Gaia. In Greek mythology, Gaia, also spelled Gaea, is the personification of the Earth and one of the Greek primordial deities. Gaia is the ancestral mother of all life: the primal Mother Earth goddess. She is the immediate parent of Uranus, from whose sexual union she bore the Titans and the Giants, and of Pontus, from whose union she bore the primordial sea gods. Her equivalent in the Roman pantheon was Terra. Hesiod's Theogony tells how, after Chaos, wide-bosomed Gaia arose to be the everlasting seat of the immortals who possess Olympus above. And after Gaia came dim Tartarus in the depth of the wide-pathed Earth, and next Eros the god of love. Hesiod goes on to say that Gaia brought forth her equal Uranus to cover her on every side. Gaia also bore the Ourea, and Pontus, without sweet union of love. Afterwards with Uranus she gave birth to the Titans, as Hesiod tells it: She lay with Heaven and bore deep-swirling Oceanus, Coeus and Crius and Hyperion and Iapetus, Theia and Rhea, Themis and Mnemosyne and gold-crowned Phoebe and lovely Tethys. After them was born Cronos the wily, youngest and most terrible of her children, and he hated his lusty sire. According to Hesiod, Gaia conceived further offspring with Uranus, first the giant one-eyed Cyclopes: Brontes, Steropes, and Arges; then the Hecatonchires: Cottus, Briareos, and Gyges, each with a hundred arms and fifty heads. As each of the Cyclopes and Hecatonchires were born, Uranus hid them in a secret place within Gaia, causing her great pain. So Gaia devised a plan. She created a grey flint sickle. And Cronus used the sickle to castrate his father Uranus as he approached Gaia to have sex with her. From Uranus' spilled blood, Gaia produced the Erinyes, the Giants, and the Meliae. From the testicles of Uranus in the sea came forth Aphrodite. By her son Pontus, Gaia bore the sea-deities Nereus, Thaumas, Phorcys, Ceto, and Eurybia. Because Cronus had learned from Gaia and Uranus that he was destined to be overthrown by one of his children, he swallowed each of the children born to him by his Titan sister Rhea. But when Rhea was pregnant with her youngest child, Zeus, she sought help from Gaia and Uranus. When Zeus was born, Rhea gave Cronus a stone wrapped in swaddling-clothes in his place, which Cronus swallowed, and Gaia took the child into her care. With the help of Gaia's advice, Zeus defeated the Titans. But afterwards, Gaia, in union with Tartarus, bore the youngest of her sons Typhon, who would be the last challenge to the authority of Zeus. According to Hyginus, Earth, along with Heaven and Sea, were the children of Aether and Day. According to the mythographer Apollodorus, Gaia and Tartarus were the parents of Echidna. Zeus hid Elara, one of his lovers, from Hera by stowing her under the earth. His son by Elara, the giant Tityos, is therefore sometimes said to be a son of Gaia, the earth goddess. Gaia also made Aristaeus immortal. In classical art Gaia was represented in one of two ways. In Athenian vase painting she was shown as a matronly woman only half risen from the earth, often in the act of handing the baby Erichthonius, a future king of Athens, to Athena to foster. In mosaic representations, she appears as a woman reclining upon the earth surrounded by a host of Carpi, infant gods of the fruits of the earth. Oaths sworn in the name of Gaia, in ancient Greece, were considered the most binding of all. She was also worshipped under the epithet Anesidora, which means giver of gifts. Other epithets were Calligeneia, Eurusternos, and Pandoros. In ancient times, Gaia was mainly worshipped alongside Demeter and as a part of the cult of Demeter, and does not seem to have had a separate cult. Being a chthonic deity, black animals were sacrificed to her: Bring two lambs: let one be white and the other black for Gaia and Helios. Gaia is believed by some sources to be the original deity behind the Oracle at Delphi. It was thus said: That word spoken from tree-clad mother Gaia's navel-stone. Depending on the source, Gaia passed her powers on to Poseidon, Apollo, or Themis.