Before the new pantheon of the gods under Zeus, during Ancient Greece's Golden Age (think Eleusina, Orpheus or Prometheus) the Titanes and Titanides reigned.
Humanity, according to certain Neoplatonists, was born of the blood shed by Titans in their battle against Zeus. Hesiod (700 BCE) writes in Opera et Dies (ll. 109-120) that the Titans "lived like gods without sorrow of heart, remote and free from toil and grief: miserable age rested not on them; but with legs and arms never failing they made merry with feasting beyond the reach of all evils. When they died, it was as though they were overcome with sleep, and they had all good things; for the fruitful earth unforced bare them fruit abundantly and without stint. They dwelt in ease and peace upon their lands ..." The Titan Okeanos, Latin oceanus from which the term ocean (variations on a word, an evolving theme and, yes, reflections of paradigm shifts), was one of two sons by Ouranos and Gaia, literally Sky and Earth. Okeanos and Tethys, one of his two sisters, parented all the springs or sources, rivers and lakes, hence their three thousand daughters, the Oceanids, and three thousand sons, the Potamoi.
Anthropomorphism, anthropotheism, and the interrelated natural phenomenon of humidity and fertility: around this time of year, due to the changing temperatures of the seasons, hoar frost again turns into steam fog, and as the sun burns away the mist we're left with residual dew. That natural phenomenon was understood as Okeanos and Tethys rising. Where they laid down, the soil was fruitful, rich, abundantly fertile. This phenomenon, Okeanos and Tethys Rising, was and is particularly evident in valleys and quite a spectacle if observed from ridges or plateaus.
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