The Greek gods family tree has three main generations. In Hesiod's Theogony, written around 700 BC, the world begins with Chaos, a gap, and then Gaia, the Earth. Gaia gives birth to Ouranos, the Sky, and with him has the twelve Titans, along with the Cyclopes and the Hundred-Handers. The youngest Titan, Cronus, overthrows Ouranos and marries his sister Rhea. Their six children are Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon and Zeus. Zeus overthrows Cronus in a ten-year war against the Titans and becomes king. Most of the remaining Olympians are his children: Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Hermes, Hephaestus and Dionysus. Aphrodite's origin depends on which ancient source you follow.

There was never one official family tree. This guide follows Hesiod, who gives the fullest early account, and flags where other sources disagree.

Generation zero: from Chaos to the Earth and Sky

Hesiod's first lines of creation are short. First came Chaos, which in Greek means a gap or a yawning void, not a mess. After it came Gaia (Earth), Tartarus (the deep pit beneath the earth) and Eros (desire), who makes the rest of the family tree possible.

Chaos produced Erebus (darkness) and Nyx (night), and Nyx and Erebus had Aether (bright upper air) and Hemera (day). Nyx alone produced a branch of grim abstractions: Death, Sleep, Strife, the Fates and others.

Gaia, without a partner, produced Ouranos (the starry Sky) to cover her, the Ourea (mountains) and Pontus (the sea). Then, with Ouranos, she had three sets of children.

Generation one: the Titans

How Cronus took power

Ouranos hated his children and pushed them back inside Gaia as they were born. Gaia, in pain, made a great sickle of adamant and asked her sons for help. Only Cronus agreed. When Ouranos came to lie with Gaia, Cronus ambushed him and castrated him.

The blood that fell on the Earth produced the Erinyes (the Furies), the Giants and the ash-tree nymphs. In Hesiod's version, the severed parts fell into the sea, foam gathered around them, and from the foam rose Aphrodite, who came ashore at Cythera and then Cyprus. Her name is linked in the poem to aphros, foam.

That makes Aphrodite older than Zeus, a goddess of the Titans' generation. Homer, writing in the same era, tells it differently. In the Iliad she is the daughter of Zeus and Dione. Both versions were known in antiquity, and Plato's Symposium has a speaker solve the contradiction by saying there are two Aphrodites. On a family tree, draw her with a dotted line to both places and say so.

Generation two: Cronus, Rhea and the swallowed children

Cronus learned from Gaia and Ouranos that he would be overthrown by his own son, as he had overthrown his father. So as each child was born, he swallowed it: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades and Poseidon.

Before the sixth, Rhea went to Crete. She gave birth to Zeus there and hid him, and handed Cronus a large stone wrapped in baby clothes, which he swallowed instead. When Zeus grew up, Cronus was made to vomit up his children, the stone first. Hesiod says Zeus set that stone up at Pytho, which is Delphi.

The war with the Titans

Zeus and his siblings fought the Titans from Mount Olympus for ten years. This war is the Titanomachy. It ended when Zeus freed the Cyclopes, who gave him the thunderbolt, and the Hundred-Handers, who threw rocks three hundred at a time. The defeated Titans were imprisoned in Tartarus, with the Hundred-Handers guarding them. Atlas was given a separate punishment: holding up the sky at the edge of the world.

Not every Titan fought against Zeus: Prometheus sided with him in some accounts, and Themis and Mnemosyne became his wives. Gaia then sent one last challenger, the monster Typhon, whom Zeus also defeated.

In Hesiod, the gods then choose Zeus as their king. The better-known version, where the brothers draw lots for the sky, the sea and the underworld, comes from Homer's Iliad.

Generation three: the children of Zeus

Hesiod lists Zeus's wives in order. It is the most useful single list for the bottom half of the tree.

Hesiod says Hera produced Hephaestus on her own, without Zeus, after quarrelling with him. In Homer, Hephaestus is the son of Zeus and Hera. Again, two lines on the tree.

The twelve Olympians

The Olympians are the gods who live on Mount Olympus. Ancient lists of "the twelve" varied by city and period, but the usual modern list is this one. Hades is normally left out, because he lives in the underworld.

