Aether, or Aither, was one of the primordial deities. Aether is the personification of the upper air. He embodies the pure upper air that the gods breathe, as opposed to the normal air breathed by mortals. Like Tartarus and Erebus, Aether may have had shrines in ancient Greece, but he had no temples and it is unlikely that he had a cult.
Mythology[]
Hesiod[]
In Hesiod's Theogony, Aether was the son of Erebus and Nyx and the brother of Hemera.
Hyginus[]
Hyginus says that Aether was the son of Chaos and Caligo (Darkness).
Hyginus says further that the children of Aether and Day were Earth, Heaven, and Sea, while the children of Aether and Earth were "Grief, Deceit, Wrath, Lamentation, Falsehood, Oath, Vengeance, Intemperance, Altercation, Forgetfulness, Sloth, Fear, Pride, Incest, Combat, Ocean, Themis, Tartarus, Pontus; and the Titans, Briareus, Gyges, Steropes, Atlas, Hyperion, and Iapetus, Cronus, Rhea, Mnemosyne, Dione; and three Erinyes - namely, Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone.
Orphic Hymns[]
Aristophanes states that Aether was the son of Erebus. However, Damascius says that Aether, Erebus and Chaos were siblings and the offspring of Chronos. According to Epiphanius, the world began as a cosmic egg, encircled by Time and Inevitability in serpent fashion. Together they constricted the egg, squeezing its matter with great force, until the world divided into two hemispheres. After that, the atoms sorted themselves out. The lighter and finer ones floating above and became the bright air and the rarefied wind, while the heavier and dirtier atoms sank and became the Earth and the ocean.