Rhea / Ops
Titaness, mother of the Olympian gods
Rhea is the Titaness known as the Mother of the Gods, the mother of Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Hera, Demeter, and Hestia. She saved her youngest son from being swallowed by his father with a trick that changed the history of the world.
How they were born
Rhea was born to Uranus, the Sky, and Gaia, the Earth, one of the twelve great Titans who ruled the world before the Olympian gods. She married her brother Cronus, who had overthrown their father Uranus to become king of the Titans, and she became his queen. The Greeks called her Meter Theon, the Mother of the Gods, and the Romans identified her with Ops, goddess of plenty, and with the Great Mother Cybele.
The greatest stories
The Stone That Fooled Cronus
Cronus had learned from Gaia and Uranus that one of his own children would overthrow him, just as he had overthrown his father. So as each child was born he swallowed it whole, and Rhea watched five of her babies disappear: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon. When her sixth child was due, she begged her parents for help, and on their advice she travelled to Crete. There, in a cave on Mount Dicte or Mount Ida, she gave birth to Zeus in secret, then handed Cronus a great stone wrapped in swaddling clothes, which he swallowed without noticing the switch.
Hiding the Baby Zeus
Rhea left the baby Zeus hidden in the Cretan cave, guarded by the Kouretes, young warriors who clashed their shields and spears and danced noisily whenever the baby cried, so that Cronus would never hear him. The goat Amalthea, or the nymphs Adrasteia and Ida, nursed him on milk and honey, and the bees of Mount Ida brought him food. Zeus grew up strong and clever in hiding, far from his father's court, until he was ready to return and challenge Cronus.
The Children Freed and the Titanomachy
When Zeus was grown, Rhea helped him again. With the help of Metis, a daughter of Oceanus, Zeus gave Cronus a potion that made him vomit up the stone and then all five children he had swallowed, alive and unharmed. Rhea's children then chose Zeus as their leader and declared war on the Titans. In the ten-year Titanomachy they defeated Cronus and his brothers, and Rhea lived to see her children rule the world from Mount Olympus, the very children her husband had tried to destroy.
Rhea, the Great Mother
Rhea was worshipped most of all on Crete, where Zeus had been born, but over time the Greeks began to identify her with Cybele, the Great Mother of the mountains from Phrygia, who rode in a chariot drawn by lions and was honoured with drums, cymbals, and wild dancing. The Romans called her Magna Mater and brought her worship to Rome itself, and they also identified her with Ops, the goddess of the harvest and of plenty. In all these forms she remained what she had always been: the great mother, fierce in protecting her children and generous to those who honoured her.
Family & connections
Symbol, animal & weapon
Fun facts
- The stone Cronus swallowed instead of Zeus was later set up at Delphi as the omphalos, the sacred stone the Greeks believed marked the centre of the world.
- Rhea's name may come from a Greek word meaning "flow" or "ease," fitting for a goddess of the easy flow of birth and of the generations.
- The Kouretes who guarded the baby Zeus drowned out his cries by clashing their bronze shields and dancing around his cradle, so Cronus never heard a sound.
- Saturn's second-largest moon is named Rhea, after the Titaness, and it was discovered in 1672 by the astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini.
Gallery — sculpture & art