The twelfth seat is the most common source of confusion. Some ancient lists include Hestia, others Dionysus; the east frieze of the Parthenon in Athens shows Dionysus. The popular story that Hestia gave up her throne to make room for Dionysus has no ancient source. It is usually traced to Robert Graves's The Greek Myths (1955).

Where the sources disagree

The Library attributed to Apollodorus, written centuries later, tidies many of these into one story, and much of what you read online follows it.

Mistakes in school work

• Titans and Giants are different. The Titans are children of Gaia and Ouranos, defeated in the Titanomachy. The Giants were born from Ouranos's blood and fought the Olympians in a separate war, the Gigantomachy.
• Cronus is not Chronos. Cronus is the Titan. Chronos is the personification of time. Later writers blended them, which is why Cronus is drawn as Father Time.
• Hades is a brother of Zeus, not a son. He is one of the six children of Cronus and Rhea.
• Presenting one version as the only one. Say "in Hesiod" or "in Homer".

Drawing the tree as a video

A family tree is the hardest kind of diagram to read all at once, and the easiest to follow when it grows. The story of the tree is also a story of three overthrows, so the video can be built around them. About 600 words of narration makes four minutes at 150 spoken words a minute.

1. A blank space labelled Chaos. Gaia appears below it, then Tartarus and Eros.
2. Gaia produces Ouranos above her. Draw them as Earth and Sky.
3. Twelve Titans appear in a row beneath them, with the Cyclopes and Hundred-Handers pushed down inside the Earth.
4. Cronus with the sickle. Ouranos is removed from the top of the tree, and Aphrodite rises from the sea at the side, with a dotted line.
5. Cronus and Rhea. Five children swallowed, drawn inside Cronus; a stone in a blanket; Zeus hidden on Crete.
6. The Titanomachy: Olympus on one side, the Titans on the other, the Cyclopes handing Zeus the thunderbolt. The Titans drop into Tartarus.
7. Zeus at the top. His wives in Hesiod's order, each adding a branch of children.
8. The twelve Olympians highlighted in the finished tree, with the Hestia or Dionysus seat shown as a choice.
9. The pattern: each king fears his child, and Zeus breaks the cycle by swallowing Metis.

The final scene is the one most summaries miss: the Theogony is a story about how power is won and kept, told as a family tree.

Make your own version for class

Most myth projects work better as one question than as the whole tree. Good questions: Why does each generation overthrow the one before? Why does Zeus swallow Metis? Is Aphrodite a Titan or an Olympian? The general approach in how to make a history explainer video applies, and if you plan the tree on paper first, how to turn a mind map into a video shows how to turn branches into scenes. For a similar guide to a fictional world, see Harry Potter's world, explained visually.

1. 1

   Choose one source to follow

   Say at the start that you are following Hesiod's Theogony, and mark each place where Homer or a later writer differs. That one sentence turns a retelling into an analysis.

2. 2

   Write one paragraph per generation

   Chaos and Gaia, the Titans, Cronus and Rhea, the Titanomachy, the children of Zeus, and the pattern of overthrow. Use the same spelling of each name throughout, such as Cronus or Kronos, not both.

3. 3

   Paste the script into openCanviz

   Choose Keep my wording so every name is said as you wrote it, set a target length, and try the painted or doodle on paper style, which suits myth without borrowing anyone's artwork.

4. 4

   Check every name and line on the tree

   Pause on each scene. Drafted drawings can attach a god to the wrong parent or label Cronus as Chronos. Fix any scene in the editor before you present.

5. 5

   Check your school's rules

   If AI tools are allowed, say which you used. The script is the assessed part, so write it yourself; see /blog/how-to-make-a-video-for-a-school-project.

Common questions

Who was the first Greek god? In Hesiod, Chaos came first, followed by Gaia, Tartarus and Eros. Gaia is the ancestor of almost every god on the tree.

Are the Titans and the Olympians related? Yes. The first Olympians, Zeus and his five siblings, are children of the Titans Cronus and Rhea. The war between them is a war between parents and children.

Why are there two stories of Aphrodite's birth? Because Greek myth was told by many poets. Hesiod has her born from the sea foam, older than Zeus. Homer makes her a daughter of Zeus and Dione. Neither is the correct one; both are ancient.

What is the best ancient source to read first? Hesiod's Theogony. It is about a thousand lines long and readable in an evening in translation.