Pontus

Gaia brought Pontus forth from herself, without intercourse or a mate. He was the sea, given the form of a primordial being. His birth followed the coming into being of Chaos and Gaia in Hesiod’s Theogony, the account of the universe’s first generations.

Gaia first bore Uranus, the Heavens, so that he surrounded her. She then produced the mountains and Pontus. These offspring gave physical form to the world around her. Pontus therefore came directly from Gaia, rather than from a union between two deities.

Pontus later became an ancestor of marine beings. He was also linked with monstrous beings whose place was outside Zeus’ immediate family. In the Theogony, Pontus begot four children with Earth. This occurred after the passage concerning Nereus. The account did not support the claim that Nereus was born from Pontus alone. It presented Pontus first as Gaia’s self-born offspring, then as a father through his union with Earth.

His birth belonged to the early ordering of the cosmos. Gaia produced him as part of the world’s formation, before the later generations of gods and other beings. The account gave no separate father for Pontus and did not describe a sexual union at his conception. His parentage was therefore stated directly: Gaia was his mother and the source of his existence.