Original subtitles

(dramatic music)

(tranquil music)

- [Narrator] This is the father of the gods and of humanity,

a figure to whom everyone,

whether mortal or divine, owes obedience.

He is the lord of the elements.

He controls all of the atmospheric phenomena,

the violent winds,

as well as those that bring live-giving rain.

(thunder cracking)

He upholds the social order,

and the royal power of the rulers, but above all,

(thunder cracking)

he wields the one and only

weapon of mass destruction of his time, lightning,

which he uses against anyone who dares to challenge him.

(thunder cracking)

(ominous music)

Among the gods it is his name that stands out,

the one with which we are most familiar, Zeus.

Take a good look at him, observe how majestic he is,

with his long hair, and his magnificent beard.

In one hand he holds a scepter made if cypress wood,

the symbol of his royalty, in the other, the Aegis,

which he uses to create thunderstorms.

A supreme ruler must have a supreme abode.

Zeus dwells in the love, peaceful upper regions,

that lie above the Earth's atmosphere.

The mountains are his thrones,

but his most famous residence is on Mount Olympus.

That is where he has his palace,

which was built by his son, Hephaestus,

the god of fire and blacksmiths.

(dramatic music)

Yet, Zeus was not always this almighty god.

In fact, his birth destined him

for an entirely different fate.

It all began at the very beginning,

before the dawn of time.

And in the beginning was darkness,

and out of this darkness came Chaos,

the void filled with infinite obscurity.

Then Gaia was born, the Earth,

the primordial goddess, the mother goddess.

(rocks clattering)

And out of her womb came the mountains,

the snow-capped peaks, and the caves,

the forests, the oceans and their foam,

the plains, and the rivers.

(water gurgling)

Later on, as the world took on form and shape,

Eros appeared,

the invisible force that breathes

an irresistible desire into creatures

to come together and mate.

Gaia, Mother Earth, was all alone.

No one loved her, and she loved no one.

Who was there for her to love, except herself?

There was nothing around her, except for Chaos,

so in her loneliness,

Gaia decided to bring forth Uranus, the sky,

her exact opposite,

the sky, which was filled with a host of constellations.

Then the sky came and lay upon Gaia.

It embraced her.

There they were, practically a couple,

the sky and the earth,

the two planes of the universe, one on top of the other.

And then what?

Well, wouldn't it be good if this embrace

could lead to the creation of living beings?

That is where Eros came in.

Surreptitiously he breathed that mysterious urge into Uranus

that is called desire, and Uranus gave in to it.

He came together with Gaia, and they made love,

not just oncw, but 100 times.

not just for a day, but for 1,000 days,

and soon a swarm of children were born.

The first 12 would be called the Titans,

six male Titans and six female Titanides.

They were followed by the Cyclops,

who got their name from the single eye

they had in the middle of their forehead.

After that came the Hekatonkheires,

whose name mean the Hundred-Handed Ones.

And as if 100 hands weren't enough,

each of them also had 50 fire-spitting heads.

Finally, Gaia gave birth to the Giants,

a fearsome race of colossal, monstrous-looking beings.

(giant roaring)

(rocks clattering)

There was only one problem,

all of these children were unable to move.

They were forced to remain inside their mother,

imprisoned in the very place in which they were conceived.

The reason was that Uranus, the sky,

was literally pressed up against the earth, Gaia.

Between them there was no space at all

for there offspring to emerge into the light,

to have an independent existence of their own.

(dramatic music)

As soon as they tried to get out,

their father, Uranus, would brutally shove them back inside.

(thunder rumbling)

So, filled with rage and frustration,

the Titans took it out on their mother.

They fought, they thrashed about inside of her,

they suffocated and tormented her.

Gaia was suffering, she was worn-out as well as furious.

Things could not go on this way.

Enough was enough.

Gaia decided to rebel,

and she ordered her children to turn against their father.

(rocks shattering)

No one moved.

No one except the youngest of the Titans, Cronus.

Cronus agreed to attack his father,

with the help of his mother.

Unbeknownst to Uranus,

Gaia secretly made a sickle out of flint,

and gave it to her son.

All he had to do was wait for the right moment.

And that moment wasn't long in coming.

The ever-ardent Uranus came to make love to Gaia.

As soon as he penetrated her,

Cronus grabbed his father's genitals in his left hand,

and with the sickle cut them off,

and tossed them into the sea.

Overcome with pain, Uranus pulled back violently,

and moved away from Gaia.

It was the moment they were waiting for.

The two were separated at last.

From then on, Uranus, the sky,

remained in his place high up above the world,

never to move again.

The Titans, the Cyclops, the Giants,

were finally free to leave their mother's womb.

It's said that the drops of rain that fall from heaven

are in fact the tears of Uranus,

tears of sorrow, tears of remorse, tears of nostalgia.

