CHAPTER TWO THE MULTIFORMITY OF THE MYTHICAL TRADITION ABOUT KRONOS Before taking a further look at the role that may have been played by a 'dreaming Kronos' in Aristotle's lost works, we must consider various aspects of the mythical stories about the figure of Kronos.1 On the one hand, Kronos is the scion of the second generation of gods, also called the Titans'. At the request of his mother Gaia, he robs his father Ouranos of strength and power. On the other hand, the name Kronos is also connected with the 'golden age', in which a race of mortals lived in perfect bliss, and with the 'isles of the blessed'. It seems that the intriguing question how these two traditions are related has not yet been satisfactorily solved. 1. Kronos' crime and punishment according to Hesiod The information on which we shall have to proceed is found in Hesiod's two principal works, the Theogony and the Works and Days, which must be dated around 700 BC.2 The former work describes at length the drastic coup by which Kronos (temporarily) gains supremacy over the gods and the world. It also describes how he and the other Titans go on to wage a cosmic war against the Olympians led by Zeus, until they are bitterly defeated and imprisoned in the caverns of the Tartarus.3 In the second poem we find, in the context of the myth of the successive human generations (ages), the 1 For the older literature, cf. M. Pohlenz, 'Kronos und die Titanen', NJKA 37 (1916) 549-594; id., 'Kronos' in PWRE 11.2 (Stuttgart 1922) 1982-2018; U. von Wilamowitz- Moellendorf, 'Kronos und die Titanen', SBPreuszAW, phil. hist. Klasse 1929, 35-53; repr. (Darmstadt 1964) 7-26. 2 Cf. M. L. West, Hesiod Theogony; ed. with Prolegomena and Comm. (Oxford 1966) 45; W. Schadewaldt, Die Anfänge der Philosophie bei den Griechen (Frankfurt 1978) 82. For Hesiod's Works and Days, see M. L. West, Hesiod, Works and Days (Oxford 1978) and W. J. Verdenius, A Commentary on Hesiod, Works and Days w. 1-382 (Leiden 1985). The content of what follows has been previously published in A. P. Bos, 'Het grondmotief van de Griekse cultuur en het Titanische zin-perspectief', PRef 51 (1986) 117-137. An English version of that paper appeared in Tydskrif vir Christelike Wetenskap (S.Africa) 24 (1988) 94-123. 3 In Homer, too, Zeus is repeatedly called 'son of Kronos'. The family relationship between both gods, including the tradition about a change of power, may therefore go back to a more ancient tradition; II. 8.462, 470 and passim. For the imprisonment of Kronos in the Tartarus, cf. //. 8.477-481, 5.898, 14.203-204, 279, 15.224. 6 COSMIC AND ΜΕΤΑ-COSMIC THEOLOGY reference to the golden race that lived on earth during the rule of Kronos. We shall first briefly review these data, and then consider whether a connection between the two traditions can be established. After Hesiod has summed up the first generation of gods,4 and has mentioned how Mother Earth gave birth to the god Ouranos, we read that Ouranos fathered twelve children on Gaia, six boys and six girls, of whom Kronos is the youngest.5 We are told at once that he hated his father. That is because Ouranos abuses Gaia and her children by depriving the children of daylight and imprisoning them in the bowels of Mother Earth. At the request of his mother, Kronos brings this tense situation to an end by cutting off Ouranos' genitals with a sharp-toothed, steel sickle6 and casting them into the sea. Aphrodite comes into being in this way, and young grass and plants spring up where blood has splashed on the earth. But the reader is directly informed that this is by no means the end of the story. The dynamic history of the gods surges on to a new revolution. Ouranos gives a significant name to the offspring which has treated him so grossly: from now on they will be called Titans', the great 'Seizers', who have seized his power. But this name, according to Hesiod, also intentionally includes a reference to the tisis, the penalty which they will have to pay for their offence.7 In the single appellation 'Titan' the reader should pick up the reference to both crime and punishment. He will thus expect the history of Kronos to have a fatal outcome. Whatever Kronos may do to avoid his predestined fate, nothing will avail him. He nevertheless makes frantic attempts. Each time his spouse Rhea begets a child, he devours it.8 But this mother cannot bear to see her children injured either. Finally, therefore, she gives him a stone swaddled in clothes, while secretly giving birth to her youngest son Zeus on the island of Crete.9 In the course of the year10 Kronos disgorges his offspring, outdone by the shrewd schemes of Gaia, 4 Th. 116 f. 5 Th. 137. 6 Th. 175-182. M. L. West, op. cit. 217-218, thinks that the reference is to a 'simple agricultural sickle'. But because in Greek mythology the situations in which this kind of weapon is used are so widely divergent, we are not allowed to conclude, according to West, that Kronos was originally a harvest God. G. S. Schwartz, 'Theogony 175 ίχρπην καρχαρόδοντα. Why a sickle?', RSC 27 (1979) 177-180 offers the rather obscure statement: 'Uranos, who prevents the natural growth of Gaia's produce, is himself ultimately reaped like grain'. 7 Th. 207-210. 'Wretches' would seem to be the approximate English equivalent. 8 Th. 459-460, 467. The use (twice) of κατέπινε is remarkable, since this verb usually denotes the swilling down of a drink. 9 Typical of the way these texts used to be dealt with is M. Pohlenz's argument (1922, cols. 1990-1991) that Zeus was originally the only child of Kronos and Rhea, and that the story was later expanded because Hesiod wished to 'accommodate' the deities who were known in his day as brothers and sisters of Zeus. In Homer Zeus seems to be older than his brothers (//. 15.187), but younger than Hera (//. 4.59-61). 10 Th. 493 έπιπλομένου δ' ένιαυτού. .