LOGOS. It is implied that we are capable in principle of understanding this LOGOS but that most of us fail to do so (in fact, don't want to do so.) Already in antiquity Heraclitus had a reputation for arrogance. The LOGOS governs by the inevitably tension of opposites. In this Heraclitus reflects both Anaximander and the Pythagoreans. Tension is essential to the existence and functioning of the bow and the lyre. Fire lives by consuming. All things, he held,are made possible by fiery exchanges, and everliving, eternal fire is the root nature of all things. Wisdom, he held, consists not in knowing lots of things but in understanding the nature of fire and the LOGOS. Heraclitus was the first philosopher, so far as we know, to make language the subject of philosophical reflection. He wrote in an obscure aphoristic, sometimes paradoxical style that suits, in its self-referential qualities, the ideas he expressed.
Richard McKirahan provides the following summary of Hesiod's account of the series of struggles that culminated in Zeus become "numero uno" among the gods (McKirahan, Philosophy Before Socrates (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1994), pp. 8,9:
1. Origin of the easrly divinities down to and including the Titans, children of Gaia (Earth) and Ouranos (Heaven); as soon as they are born Ouranos conceals them in a hiding place within Gaia.See also cosmogony, cosmology and Olympian Gods.
2. Kronos, the chief Titan, assisted by Gaia, castrates Ouranos and assumes command.
3. Origin of the Olympian gods, children of Titans Kronos and Rhea; Kronos eats them as soon as they are born, except Zeus, who escapes through the help of Gaia and Rhea.
4. The Olympians, led by Zeus, defeat the Titans in battle; Zeus assumes command.
5. Zeus alone defeats Typhoeus, child of Gaia and Tartaros (Underworld.)
6. The Olympians proclaim Zeus their ruler; he gives out rank and privileges to each.
7. Zeus swallows his consort Metis (Council, Wisdom) to prevent her having a child who would usurp his place as king of the gods; thus Zeus's rule will last forever.The central element of this sequence is the story of divine rulership, held in turn by Ouranos, Kronos, and Zeus. Hesiod gives a distinctive version of this myth, which existed in various foirms throughout the eastern Mediterranean and Near East, notably in the Babylonian succession myth Enuma Elish, which probably goes back a thousand years before Hesiod.