Rhea
Mother of the Gods
REE-uh
Titaness of motherhood, who saved her youngest son by feeding her husband a stone, and so ended the reign of the Titans.
The Story
Rhea bore six children to Cronus and watched him swallow five of them whole. With the sixth she went to Gaia for counsel, gave birth in secret in a Cretan cave, and handed her husband a stone wrapped in swaddling bands.
The deception is the whole point of her: the Olympian order exists because a mother refused the arrangement she was handed. She appears rarely afterward, but every Olympian in this atlas traces back through her.
Did You Know?
- The Kouretes, armed attendants who danced around the infant Zeus clashing spears on shields, were there to drown out his crying so Cronus would not hear it.
- By the classical period she had merged almost completely with the Anatolian mother goddess Cybele, lions, drums, and ecstatic rites all arrive in her worship from the east.
- Ancient sources cannot agree on which Cretan cave she gave birth in. Mount Ida and Mount Dikte both claimed it, and both did steady business in pilgrims.