Almost every ancient or primitive people makes an attempt to explain how the world and human beings came into existence. They all take it for granted that things did not simply "happen," but that some being with intelligence had a hand in the making of things. Accounts as told by various peoples are here given. There were various stories of the creation told by the Greeks and Romans, but the accounts differed only in detail. Most of the Greeks believed that there was a time when the earth and the sea and the sky did not exist. All the elements of which they are made existed, but were jumbled together in a confused mass, which was called Chaos. Over this Chaos ruled the deities Erebus or Darkness, and Nox or Night, although it would seem that there could not have been much need of rulers. Strangely enough, the children of this gloomy pair were Aether and Hemera, who stood for Light and Day, and they felt that if they were to become rulers, they wanted a more cheerful realm than Chaos seemed to be. With the help of Eros (Love), they created Gaea (The Earth), Uranus (The Sky), and Pontus (The Sea). Uranus married Gaea, and before long these two took the power from Aether and Hemera and reigned in their stead. To this god and goddess were born twelve children--six sons and six daughters--who were known as Titans. As they were of gigantic size and were extremely strong, their father feared that they might treat him as he had treated Aether, and to prevent this he shut them up in an underground cavern. Naturally Gaea was not pleased with this treatment of her children, so she helped Saturn, the youngest of the Titans, to escape, and gave him a scythe with which he might revenge himself on his father. After defeating Uranus, Saturn released all his brothers and sisters, and made them swear to be faithful to him as the new ruler. He then chose as his queen Rhea, a goddess who was both good and beautiful, and began his reign in happiness. When his first child was born, however, Saturn remembered that Uranus had foretold his overthrow by one of his own children, and to prevent such a disaster he did a very strange and heartless thing---he swallowed his new-born son. Five children he got rid of in this manner, but when the sixth, Jupiter, was born, Rhea resolved to save him. She therefore wrapped up a stone and gave it to her husband instead of the child, and he, suspecting nothing, swallowed it. The young god grew up in concealment, and very rapidly he grew, for when he was but a year old he was strong enough to make successful war on his father and to take the supreme power from him. And then, strangest thing of all, he forced Saturn to disgorge all the children he had swallowed. Either because he was generous or because he thought his kingdom was too great for him, Jupiter divided it with his brothers, Neptune and Pluto, but he himself remained supreme.