There is an ancient Latin saying, ex nihilo nihil fit, “nothing comes from nothing.”  It is often supposed that early Greek philosophy is based on this principle.  It is not, but, as we shall see, the principle is a “discovery” of early Greek philosophy.  But the principle offers a firm foundation for historiography, the study of history.  Every step forward is based on a previous step.  In the case of Greek philosophy, the previous step consists of a mythological account.

Homer, the alleged author of theepic poems Iliad and Odyssey, and Hesiod, the author of the didactic epic poems Works and Days and Theogony, present a kind of compendium of knowledge of the dark ages of Greece, a time when the Greek nation was illiterate and stories were memorized and passed down from an earlier golden age, which we now call the Bronze Age, when Greece had a booming economy and a written language. 

How did the world arise?  Hesiod offers the most detailed account in his creation story, the Theogony or Birth of the Gods.  

Tell me these things, Muses, who dwell on Olympus,

from the beginning; and say who was first born of them.

Indeed, first was Chaos born, but then

broad-bosomed Earth, steadfast seat ever of all

[the immortals, who hold the peaks of snowy Olympus],

and misty Tartarus in a recess of the wide-wayed earth,

and Eros, who fairest among the mortal gods,

looser of limbs, of all gods and all men

overcomes the thought in their breast and their wise counsel.

From Chaos, Erebus and black Night were born,

And from Night, Aether and Day were born,

whom she bore being with child after mingling in love with Erebus.

And Earth first bore equal to herself

starry Heaven, that he might cover her all around,

that he might be a secure seat for the blessed gods always.

And she bore long Hills, lovely haunts of the gods,

and Nymphs, who dwell on the woody hills.

And she bore the fruitless deep, with raging swell

Sea, without desirable love.  But then

lying with Heaven she bore deep-swirling Ocean,

Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus,

Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne,

golden-crowned Phoebe and lovely Tethys.

After them was born the youngest, wily Cronus,

most terrible of her children.  And he hated his flourishing father. (lines 114-138)

According to his divine genealogy, the first thing born was Chaos, a name that has come into English.  But chaos in Greek did not mean, well, ‘chaos,’ but a gap, a space.  It is as it were a kind of womb opens up into which Mother Earth comes to be, along with a numerous progeny of cosmic deities and then more anthropomorphic gods. 

In this diverse assembly, Heaven (Ouranos, in Latin spelling, Uranus) arises as the governing deity.  He hates his own offspring and keeps them from emerging from Mother Earth.  Cronus, one of the offspring, castrates Heaven and usurps his place as leader.  Cronus, however, is also wary of his own offspring by the goddess Rhea, and swallows them as they are born.  When Zeus is born, Rhea wraps a stone in swaddling clothes and gives it to Cronus to devour, while she hides the infant, who is brought up to maturity.  Zeus then launches a war against his father, which he wins, driving Cronus and his allies into the underworld, and replacing him as the chief deity (Theogony 147-182; 453-491; 666-720). 

The mythological origin story is a dark tale, marked by savagery, cannibalism, usurpations, and civil war.  Finally Zeus emerges as a moderate dictator.  But there are rumors that he, too, will be replaced someday.

In this story, the gods are immortal and have superpowers.  They interact with mortals, among whom they have favorites whose lives and careers they promote, but they also have adversaries to whom they are nemeses.  They are, then, generous to some mortals and hostile to others.  They are not, consequently, impartially virtuous or benevolent, but remain self-interested and jealous of their own prerogatives.

In this story, an ordered world emerges, which Hesiod describes in some detail:

For so far is misty Tartarus from earth.

For a bronze anvil falling for nine days and nights

from Heaven would reach earth on the tenth;

and again a bronze anvil falling nine nights and days

from Earth would reach Tartarus on the tenth.

Around it runs a bronze fence.  And around it night

is poured out in triple rows like a necklace; but above

grow the roots of earth and the fruitless sea.

There the Titan gods in misty darkness

are covered by the counsels of cloud-gathering Zeus

in a place at the ends of immense earth.

They cannot escape.  Poseidon erected bronze doors

and a wall goes around it on both sides.  (Theogony 721-733)

Hesiod describes a world in which a disk-shaped Earth is poised midway between Heaven and misty Tartarus (the underworld).  An anvil dropped from the dome of Heaven would fall for ten days before it reached Earth; an anvil dropped from Earth would fall ten days before reaching th bottom of Tartarus.  So we seem to have a symmetrical cosmos with a radius of ten anvil-days (we now measure cosmic distances in terms of lightyears).  The Olympian gods govern the upper world, while the Titans and chthonic deities occupy and rule the underworld. 

What is the evidence for this cosmography and origin story?  The Muses, daughters of Zeus, communicate truths to favored mortals (though, alas, they also lie to less favored mortals).  The gods are the ultimate authorities for the myths that explain the creation and structure of the world.  It is notable, however, that the origin story is not an account of a rational process of world-building, but rather of a chance concatenations of birthing events that involving asexual and then (after the birth of Eros, god of Love) sexual procreation.  The genealogy is followed by a history involving a violent succession of rulers leading to a pacific, or at least, negotiated social contract among deities.  Even that impression is perhaps too simple.  For Homer recognizes a kind of treaty among three divine peers: Zeus rules in the sky, Poseidon the sea, and Hades the underworld; earth belongs to all three deities in common (Homer Iliad 15.184-193).

Whatever its merits and demerits, The Birth of the Gods provided a starting point for the cosmos and all that was in it, in the form of a myth that all could understand.  It provides the first tentative step in the story of Being, a history of the world we live in and a glimpse of the structure of that world.