudden, gets moved over to Zeus. 149 00:11:08,885 --> 00:11:12,754 Harkening back to the gender politics as involved in Hesiod's story. 150 00:11:12,754 --> 00:11:17,486 It's very clear, I think, in Hesiod's story that males should have the power of 151 00:11:17,486 --> 00:11:20,037 reproduction for the universe to work right. 152 00:11:20,213 --> 00:11:24,088 Hesiod must have been a little sad that it never quite worked out. 153 00:11:25,215 --> 00:11:31,001 But in his mind, that clearly seems to be the way the things to go, that should go. 154 00:11:31,001 --> 00:11:36,039 When Zeus becomes the leader of the universe and establishes order, that move 155 00:11:36,039 --> 00:11:41,066 is paralleled with his appropriation for males, or the female power of 156 00:11:41,066 --> 00:11:45,051 reproduction. All of this gives us a chance to look back 157 00:11:45,051 --> 00:11:50,006 on the pivotal role that this figure, Earth, has played in the story. 158 00:11:50,214 --> 00:11:55,561 She as a female principal and as the prior most productive entity in the universe. 159 00:11:55,750 --> 00:12:01,033 Yeah, has an important role in all aspects of this rise to power of Zeus. 160 00:12:01,261 --> 00:12:05,020 She's sometimes on his side, sometimes not on his side. 161 00:12:05,210 --> 00:12:09,081 She is moving things along in a interesting backdoor kind of way. 162 00:12:09,081 --> 00:12:13,041 Remember, at the very beginning, she is a primal deity. 163 00:12:13,041 --> 00:12:17,027 She is there before creation itself, she's just around. 164 00:12:17,221 --> 00:12:20,078 She's also involved in the castration of the sky. 165 00:12:20,078 --> 00:12:25,065 She wants that to happen so she disempowers her own husband and that 166 00:12:25,065 --> 00:12:31,005 generation her own generation on page eight, handing her power to her younger 167 00:12:31,005 --> 00:12:33,074 son. Then she warns Kronos, page seventeen, 168 00:12:33,074 --> 00:12:37,059 that someone, one of his off-springs is going to overthrow him. 169 00:12:37,059 --> 00:12:40,075 But that doesn't stop her from also helping Zeus. 170 00:12:40,075 --> 00:12:45,083 She goes over and schemes with Rhea on page seventeen to make sure that Kronos 171 00:12:45,083 --> 00:12:50,052 swallows down a stone and not Zeus. Then, she takes in Zeus into herself in a 172 00:12:50,052 --> 00:12:55,098 cave in Crete so that Zeus can be raised out of the womb of the Earth in addition 173 00:12:55,098 --> 00:13:00,035 to being raised out of the womb of his own mother on page seventeen. 174 00:13:00,035 --> 00:13:05,343 She then advices Zeus to free the 100 handers so they can be on his side in the 175 00:13:05,343 --> 00:13:09,016 war, page 21. A pivotal tactical maneuver that Zeus 176 00:13:09,016 --> 00:13:11,669 makes. Finally, she bares Typhoeus, page 27 in 177 00:13:11,669 --> 00:13:17,273 order to struggle against Zeus, to test him, to see if he deserves that power, and 178 00:13:17,273 --> 00:13:22,048 maybe try to overthrow him. After Zeus defeats Typhoeus then she jumps 179 00:13:22,048 --> 00:13:26,799 on in and advises all the Olympians to accept Zeus as their main power. 180 00:13:26,799 --> 00:13:31,486 So, they all jump in and do that. She then advises Zeus, yes, indeed, to be 181 00:13:31,486 --> 00:13:35,540 the one to swallow Metis. So, this power of reproduction seems to 182 00:13:35,540 --> 00:13:40,829 have been given over willingly by Earth, the female principal to Zeus, the male 183 00:13:40,829 --> 00:13:46,407 principal as a marker of Zeus' now position of authority as the central 184 00:13:46,407 --> 00:13:50,526 figure in the Cosmos. So, this messy, very messy family tree is 185 00:13:50,526 --> 00:13:54,365 something that he seduces to order this whole set of events. 186 00:13:54,365 --> 00:13:58,035 He has got what he's been looking for at the beginning. 187 00:13:58,035 --> 00:14:03,531 There's order, there's predictability, there's structure in the Cosmos, and it's 188 00:14:03,531 --> 00:14:06,087 based on Zeus, the powerful male principal.