Uranus (the heavens) was the son of Gaea and the brother of Pontus. By his mother, he became the father of the Titans, the Cyclopes, and the Hecatoncheires. He despised his own children, and had them imprisoned in Tartarus. However, with the help of Gaea, Cronos, the youngest of the Titans, cast his father from his throne.
Gaea fashioned a large iron sickle and gave it to Cronos, who struck his father a mighty blow in the groin. According to certain tales, as the spilt blood soaked into the ground, the Gigantes sprang forth, together with the Melian nymphs, and (according to some) Silenus. One tradition tells of how his spilt seed mixed with the ocean, and out rose Aphrodite.