A Brief View of Greek Cosmology

Our first reading of the semester is taken from Hesiod's Theogony. In order to properly understand his descriptions of the gods, we must first take a look at Greek cosmology, the nature of the world as it was popularly perceived by the ancient Greeks. It should be noted that at this time in Greece, just as there were many cults and many myths, there were also different perceptions of the world which were widely held. The following is a popularized version of the universe reflected in many of the myths.

According to the scholar H. J. Rose, the early Greeks conceived the world to be a circle. One can see why it was supposed to be so shaped, if one imagines looking over the earth from a mountain top. As far as one can see, turning round, there is land and water; in other words, the world looks like a circular disk. The circle of the earth, it was supposed, was capped with an immense dome (the sky) which touched the earth at the horizon. (Our English word 'horizon' actually comes from an ancient Greek word which means 'to divide').

The boundary of this plain of the earth was formed by Okeanos, a great river, flowing in a circle around the earth. Notice that Okeanos is not what we today call the ocean. As we shall see in the Theogony, the ocean or sea was named Pontus.

According to some myths, if one goes to the furthest East, one comes to the very place where sky touches the earth, and the sun (the god Helios) begins his ascent into the sky. Far to the West is a land of darkness, where, according to some accounts, the entrance to Hades is found below the earth, reached through deep rifts in the ground (cf. The Myth of Orpheus). Other accounts picture the West as that place where Helios descends from the sky, gets into a boat and sails on Okeanos, circling back to the East to start his journey again next morning.