The asexual and sexual reproductive biology of the ancient Greek Mother Goddess Gaia is impossible as related. Her reproductive skills are akin to a human female giving birth not only to humans but to all sorts of other animals and even monstrosities. No writer of mythology (fiction) even back then would make such a fundamental error if he wanted his fiction to be credible. What’s the alternative? - Aliens.
The asexual and sexual reproductive biological skills of the ancient Greek Mother Goddess Gaia is impossible as related. Her reproductive skills are akin to a human female giving birth not only to humans but to all sorts of other animals and even numerous monstrosities. No writer of mythology as fiction even back then would make such a fundamental error if he wanted his fiction to be credible. And that’s just the point – it wasn’t written to be read as fiction. The ancient Greeks didn’t interpret Mother Goddess Gaia and her offspring as make-believe. What did they know that we don’t today? What’s the alternative? Aliens - a misinterpretation of what was actually extraterrestrial activity. The ultimate stories behind Mother Goddess Gaia’s reproductive abilities centre around two rival alliances of various extraterrestrial races battling over Planet Earth, or at least their allocated part of it – Italy , Greece and the islands of the Aegean Sea .
In the beginning there was Chaos according to ancient Greek mythology. Chaos was neither a deity nor a personality, just an all encompassing dark void, lifeless matter with no distinguishing features which is as good a view of the cosmos as any by the ancients. Chaos might just as well have been their shorthand for explaining life, the universe and everything; the creation of life, the universe and everything, and probably was.
Chaos gave rise to Planet Earth, among other cosmic attributes, like darkness and energy. Planet Earth was known as Gaia (or Gaea). Gaia as Planet Earth is obviously a physical product, a natural creation of the cosmos. However, Gaia (Terra in the Roman pantheon) was also considered to be the daughter of Chaos, a mother goddess. We need to separate the two concepts (Gaia as Earth (the planet) and Gaia the Mother Goddess). Chaos as a formless void would have to via natural physical processes form independently Planet Earth first before the arrival of the Mother Goddess that would represent Planet Earth, Tellus or Terra, alternative names by which Planet Earth is known.
On the biological as opposed to the planetary side of things, Mother Goddess Gaia (representing the Earth, or of the Earth) had siblings called Nyx (which represented night), and Erebos (representing underground darkness). Later on down the track Chaos formed other siblings in the form of Eros (representing desire/energy) and Tartarus (the underworld).
Asexually, Mother Goddess Gaia gave rise to her two sons Uranus (Ouranos) and Pontus and the ten Ourea (Aitna, Athos, Helikon, Kithairon, Nysos, Olympus 1, Olympus 2, Oreios, Parnes, and Tmolus). Asexual reproduction is reproduction without benefit of a partner, usually termed parthenogenesis.
Mother Goddess Gaia does however ultimately take a husband and sexually mate - with her son Uranus (representing the sky or of the sky). From that union comes:
*The three elder and original Cyclopes: giants with one eye: Brontes, Steropes, and Arges.
*The original first generation six male Titans (Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus, and Cronus) and the original first generation six female Titanesses (Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, and Tethys): all human looking. [Now the original Titans then did their ‘be fruitful and multiply thing’ and produce the second generation of Titans, making Mother Goddess Gaia a grandmother. These second generation Titans included Atlas and Prometheus – in case you were wondering if I had forgotten these important figures.]
*The three Hecatonchires: giants with 100 arms and hands and fifty heads apiece: Cottus, Briareus and Gyges.
Mother Goddess Gaia’s son and hubby, Uranus, then met an uncomfortable fate at the hands of his son Cronus when the latter castrated the former!
Mother Goddess Gaia then, via a not-so-immaculate conception, being splattered with blood from the severed genitales of her son/husband Uranus, conceived:
*The three Furies (Erinyes): Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone though their actual number maybe however indefinite. The Furies were winged hags with snakes intertwined in their hair.
*The Gigantes: a race of giants born in full armour with spears.
*The Meliae: the ash tree nymphs. Nymphs tend to be beautiful eternally youthful amorous maidens (sounds like my kind of aliens) who attend to the needs of more senior deities. Nymphs are a sort of yeoman figure.
Mother Goddess Gaia mates sexually with her other son Pontus
However, later generation descendents of Mother Goddess Gaia’s and Pontus
*The Harpies, predatory monsters; a woman’s head on top of a vulture’s body, wings and claws.
*The Graeae, a trio of swan-like women with grey hair who shared one eye and one tooth between them.
*The 50 Nereids who at least retain their maritime heritage being nymphs of the sea.
*The Gorgons, who on the other hand, were monstrous sisters with wings, claws and serpent hair, the most famous being the Medusa.
*The Muses, nine human-looking goddesses of the arts.
*Chiron – a centaur.
Mother Goddess Gaia also mates with Tartarus to produce the mother of all monsters, the Typhon (which Zeus later defeated in battle).
Mother Goddess Gaia mates with her first generation Titan offspring Oceanus. That union gave rise to Reousa/Creusa (a naiad or type of water nymph) and Triptolemus (a primordial man who flew across the land in a winged chariot and educated the whole of Greece
Mother Goddess Gaia mates with Zeus (her grandson). Their offspring became Manes, the first king of Maeonia otherwise known as Lydia in western Asia Minor . The odd bit here is that two deities apparently have produced a mortal and not another deity!
Mother Goddess Gaia also mates with Poseidon (also her grandson). That produces offspring we know as Antaeus (a half-giant) and Charybdis (a sea monster).
The Python, that earth-dragon of Delphi is alleged to have a genetic type relationship with Mother Goddess Gaia – mother being the operative word. The daddy is unknown; perhaps this is another example of parthenogenesis in action. Python, as you’d guess from the name, is a serpent. The Greek Olympian deity Apollo did Python a mischief in mortal combat. Alas, Python is no longer among the living! Neither were the original Cyclopes as Apollo bumped them off which didn’t please Zeus one little bit as the Cyclopes assisted him and his fellow Olympians in their war against the Titans, providing the high-tech necessary for victory (see below).
While that’s not the absolute end of Mother Goddess Gaia’s bedroom romps (actual or suspected), the above covers the basics and shows that Heinz has no monopoly on varieties, 57 or otherwise. Now Mother Goddess Gaia is not the be-all-and-end-all of the varieties of presumably extraterrestrial species that are part and parcel of Greek mythology, but I think it’s safe to now at least conclude this segment on Mother Goddess Gaia remarkable reproductive prowess!
To be continued...
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