Ouranos/Uranus
We have already seen the primal dethronement of father by son in the Zeus-Kronos (Jupiter-Saturn) relationship. Now we see it again between Kronos and his father, Ouranos (Uranus). But first we have to go back to the Greek version of the beginning of the world. In the beginning was Khaos (Chaos), the shapeless, disordered mass that was the universe before the creation of living beings. Out of Chaos arose the primordial gods: Gaia, Tartarus, Eros, Erebus, Nyx, and Eurynome. Of these, the only anthropomorphic, well-defined divinity was Gaia, the Earth-goddess from whom all things issued. Pre-Hellenic, even Paleolithic, Gaia was often depicted half-risen from the Earth, unable to completely separate herself from her element. She gave birth—parthenogenetically, without any male help —to the Sea (Pontus), the Mountains (Ourea), and the Sky (Ouranos). Then mating with her son Uranus she gave birth to the 12 Titans, the Cyclopes (gigantic one-eyed monsters), and the three Hecatonchires (even more terrible monsters with 50 heads and 100 arms).
Here the various mythologies diverge slightly. One account has it that disgusted by or fearful of his monstrous children, Uranus imprisoned the Hecatonchires and the Cyclopes in Tartarus forever. Since this was part of the Earth (Gaia’s very bowels), Gaia found her children’s presence again in her body painful, and conceived a plan to end both Uranus’ passions and more monstrous offspring. She asked all of her children for help, but only the youngest, Kronos, agreed.
Gaia created an adamantine sickle for him, and he hid under their bed with it. When Uranus came to lie with her again, Kronos cut off his genitals with one sweep of the sickle! From the blood that fell to Earth/Gaia, the Erinyes (the Furies: avenging spirits of retributive justice), the Giants, and the Meliae (nymphs of the manna ash tree) were born. From the blood that fell into the sea, or perhaps from the genitals themselves that Kronos tossed there, Aphrodite/Venus was born from the foam (“Aphrodite” means “foam-born" in Greek). Thus the Earth (Gaia) was separated from the sky (Uranus), a body-mind schism that still pervades Western culture. Being the primordial element from which all the gods originated, Gaia was universally worshipped, but later went into decline and was replaced by other gods.
Having overthrown Uranus, the Titans retrieved their brothers from Tartarus and gave the power to Kronos, who once again bound and imprisoned the Cyclopes there. Much later at the end of the 10-year war between the Olympians led by Jupiter-Zeus and the Titans under Saturn-Kronos, Gaia prophesied a victory for Zeus were he to free the Cyclopes as his allies. When he did so, the Cyclopes—the first smiths—in return gave Zeus thunder, lightning, and a thunderbolt, Pluto a helmet, and Poseidon a trident. Armed with these gifts the three gods overpowered the Titans, cast them into Tartarus, and placed the Hecatonchires in guard over them.