According to most accounts of Greek cosmology, Chaos, or more accurately Khaos, was the very first Greek deity. The goddess emerged at the dawn of creation as an atmosphere of invisible fog and mist that formed a great void. She personified the primal force that lies beneath the universe and all existence.
Greek Cosmology
After Chaos emerged Gaia (earth) and Tartarus (the pit beneath the earth), and together they formed the universe as it was known by the Greeks, with the heavens above, the mortal world in the middle, and Tartarus below, separated by Chaos.
The earth and the underworld certainly did not fill the void, which continued to be a present force. This is made clear by Hesiod’s account of the Titanomachy, the infamous battle between the Titans and Olympians that resulted in Zeus becoming the king of heaven. When Zeus launched his thunderbolts at the Titans, Chaos was seized by an astounding heat (Hesiod, Theogony 699f.).
Mother of Dark Fate
While Gaia would become the progenitor of all things beautiful in the world, including most of the gods and titans, Chaos would give birth to many of the universe’s darker elements including Erebus (darkness) and Nyx (night) (Hesiod, Theogony 116f.). She was also the mother of birds, while Gaia was the mother of land creatures, and Thalassa, the sea, was the goddess of fish.
Some sources also suggest that the Moirai, the fates, were the daughter of Chaos (Quintus Smyrnaeus, Fall of Troy 3.755). The connection between the fates and birds is interesting as the Greeks believed that the omens and the will of the gods could be read in the flight of birds.
Alternative Cosmologies
Other versions of Greek cosmology also exist and place Chaos slightly differently in the formation of the universe.
One account suggests that Chaos was the child of Chronos (time) and Ananke (necessity) (Orphic Fragment 54). The main Orphic tradition suggests that along with Aether (divine air) and Erebus, Chaos was one of the three children of Chronos. She was a master artist and managed to shape an egg from the formless aether, Phanes, sometimes called Protogenos, a bisexual deity who came out of the egg and procreated with himself to create everything in existence (Orphic Rhapsodies 66).
In Aristophanes’ comic play The Birds, he twists the Orphic version saying that in the beginning there was only Chaos, Nyx, Erebos, and Tartarus. Nyx laid an egg in Erebos and after a long time, Eros (love or desire) was born from the egg. He mated with Chaos and gave birth to the race of birds (865f.). This description suggests that darkness reigned at the beginning of time and that creation could only happen when love emerged, but love also had a dark origin, which is why it can be painful and destructive.
Primordial Creation
By Roman times, Chais transformed into a primordial goop from which other deities and elements emerged, as described by Ovid at the start of his Metamorphoses (1.1f.). He says that before the land, sea, and sky were made, everything was an undivided mass. He says that although land, sea, and air existed within the mass:
“… the land no foot could tread, no creature swim the sea, the air was lightless; nothing kept its form, all objects were at odds, since in one mass cold essence fought with hot, and moist with dry, and hard with soft and light with things of weight.”
Ovid suggests that a “deus,” probably Chronos or Eros, separated the elements of Chaos to make the universe (where they came from is unclear).
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