The word alone, or even the very thought of incest , creates shame, disgust and bewilderment but it does not seem to have been considered “taboo” in ancient Greece and indeed in its mythology . We are now talking about the most famous incests of Greek mythology
The most famous incests of Greek mythology
The term “incest” derives from the Latin incestum which means: not chaste, impure and is commonly used to indicate a sexual relationship between two people united by a close kinship or blood relationship.
However, despite the negative sense of rejection that this term carries, if we go back to the classical era, we realize that among the Olympian Gods, the practice of incest was not a taboo at all, but was part of the collective ordinary. There are actually several examples :
Helios and Selene
One of the clearest myths or examples of incest in Greek mythology leads us to remember Selene, the goddess of the full moon , whose extraordinary beauty also made her brother Helios, the God of the Sun, lose his head, who was madly in love with her sister , began to woo her frantically, chasing her assiduously every day in the celestial vault, until he managed to reach her and make her his. Their union gave rise to the phenomenon of the eclipse , which coincides with the days when Helios and Selene consume their divine and incestuous love, uniting in one body, behind a curtain of stars.
Hyperion and Teia
The incest of these two mentioned deities is not unique if we consider that Helios and Selene were born precisely from the incestuous love of two Titans . His mother, in fact, called Teia, divinity of light, had joined with his brother, Hyperion , divinity of the luminosity of Heaven, generating Selene, Helios god of the Sun and Eos, goddess of Dawn.
Zeus and Hera
The same Zeus, king of Olympus, had no scruples in marrying his sister Hera, from whose union Hebe, Hephaestus and Ilithia and Ares were born.
Cronos and Rea
Even Zeus himself, along with his two brothers, Hades, god of the underworld, and Poseidon, god of the seas, and his three sisters, Hestia, Demeter, and Hera, are nothing more than the fruit of a new incestuous relationship between Cronos and his sister Rea, two of the twelve titans, born from the union of Gea, the Earth, with Uranus, the Sky. Before them there was only Chaos.
