Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today's video, we're going to explore whether Chaos was the most powerful God in Greek mythology. Let's get into it. Chaos, in Greek mythology, was the first primordial deity, meaning the first god, to come into existence. He was the manifestation of the great void that existed before all else. Chaos' power is predicated on his primacy in the creation myth and on the scope of his procreation. Some accounts have all the other first-generation primordial deities (Gaia, the personification of the earth, Tartarus, the personification of the cavernous abyss beneath the earth, Eros, the personification of desire, Erebus, the personification of darkness, and Nyx, the personification of night) all emerging from him, which would make Chaos the ultimate progenitor of everything and everyone in Greek mythology, being both self-created and then having everything else come from him and from the offspring he independently produced. However, In Hesiod's Theogony, in which exists the oldest surviving account of the Greek creation myth, Chaos isn't the father of all. Here's the quote:First came the Chasm; and then broad-breasted Earth, secure seat forever of all the immortals who occupy the peak of snowy Olympus; the misty Tartara in a remote recess of the broad-pathed earth; and Eros, the most handsome among the immortal gods, dissolver of flesh, who overcomes the reason and purpose in the breasts of all gods and all men. Out of the Chasm came Erebos and Dark Night." Per Hesiod's account, neither Gaia, nor Tartarus, nor Eros emerged from Chaos; rather, they inexplicably appeared, self-created as Chaos himself was first to do. This would make Gaia, Tartarus and Eros more so akin to the siblings of Chaos, not his independently begotten children. The quote then goes on to say that Erebus and Nyx came from Chaos.
