From Geneology to war - A compendium of Greek Mythology

Births of all the Olympians

Aphrodite: The Olympian goddess of love, procreation, beauty and pleasure its only fitting that instead of being formed in a conventional way she instead came into being from the castration of her father Ouranos. When Ouranos was castrated by Cronus he cast his genitals into the ocean from which she emerged on the island of Cyprus. She emerged along with Eros and Himeros who were her companions.

Apollo and Artemis: Whilst the Titan Leto was pregnant with the twins she was under constant chase from Hera who wanted to make sure those children were never born as Hera hated Leto as they were the Titan Zeus bedded behind Hera's back. All of the land was being patrolled so she had to give birth on the floating island of Delos. Artemis was born first but immediately after she had to help Leto give birth to her brother Apollo.

Ares: The second legitimate male son of Zeus and Hera, He was the god of war and generally considered to be born in Thrace. What most people dont know is that Ares was actually born with siblings, that being those of Hebe and Ilithyia who are the goddesses of youth and childbirth/midwifery respectively.

Athena: Upon hearing the prophecy that the child of Metis would become stronger than himself, Zeus took it upon himself to swallow Metis whole. During this period he dealt with severe headaches and just after Hephaestus was welcomed back to Olympus he was ordered to split open the head of Zeus with an axe. From the exposed head rose Athena goddess of wisdom and tactical warfare fully aged and fully armoured with weapons in her hands.

Dionysus: Selmele, who bore the child of Zeus, was confronted by Hera who manipulated her into asking Zeus into seeing his true form. Due to Semele being a mortal she couldnt survive the sight and was enveloped in his lightning and thunder. The unborn child was rescued and Zeus personally sued him into his thigh and brought him fully to term.

Hermes: He was born to the nymph Maia and Zeus in a cave. Immediately after his birth Maia fell asleep in exhaustion and Hermes decided to wander out of the cave. He ended up killing a turtle and a sheep and stretched the sheep guts over the turtle shell creating the first lyre. He then stole the sacred cattle of the god Apollo and killed them all killing them all and burning them as an offering to get the gods attention and when Apollo arrived to see the child he was stunned. Hermes then offered the god the lyre and taught him how to use it therefore turning Apollo into the god of music along with everything else. All of this was done before evening on the day of his birth.

Hephaestus: He was the first legitimate son of Hera and Zeus although upon seeing him Hera threw him off Olympus as she was disgusted by his appearance. He was rescued by the sea-goddess Thetis who took him to the island of Lemnos and he was raised without ever knowing where he came from and as he grew older he eventually learned of his origins and plotted revenge.

Original 6: The original six were children of Cronus and Rhea and were the third generation of gods, that being the Olympian gods. Excluding Zeus all of the children were devoured by Cronus following a prophecy making it so the order of births is slightly mismatched but we know pre-devouring Hestia was the oldest and Zeus was the youngest and then after regurgitation Hestia was the youngest and Zeus was the oldest.

- Zeus : Eventually after the children kept getting devoured Rhea got tired of it and made a plan to save their next child. She replaces Zeus with a Omphalos stone wrapped in cloth and feeds it to Cronus. She then sends Zeus to a cave where he is raised by nymphs and fed goat milk from Amaltheia. They were guarded by the warrior Kouretes who drowned out the sounds of his crying with their shield-clashing battle dance all the way until he way old enough to free his siblings from the stomach of Cronus.

- The others : The rest of the original 6 were generally birthed the same way, they were expelled by Cronus after Zeus caused him to regurgitate them.