- Gaea
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/jee"euh/, n.the ancient Greek goddess of the earth, mother of the Titans.[ < Gk gaîa earth]
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Greek goddess of the earth.She was both mother and wife to Uranus, or Heaven, from whom she was separated by her son Cronus, a Titan. According to Hesiod, she was the mother of all 12 Titans, as well as of the Furies and the Cyclopes (see Cyclops). She may have originated as a mother goddess worshiped in pre-Hellenic Greece before the introduction of the cult of Zeus.
Gaea, terra-cotta statuette from Tanagra, Greece; in the Musée Borély, Marseille.Giraudon/Art Resource, New York* * *
also called Ge,Greek personification of the Earth as a goddess. Mother and wife of Uranus (Heaven), from whom the Titan Cronus, her last-born child by him, separated her, she was also mother of the other Titans, the Gigantes, the Erinyes, and the Cyclopes (see giant; Furies; Cyclops). Gaea may have been originally a mother goddess worshipped in Greece before the Hellenes introduced the cult of Zeus. Less widely worshipped in historic times, Gaea was described as the giver of dreams and the nourisher of plants and young children. Gaea is often shown as being present at the birth of Zeus, but in some legends she is his enemy because she is the mother of the giants and of the 100-headed monster Typhon.* * *
Universalium. 2010.