With Uranus vanquished, Cronus became the ruler.

Soon afterwards, he married his sister, Rhea.

One might have thought that this would lead

to a reign of peace,

but it is well known that once they take power,

rulers are loathe to relinquish it.

Having been warned by Gaia

that one of his sons would steal his throne one day,

Cronus devoured each of his children alive,

as soon as Rhea gave birth to them.

(tranquil music)

In despair, the unlucky goddess had no other choice

but to try to escape from her husband's murderous frenzy.

When she became pregnant again, she decided to run away.

It was a wise decision,

since the unborn child was a special child,

who wasn't quite like the others.

It was Zeus, and she would not have him put to death.

So, Rhea ran away.

She came to an island by the name of Crete,

where in great secrecy she gave birth to the child.

After she had entrusted her baby to the Nymphs,

the deities who personify the vital forces of nature,

Rhea went back to Cronus.

Cronus knew that his wife had been pregnant,

and he was expecting her to give him the newborn child.

But Rhea had planned everything out.

Instead of the newborn baby, she have Cronus a stone,

a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes.

This was apparently enough to fool the voracious Titan,

who immediately devoured it.

How could he have known that one of his sons

up in Mount Ida in faraway Crete

would return to avenge his mother, to free his brothers,

to strip him of his honors,

and reign in his place over the Immortals?

(tranquil music)

Zeus grew up in the mountains of Crete,

under the watchful eye of his grandmother, Gaia,

the Mother Earth, and the Nymphs.

He was fed on nectar and ambrosia,

which was brought to him by the doves and the eagles.

He savored the delicate honeycombs

that the bees made for him alone.

And he suckled the milk of the goat nymph Amalthea.

Later, after he had become master of the universe,

Zeus would show his gratitude to these nurses and guardians.

Amalthea would be raised up into the heavens,

to become the constellation Capricorn.

He would take one of her horns

and give it to the nymphs who had cared for him,

turning it into the famous Cornucopia, the horn of plenty,

that is always filled with what its possessor

desires to eat and drink.

Meanwhile, little Zeus was in danger.

Cronus had found out that his wife had tricked him.

He set out to search from the son

who had got away from his bloodthirsty clutches.

He knew that his throne was at stake.

(rock crunching)

Cronus looked everywhere.

He lifted up the mountains and hills, he scanned the seas,

but failed to find the child, and for good reason.

The cradle containing the infant, Zeus,

was in a cave up on Mount Ida,

and some rather curious creatures

were posted at its entrance.

Who were they?

The Curetes.

The Curetes were a group of boisterous demons

whose orders were to perform war dances,

which consisted of striking

their spears and shields together,

in order to keep the cries of the young god

from reaching his father's ears.

Time went by.

Zeus grew up.

He had learned about Cronus' gruesome deeds from his mother,

and as he grew older, he thought more and more

about taking revenge on his unworthy father.

(tense music)

(tranquil music)

Zeus was now an adult.

He met an Oceanid named Metis, a sea nymph,

who was the daughters of the Titans Oceanus and Tethys.

(tranquil music)

Metis was the goddess of wisdom and prudence,

as well as the goddess of cunning.

The young Zeus set out to seduce her,

and he succeeded without any trouble at all.

He then told her about his birth,

his desire the avenge the crimes committed by his father,

and his wish to free his brothers and sisters

trapped inside Cronus' belly.

How should he go about it?

Metis came up with solution,

give Cronus an emetic potion to drink,

that will cause him to vomit.

To hide the taste, she added, mix it with honey.

Excellent idea, but were can I find such a potion?

Metis smiled, why don't you asked your mother, she'll know.

Zeus took the goddess' advice and went to see Rhea.

He told her about the plan.

Rhea approved of the scheme.

She made the potion and gave it to her son,

after arranging for him to enter Cronus' court

as a cup bearer,

the boy responsible for serving drinks to the gods.

As soon as he got the chance to approach his father,

Zeus offered him the cup.

The unsuspecting Cronus took the cup and drank.

The potion went to work at once,

and he vomited up the stone, the stone in swaddling clothes.

Then, one by one he regurgitated

all of the children that Rhea had brought into the world.

Cronus was furious at having been duped,

and determined to keep his throne,

he decided to make his son pay for this ruse.

He rallied all of his brothers and sisters,

the Titans, around him.

(dramatic music)

In the meantime, Rhea's children

naturally sided with Zeus up on Mount Olympus,

six Olympians against 12 Titans.

Thus began the great and terrible war.

It would be known as the Titanomachy,

and would last for hundreds of years.

