URANO (Οὐρανός). – Deity representing the sky.
His name is already found in Homer (Il., XV, 36; Od., V, 184), but he appears as a protagonist in the Hesiodic Theogony, where he is the spouse of Gea (the Earth) and father, among other deities, of the Titans (v.) and the Cyclopes (Th., 126 ff.). However, jealous of his children, U. concealed them in the bowels of the earth until they, incited by Earth, rebelled; then Saturn, treacherously, cut off U.’s sexual organs, which, falling into the sea, generated Aphrodite. Some texts differing from the Theogony call him Ἄκμων as the sky, and the allusion is taken up poetically by Antimachus (Ἀκμονίδης, fr. 35 Kinkel) and by Alcman (Ἀκμονίδην, fr. 111 Bergk). Other sources, however, regard this epithet as deriving from ἀκάματος, tireless (v. L. Preller-C. Robert, Griechische Mythologie, I, 4th ed., Berlin 1894, p. 39, note 3). The cult of U., neglected in Olympian religion, returned to prominence in the Hellenistic period, perhaps reflecting the earlier Orphic influence. The frieze in reliefs of the altar of Pergamum also includes U. fighting against a giant.
In Roman religion U. is venerated under the epithet Caelus (« Qui si est deus [Saturnus], patrem quoque eius Caelum esse deum confitendum est »; Cicero, Nat. deor., III, 17, 44). Art depicts him on a chariot, supporting a mantle arranged in an arch above his head (αἰθήρος κύκλος). In this manner he is represented on the cuirass of the statue of Augustus found at Prima Porta, and this form of representation continues also in the iconography of the early Church (v. Jahn, Arch. Beitr., 85, p. 28; id., in Ber. d. Sächs. Gesellsch. d. Wissenschaft. 1849, p. 63).