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Information about Ophion

Greek deities
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This article is about a figure in Greek mythology. For the genus of parasitic wasps, see Ichneumonidae.
In Greek mythology, Ophion ("serpent"), also called Ophioneus ruled the world with Eurynome before the two of them were cast down by Cronus and Rhea, according to some sources.

Sources

Pherecydes of Syros's Heptamychia is the first attested mention of Ophion.

The story was apparently popular in Orphic poetry, of which only fragments survive.

Apollonius of Rhodes in his Argonautica (1.495f) summarizes a song of Orpheus:

He sang how the earth, the heaven and the sea, once mingled together in one form, after deadly strife were separated each from other; and how the stars and the moon and the paths of the sun ever keep their fixed place in the sky; and how the mountains rose, and how the resounding rivers with their nymphs came into being and all creeping things. And he sang how first of all Ophion and Eurynome, daughter of Oceanus, held the sway of snowy Olympus, and how through strength of arm one yielded his prerogative to Cronos and the other to Rhea, and how they fell into the waves of Oceanus; but the other two meanwhile ruled over the blessed Titan-gods, while Zeus, still a child and with the thoughts of a child, dwelt in the Dictaean cave; and the earthborn Cyclopes had not yet armed him with the bolt, with thunder and lightning; for these things give renown to Zeus.


Lycophron (1191) relates that Zeus' mother, that is Rhea, is skilled in wrestling, having cast the former queen Eurynome into Tartarus.

Nonnus in his Dionysiaca has Hera say (8.158f):

I will go to the uttermost bouds of Oceanus and share the hearth of primeval Tethys; thence I will pass to the house of Harmonia and abide with Ophion.


Harmonia here is probably an error in the text for Eurynome. Ophion is mentioned again by Nonnus (12.43):

Beside the oracular wall she saw the first tablet, old as the infinite past, containing all the things in one: upon it was all that Ophion lord paramount had done, all that ancient Cronus accomplished.


We also have fragments of the writings of the early philosopher Pherecydes of Syros (6th century BCE) who devised a myth or legend in which powers known as Zas and Chronos 'Time' and Chthonie 'Of the Earth' existed from the beginning and in which Chronos creates the universe. Some fragments of this work mention a birth of Ophioneus and a battle of the gods between Cronus (not Chronos) on one side and Ophioneus and his children on the other in which an agreement is made that whoever pushes the other side into Ogenos will lose and the winner will hold heaven.

Eusebius of Caesarea in his Praeparatio (1.10) cites Philo of Byblos as declaring that Pherecydes took Ophion and the Ophionidae from the Phoenicians.

Interpretations

Robert Graves in his book The Greek Myths (ISBN 0-14-017199-1) attempted to reconstruct a Pelasgian creation myth involving Ophion as a serpent created by a supreme goddess called Eurynome dancing on the waves. She is fertlized by the serpent and in the form of Night lays a golden egg on the waters about which Ophion entwines until eventually it hatches and the world issues forth. Then Ophion and Eurynome dwell in the world on Mt. Olympus until Ophion's boasting leads Eurynome to banish him to the darkness below the earth. Skeptics have found Graves' interpretation too different from the surviving texts and too idiosyncratic to be convincing.
Greek mythology is the body of stories belonging to the Ancient Greeks concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices.
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    The ancient Greeks proposed many different ideas about the primordial gods in their mythology. The many theogonies constructed by Greek poets each give a different account of which gods came first.
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    Titans (Greek: Τιτάν Titan; plural: Τιτάνες Titanes
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    Twelve Olympians, also known as the Dodekatheon (Greek: Δωδεκάθεον
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    Chthonic (from Greek χθόνιος-khthonios, of the earth, from khthōn, earth; pertaining to the Earth; earthy) designates, or pertains to, gods or spirits of the underworld, especially in relation to Greek religion.
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    Asclepius (Greek Ἀσκληπιός, transliterated Asklēpiós; Latin Aesculapius) is the demigod of medicine and healing in ancient Greek mythology.
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      The ancient Greeks had a large number of sea gods. The philosopher Plato once remarked that the Greek people were like frogs sitting around a pond -- their many cities hugging close to the Mediterranean coastline from the Hellenic homeland to Asia Minor, Libya, Sicily and
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      This article is about the Greek god.

