[3] According to Hesiod's Theogony, which contained the "standard" Greek genealogy of the gods,[4] Aether was the offspring of Erebus and Nyx, and the brother of Hemera.

[11] According to Hyginus's (possibly confused)[12] genealogy, Nox (Night), Dies, Erebus, and Aether were the offspring of Chaos and Caligo (Mist), and Aether and Dies were the parents of Terra (Earth), Caelus (Sky) and Mare (Sea),[13] and Aether and Terra were the parents of: Pain, Deception, Anger, Mourning, Lying, Oath, Vengeance, Self-indulgence, Quarreling, Forgetfullness, Sloth, Fear, Arrogance, Incest, Fighting, Ocean, Themis, Tartarus, and Pontus; and the Titans, Briareus, Gyges, Steropes, Atlas, Hyperion and Polus, Saturn, Ops, Moneta, Dione, and the three Furies (Alecto, Megaera, Tisiphone).

[15] For example, Homer has Sleep climb: a fir-tree exceeding tall, the highest that then grew in Ida; and it reached up through the mists into heaven [aether].

[23] According to the Neoplatonist Damascius (c. early sixth century), Acusilaus said that Aether was, along with Eros and Metis, the offspring Erebus and Nyx.

[31] Also possibly from the Derveni Theogony is the idea, from a fragment of Chrysippus (preserved in Philodemus, De Pietate (On Piety)), that "everywhere is aither, which itself is both father and son".

[32] The early 6th-century Neoplatonist Damascius, in his De principiis (On First Principles) comments on an Orphic text, which he describes as "under the names of Hieronymus and Hellanicus, if indeed this is not the same".

[34] Damascius says that the Hieronyman Theogony had "serpent Time" as the father of three offspring, "moist Aether", "limitless Chaos" and "misty Erebos".

[39]The 5th-century Greek Neoplatonist Proclus, in his Commentary on Plato's Republic, quotes the following verses from the Rhapsodies: This Time unaging, of immortal resource, begot Aither and a great Chasm, vast this way and that, no limit below it, no base, no place to settle.

[41] In another passage from the De principiis, Damascius quotes other verses from the Rhapsodies: Then great Time fashioned from (or in) divine Aither a bright white egg.

[53] The fifth Orphic Hymn, which prescribes an offering of saffron,[54] addresses Aether as follows: Yours are Zeus' lofty dwelling, endless power too; of the stars, of the sun, and of the moon you claim a share.

O tamer of all, O fire-breather, O life's spark for every creature, sublime Ether, best cosmic element, radiant, luminous, starlit offspring, I call upon you and I beseech you to be temperate and clear.