At one point, when the outcome of the struggle

seemed uncertain,

Gaia, the tenebrous yet luminous grandmother,

who could be silent as well as loquacious,

told Zeus that in order to win,

he would have to seek the support of allies

from the same generation as the Titans, the Cyclops.

(tranquil music)

The Cyclops were primordial deities.

That is, they still had within them all of the brutality,

all of the violence inherent in the earliest beings.

In addition, Gaia explained,

the Cyclops would also give Zeus the greatest of weapons,

the weapons of thunder and lightning.

(thunder cracking)

At the present time, however,

they were shut up in the realm of Tartarus, the most remote,

and the most abysmal region of the underworld.

That was where Cronus had imprisoned them.

(Cyclops groaning)

If Zeus were able to free them,

they would join forces with them.

Zeus agreed, he released them,

and with the support of the one-eyed monsters,

he soon defeated the Titans.

Had peace finally arrived?

No, because even though she had helped

her grandson come to power, Gaia was now angry at him

for forever banishing her own children, the Titans.

So, against Zeus she pitted the Giants,

the enormous race of creatures

who were considered to be invincible,

and thus a new war broke out,

a new war galled this time the Gigantomachy,

which would continue long after the first mortals

had come into the world.

Zeus gathered his brothers, his sisters,

and his children around him, and they fought back.

The battles were fierce.

Zeus managed to prevent the Giants

from getting their hands on the magic herd,

a plant that was said to protect them from death.

But even that did not stop Gaia.

She refused to give in.

Knowing that he could not defeat the Giants

without the help of a mortal, Zeus came up with an idea.

He found his way into the bed

of the daughter of the king of Mycenae, Alcmene,

who gave birth to a being

of extraordinary strength, Heracles.

Every Giant that was wounded by Zeus

was then killed by an arrow by Heracles.

(flesh squelching) (giant growling)

(tranquil music)

Once again, Zeus triumphed over his enemies,

and as if to mark this victory with a tangible memento,

he would have the big stone

that Cronus had swallowed in his place,

and then regurgitated, placed in Delphi.

This was the Omphalos, the navel of the world,

the center of the universe, and it is still there today.

One might have thought that things would now settle down,

but this was not to be the case.

Zeus had one more obstacle to overcome,

the last but certainly not the least,

for Gaia once again was enraged at the fate

to which Zeus had doomed her offspring, the Titans,

so she conceived a child with Tartarus, the most remote,

and the most abysmal region in the underworld.

From this union would be born

the most fiendish creature of them all, Typhon.

Typhon was half beast and half man.

The top of his head brushed the stars.

His arms, when stretched out,

extended from the east on side to the west on the other.

Fire burned in his eyes.

Serpents were coiled around his lower limbs.

And as if his appearance alone was not enough

to leave his enemies petrified with fear,

Typhon also made the most horrendous noises when he moved,

which resembled the bellowing of a bull,

combined with the roar of a lion.

(ground thudding)

When this monstrous creature set out for Olympus,

the panic-stricken gods fled to Egypt,

where they disguised themselves

by taking on the forms of animals.

(god whooshing) (bird screeching)

(sparks sizzling)

Apollo became a hawk, Hermes an ibis, Ares a fish,

Dionysus a goat, Hephaestus an ox.

Only Zeus stayed behind to fight the monster.

(tranquil music)

This flight into Egypt would have unexpected results.

It would lead to a mingling

of the Greek and Egyptian deities.

Typhon would be identified with Seth,

the brother and enemy of Osiris.

Zeus would be equated with Horus,

Dionysus would become Osiris,

Demeter, Isis, and so forth.

It was an extraordinary intermixing of two cultures

that were not necessarily destined to come together.

But let us return to our hero,

and the battle he was waging against Typhon.

It was brief, but decisive.

While Typhon was going after Zeus across the sea in Sicily,

Zeus tore up Mount Aetna, and threw it on top of his enemy.

With Typhon buried at last under Aetna,

Zeus could finally proclaim himself the indisputable ruler.

He was now, without contest, the master of the gods.

(tranquil choral music)

It was now time to divide up the cosmos.

Zeus set himself up as the supreme ruler,

and chose as his residence the realm of the sky.

Poseidon, his older brother,

was promoted to lord of the seas.

His other brother, Hades,

was given the keys to the underworld,

with the power to reign over the forces of darkness.

(thunder cracking)

The end result was a universe

that was now structured and stratified.

At the top was the organizing power

of the world that was born out of Chaos.

Everything that had once been a part of the sky,

had been driven out, either imprisoned in Tartarus,

or sent down to Earth to be among the mortals.

An omnipotent god had been born,

but this god did not impose any kind of creed,

had no need for any kind of clergy.

Zeus, who would henceforth rule the world,

had a difficult task ahead of him.

He would have to establish order,

without falling into despotism.

(thunder cracking)

(dramatic music)