Gaia, in Greek myth, the Earth, personified as a goddess, the daughter of Chaos, the mother and wife of Uranus, Heaven; their offspring included the Titans and the Cyclopğs. On the advice of Gaia, Cronus, the youngest of the Titans, castrated his father; fertilized by the blood, Gaia became the mother of the Giants and the Furies. Later she bore Typhon to her son Tartarus. Her cult can be traced in many places in Greece, but for the most part it was superseded in classical times by that of later gods; at Delphi she seems to have been thought of as the original holder of the oracular shrine, before Apollo seized it by killing the serpent Python. Her characteristic function was to be a witness to oaths, as one who knows all that is done on earth.