I don't think people give Laertes enough gangsta energy credit! I mean think about it, the dude was a king of a small kingdom and potentially a grandson of an actual bear! XD
He was also a good farmer and potential craftsman on his own right
In myths he is a skillful hunter and he took part at the Calydonian boar hunt according to later sources or even an Argonaut in one or two of them too.
But he also could have had any princess he wanted in theory but nope! Dude married the arguable princess of thieves, granddaughter of Hermes in some sources that was also most likely not a virgin at her wedding bed (having had a little adventure with a rascal called Sisyphus) and not only that, he kept his marriage, he remained loyal to her even if he had a crush on a slave he had every right to sleep with and he allowed his baby son have frequent contact with his grandfather the arguable king of thieves himself and he remained alive arguably longer than many other kings judging the age of Odysseus age.
It's an Apollodorous fall, boys. We're not making sense and gonna say "so it was said" a whole bunch because we don't know anything for sure. Also, there's an extra decade in here somewhere that makes no sense (it's the 2020s. It makes no sense)
What’s the most accurate birth order of the olympians?
Ohhhhhh boy here comes another difficult one hahaha
Like with many different and sometimes confusing possibilities! Alright let's buckle up because this is about to get long and potentially veeeeeery simplified but yeah here goes
Well I doubt that one can pinpoint that exactly given the ambiguity of the sources but it seems that some things come as some steady rules (or semi-steady hahaha) that Hestia is the first and Zeus is the last or Cronus's children. Zeus is also considered the eldest because he was not swallowed by Cronus so Hestia was also named "the eldest but also the youngest" because she was born first but vomited out last so her "second birth" was the last of the bunch. Anyways I am not sure if there is some steady rule on the order of the Olympians being born but Apollodorous gives us this order:
Hestia
Demeter
Hera
Hades
Poseidon
Zeus
So apparently Apollodorous follows the order that first were born the female children of Cronos and then the male. (I do find the parallels interesting how Hera is the youngest female child and Zeus the youngest male child and end up being together in the end) Now one does not need to follow this timeline if they do not want to especially since sources seem to be ambiguous on that but I find it a very plausible order of birth to be honest. Plus it helps me to combine it with the other sources and create interpretations by playing around with the order of them being vomited out or other hehe
Now the rest of the Olympians are veeeeeery tricky because we have so many traditions and so many different versions or even how children are being fathered or not fathered in the case of Hera. But we can have some sort of hypothesis if we take Hesiod and the order of the wives/lovers Zeus took one by one before he had Hera as his final wife and so we can perhaps have an idea of his children too.
There seems to be also a general belief that Dionysus is the youngest born son of Zeus that ends up an Olympian (Of course we also have orphism and the previous birth of Zagreus who later on was incarnated as Dionysus but things are already complicated enough so I am not sure if we even need to touch Orphism at this stage hahaha)
So the order given us by Hesiod is:
Metis -> Athena
Themis -> Horae, Moirae
Eurynome -> Charites
Demeter -> Persephone
Mnemosyne -> Muses
Leto -> Artemis and Apollo
So taking this order in mind then the first-born, non-Cronide Olympian is Athena and after Athena was born Artemis and after her Apollo (we know that from myths Artemis was born first and helped her mother give birth to Apollo)
But the tricky thing begins when we add to the mixture Leto and her adventure of birth that by some versions it was because of Hera's jealousy so it is possible that Leto did not give birth until the marriage of Hera in that interpretation but it is really hard to place for sure.
Anyways remaining in spirit of Hesiod and the remaining heavenly children he had concerning the Olympians we have
Hera -> Hebe, Ares, Elytheia
Then we have some lovers that follow Hera and we do have the births of Olympians from them
Maia -> Hermes
Semele -> Dionysus
Now similarly to the children of Cronos the true order of the birth of the children is not always clarified. We see for instance Zeus giving birth to Athena through his head. This could have happened at any stage (in fact Hesiod places the birth of Athena soon after Zeus's marriage with Hera). So Athena seems to be officially born after Persephone
Not to mention the contribution of Hephaestus.
