Rhea

Q: Who was Rhea?

Rhea was a Titan, a daughter of Uranus and Gaea, and the sister and wife of Cronus. She is the mother of Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon and Zeus, the first generation of the Olympian gods.

Rhea was a Titan, a daughter of Uranus and Gaea, and the sister and wife of Cronus. She is the mother of Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon and Zeus, the first generation of the Olympian gods. Her best-known myth is the birth of Zeus: she hid the infant in Crete and gave Cronus a stone to swallow in his place.

Rhea’s Family

Hesiod lists Rhea among the children of Gaea and Uranus, with Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus, Theia, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Tethys and, youngest, Cronus (Theogony 132–138). Cronus took her as his wife, and she bore Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon and Zeus (Theogony 453–458). In Homer, Poseidon calls himself, Zeus and Hades three brothers born to Cronus by Rhea (Iliad 15.187–188), and Hera says she was received from Rhea as a child (Iliad 14.203).

The Birth of Zeus

Cronus swallowed each child as it was born, to prevent any of the sons of Heaven from taking his royal power, because Gaea and Uranus had told him that he was destined to be overthrown by his own son. Rhea suffered unending grief for her children (Hesiod, Theogony 459–467). When she was about to bear Zeus, she asked her parents to help her save the child and punish Cronus. Hesiod says they sent her to Lyctus in Crete, where Gaea received the child to rear him, and he was hidden in a deep cave on the wooded Aegaean mountain. Rhea wrapped a great stone in swaddling clothes and gave it to Cronus, who swallowed it (Theogony 468–491). Apollodorus tells the same story but places the birth in a cave of Mount Dicte, and says the Curetes guarded the infant in arms, clashing spears on their shields so that Cronus would not hear the child’s cry (Library 1.1.6–7). Pausanias names the Dactyls of Ida, whom he identifies with the Curetes, as the guardians to whom Rhea entrusted her son (5.7.6).

Callimachus has a different birthplace: Rhea bore Zeus in Arcadia, then looked for water to wash the child and the earth gave a stream, which she named Neda after the nymph who carried the baby to Crete (Hymn to Zeus 10–41). Pausanias records Arcadian traditions about Rhea as well: on Mount Thaumasius near Methydrium she had a cave, which only women sacred to her could enter, and where Cronus was said to be deceived with the stone (8.36.2–3). He also records an Arcadian story that she hid the newborn Poseidon among lambs and told Cronus that she had given birth to a foal (8.8.2).

When Zeus was grown, Gaea tricked Cronus, and he vomited up first the stone, which Zeus set up at Pytho beneath Parnassus, and then the children he had swallowed (Theogony 492–500). According to Apollodorus, Zeus took Metis, a daughter of Oceanus, as his helper, and she gave Cronus a drug that made him disgorge them (Library 1.2.1). Zeus and the other gods then fought the Titans. Homer has Hera say that Oceanus and Tethys received her from Rhea and cared for her while Zeus was putting Cronus beneath the earth (Iliad 14.200–204).

Family of Rhea

Parents: Gaea, Uranus
Consorts: Cronus
Children: Demeter, Hades, Hera, Hestia, Poseidon, Zeus
Siblings: Coeus, Crius, Cronus, Hyperion, Iapetus, Mnemosyne, Oceanus, Phoebe, Tethys, Thea, Themis

See the full family tree

Rhea’s Role

Rhea appears as a mother and an ally of her children. In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Zeus sends Rhea to Demeter, who is angry at the loss of her daughter, and Rhea, wearing her bright headband, tells Demeter to return to the gods and receive the honours Zeus has promised her; Demeter obeys (Hymn to Demeter 441–470). Euripides links her with the worship of Dionysus: in the Cretan cave of the Curetes, where Zeus was born, the Corybantes invented the drum and placed it in the hands of mother Rhea, and the satyrs obtained it from her for the dances of Dionysus (Bacchae 120–134).

The Romans called her Ops. Ovid says that Juno, Ceres and Vesta were born to Ops by Saturn (Fasti 6.285–286), and Hyginus calls the mother of Jupiter Ops (Astronomica 2.13). Ovid also tells Rhea’s story to explain the noisy rites of the Great Mother, Cybele: the Curetes and Corybantes beat their shields and helmets on Mount Ida so that Saturn would not hear the infant, and the goddess’s attendants imitate that din with cymbals and drums (Fasti 4.191–214). In the same passage the lions yoked to the Great Mother’s chariot are explained as a sign that she tamed their wildness (4.215–218).

Rhea had sanctuaries in Greece. Pausanias saw a temple of Cronus and Rhea at Athens, near the enclosure of Olympian Earth (1.18.7), and a cave of Rhea on the summit of Mount Thaumasius in Arcadia (8.36.3). At Phigalia the river Lymax was said to take its name from the cleansing of Rhea after she bore Zeus, and at Methydrium her ally Hopladamus, with his giants, was said to have defended her against Cronus (8.41.2, 8.36.2). Pausanias also describes an altar of Athena at Tegea carved with Rhea and the nymph Oenoe holding the baby Zeus (8.47.3).

Rhea’s Portrayal

Pausanias describes a temple of Hera at Plataea in which Rhea was shown carrying to Cronus the stone wrapped in swaddling clothes, as though it were the child she had borne; the group was carved in Pentelic marble by Praxiteles (9.2.7). Hyginus records a story that when Ops brought Saturn the stone, he told her to give it milk, and the milk she pressed from her breast formed the Milky Way (Astronomica 2.43).