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      Oceanus (Greek Ωκεανός, Okeanos) was believed to be the world-ocean in classical antiquity, which the ancient Romans and Greeks considered to be an enormous river encircling the world.
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      Ceto, or Keto (Greek: Κητος, Ketos, "sea monster") was a hideous aquatic monster, a daughter of Gaia and Pontus. The asteroid (65489) Ceto is named after her, and its satellite (65489) Ceto I Phorcys after her husband.
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        Nereus, in Greek Mythology, was the eldest son of Pontus and Gaia, the Sea and the Earth, a Titan who (with Doris) fathered the Nereids, with whom Nereus lived in the Aegean Sea.
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          In Greek mythology, Glaucus ("shiny," "bright" or "bluish-green") was the name of several different figures, including one God. These figures are sometimes referred to as Glaukos or Glacus.

          Glaucus, the sea-God

          Glaucus was a Greek sea-god.
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          Thetis (ancient Greek Θέτις) is a sea nymph, one of the fifty Nereids, daughters of "the ancient one of the seas," Nereus, and Doris (Hesiod, Theogony), a grand-daughter of Tethys.
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          Amphitrite (not to be confused with Aphrodite) was a sea-goddess.[1] Under the influence of the Olympian pantheon, she became merely the consort of Poseidon, and was further diminished by poets to a symbolic representation of the sea.
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          Tethys (Greek Τηθύς), daughter of Uranus and Gaia (Hesiod, Theogony lines 136, 337 and Bibliotheke 1.2) was a Titaness and sea goddess who was both sister and wife of Oceanus.
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            Triton is a mythological Greek god, the messenger of the deep. He is the son of Poseidon, god of the sea, and Amphitrite, goddess of the sea. He is usually represented as a merman, having the upper body of a human and the tail of a fish.
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            In Greek mythology, Proteus is an early sea-god, one of several deities whom Homer calls the "Old Man of the Sea"[1]
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              For the asteroidal moon, see (65489) Ceto I Phorcys.


            In Greek mythology, Phorcys, or Phorkys was one of the names of the "Old One of the Sea", the primeval sea god, who, according to Hesiod, was the son of Pontus and Gaia.
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            Pontus (or Pontos, "sea") was an ancient, pre-Olympian sea-god, son of Gaia and Aether, the Earth and the Air. Hesiod (Theogony, line 116) says that Gaia brought forth Pontos out of herself, without coupling.
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              In Greek and Roman mythology, the Oceanids were the three thousand daughters of the Titans Oceanus and Tethys. One of these many daughters was also said to have been the wife of the god Poseidon, typically named as Amphitrite.
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                In Greek mythology, the Naiads (from the Greek νάειν, "to flow," and νἃμα, "running water") were a type of nymph who presided over fountains, wells, springs, streams, and brooks, as river gods embodied rivers, and some very
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                Ichneumonidae

                Subfamilies

                Lycorininae
                Orthopelmatinae
                Orthocentrinae
                Tersilochinae
                Microleptinae
                Mesochorinae
                Xoridinae
                Acaenitinae
                Ophioninae
                Anomaloninae
                Cremastinae
                Porizontinae
                Diplazontinae
                Metopiinae
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                Greek mythology is the body of stories belonging to the Ancient Greeks concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices.
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                  In Greek mythology, there were many women with the name Eurınomê (possibly "far ruling").
                  1. The Oceanid, or daughter of Oceanus. See Oceanids
                  2. Wife of Ophion (may be the same as the following)
                  3. Mother of the Charites (may be the same as the following)

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                  Cronus (Ancient Greek Κρόνος, Krónos), also called Cronos or Kronos, was the leader and the youngest of the first generation of Titans, divine descendants of Gaia, the earth, and Uranus, the sky.
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                  Rhea (ancient Greek Ῥέα) was the Titaness daughter of Uranus, the sky, and Gaia, the earth, in classical Greek mythology.
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                  Pherecydes of Syros (in Greek: Φερεκύδης) was a Greek thinker from the island of Syros, of the 6th century BC. Pherecydes authored the Heptamychia
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                  Orpheus (Greek: Ορφεύς; pronounced in English as ['ɔ(ɹ).fi.əs] (ohr'-fee-uhs) or ['ɔ(ɹ).
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