Uranus. Uranus was the primal Greek god personifying the sky and one of the Greek primordial deities. Uranus is associated with the Roman god Caelus. In Ancient Greek literature, Uranus or Father Sky was the son and husband of Gaia, Mother Earth. According to Hesiod's Theogony, Uranus was conceived by Gaia alone, but other sources cite Aether as his father. Uranus and Gaia were the parents of the first generation of Titans, and the ancestors of most of the Greek gods, but no cult addressed directly to Uranus survived into Classical times, and Uranus does not appear among the usual themes of Greek painted pottery. Elemental Earth, Sky, and Styx might be joined, however, in a solemn invocation in Homeric epic. The most probable etymology traces the name to a Proto-Greek form * worsanós enlarged from * á¹·orsó-. The basic Indo-European root is *á¹·érs-'to rain, moisten', making Ouranos the 'rainmaker'. A less likely etymology is a derivative with meaning 'the one standing on high' from PIE * á¹·érso-. Of some importance in the comparative study of Indo-European mythology is the identification by Georges Dumézil of Uranus with the Vedic deity Váruṇa, god of the sky and waters, but the etymological equation is considered untenable. In Hesiod's Theogony, Uranus is the offspring of Gaia, the earth goddess. Alcman and Callimachus elaborate that Uranus was fathered by Aether, the god of heavenly light and the upper air. While the mythographer Apollodorus, without giving any ancestors, says simply that Uranus was the first who ruled the whole world. Under the influence of the philosophers, Cicero, in De Natura Deorum, claims that he was the offspring of the ancient gods Aether and Hemera, Air and Day. According to the Orphic Hymns, Uranus was the son of Nyx, the personification of night. Uranus was the brother of Pontus, the God of the sea. According to Hesiod's Theogony, Uranus mated with Gaia, and she gave birth to the twelve Titans: Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus, Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Tethys and Cronus; the Cyclopes: Brontes, Steropes and Arges; and the Hecatoncheires: Cottus, Briareus, and Gyges.