There were, no doubt, many mythic explanations for the creation of the cosmos or universe that circulated among the ancient Greeks,2 all believed with a healthy skepticism. The great poets were not oblivious to the obscure version above, and they gave Eurynome a place of honor as well; Hesiod says she bore the Kharities (Graces) to Zeus, and Homer says she attended to Hephaistos when he was thrown from Olympos.

Another early creation myth is preserved in the Rhapsodic Theogony of the early first century BCE. The Rhapsodic Theogony records the influential sixth- and fifth-century BCE Orphic cult creation myth. It states that out of the primeval abyss came a winged serpent with heads of a bull and a lion on either side of a god’s countenance. Its name was Khronos (meaning “unaging time”). Khronos created the One, represented as the silver egg of the cosmos. From it burst out Protogenos (meaning “firstborn”), the creative principal, also called Eros (meaning “love”), and the bisexual god Dionysos-Phanes. Phanes ruled during the Golden Age and created Nyx (meaning “night”) and with her produced Ouranos (meaning “heaven”) and Gaia (meaning “earth”). Ouranos and Gaia gave birth to the Titans, and one of them, Kronos, castrated his father and ruled until Rhea saved Zeus, her sixth child, from being swallowed by his father. The Orphics say Zeus swallowed Phanes, embodying in himself the previous Golden Age.

Through his daughter Persephone, Zeus gave birth, or rebirth, to the creative principal—Dionysos-Zagreus. Goaded by jealous Hera, or by envy, the Titans dismembered, roasted, and ate Dionysos-Zagreus. Zeus’s thunderbolts brought swift retribution, and from the ashes of the Titans came the human race. Thus man is part evil-natured Titan and part divine Dionysos, whom the Titans ate. Lord Zeus was only able to recover the heart of his son. He swallowed it and, through the womb of Semele, gave birth to Dionysos. Orphics evoked Dionysos to help them purge their Titan nature so that their Dionysian soul could be liberated.