Hera seems to give birth some of her children with or without the contribution of Zeus (including Ares sometimes) and Hephaestus seems to be one of those too. Now the birth of Hephaestus is placed somewhere in-between the events of the marriage of Zeus and Hera but also to the birth of Athena. There seems to be some interesting time-gap and if Hephaestus helped Athena come out Zeus's head then it doesn't matter at what stage Zeus had a relation with Metis, Athena must have been born later. In fact in Hesiod we also see how Hera conceived Hephaestus at some stage out of fury with Zeus after a quarrel and she conceived him without Zeus.
Now in the version of Hesiod we do not see the contribution of Hephaestus to the birth of Athena (and not only haha) out of Zeus's head. In fact many seem to place Prometheus in the place of Hephaestus in that stage.
So the exact reason why Hera was mad at Zeus which led her to conceive by herself Hephaestus to get back at him is unclear so we do assume it was the birth of Athena through his head. Although it is not perfectly clear making the placement of Hephaestus's birth rather shady.
Nevertheless given the hesiodic theogony the children of Zeus after the marriage to Hera the children born are:
Hebe
Ares
Elytheia
Athena
Hephaestus
So bearing that in mind, again having Hesiod in mind, the order of the primary Olympian gods (or the 12 as we usually refer them as) is:
Ares
Athena
Hephaestus
In fact there seems to be the connection there that one of the reasons Hephaestus was thrown off Olympus was as a baby or as a toddler because Hera was furious that the child was born with an obvious disability while Athena was healthy and vigorous so she threw the child off Olympus.
According to Hesiod, Hermes was born quite a while later, in fact a little before Dionysus (well no surprise there given that the myth of Hermes stealing the cattle of Apollo exists and so obviously Hermes was younger. Other sources also state that Zeus mated with Maia after his marriage with Hera)
Aphrodite though...gosh that one definitely is tricky! Aphrodite has around three possible origin stories (one is coming out of an egg which probably comes from the synchretism with Astarte/Ishtar) two of them being that she was born out of the foam of the sea after Cronos castrated Uranus. The birth of Aphrodite is mentioned very early in Hesiodic theogony although is not placed exactly in time (for instance it doesn't say how long it took Aphrodite to emerge from the sea foam) so she could be one of the oldest Olympians or she could have emerged from the sea foam later. Either way she rises straight to Olympus with the primordial Eros.
Now of course the alternative is that she is the daughter of Zeus and Dione memorized from Homer and some other sources. Now this is tricky to place in a timeline. "Dione" as a name is simply the female version of "Zeus" too which makes the association even more interesting (Dione is even mentioned as one of the potential mothers of Dionysus too in a handful of much later sources although Semele is the most prominent even then)
Anyway taking Dione as an example, Dione is already existent in Hesiodic Theogony and in the Homeric Hymns she is mentioned to be present during the birth of Apollo and Artemis. Now there is even an interesting mention or interpretation that Dione is placed as one of the lovers of Zeus (or potential wife or wife-to-be) right after Themis hehehe so under that order she was born after the Horae and before Persephone.
Now in that order is even potential that she was born then even with the version of her emerging from the sea. (yeah that is just me trying to combine uncombinable sources again hahaha)
Gosh I gave myself a headache! Hahahaha So without a further edo this is a very rough estimate of the order of the basic Olympians born (yes I mention the names of the gods that are supposed to come in and out of Olympus as the usual 12+ gods. The rest are there hahaha)
Anyways here goes:
Hestia
Demeter
Hera
Hades
Poseidon
Zeus
Aphrodite
(Persephone)
Artemis
Apollo
(Hebe)
Ares
(Elytheia)
Athena*
Hephaestus
Hermes
Dionysus
-> *Metis was already pregnant to Athena when swallowed by Zeus so Athena was potentially the first of all so the oldest of all however she was "born" aka emerged out of Zeus's head later in that order. So she is de facto the oldest but at the same time she "came to the world" later
so having that in mind the order could also be:
Hestia
Demeter
Hera
Hedes
Poseidon
Zeus
Athena
Aphrodite
(Persephone)
Artemis
Apollo
(Hebe)
Ares
(Elytheia)
Hephaestus
Hermes
Dionysus
You can take your pick if you prefer it that way based on the latter hahaha
I hope you like it dear Anon! Sorry if this cannot be 100% clear but this is one of the potential interpretations
