- Looks after
- Mother of the Olympians
- Roman name
- Ops
- Often shown with
- Lions, a chariot, a mural crown (when joined with Cybele).
Rhea
Ῥέα
Rhea is a Titaness, the sister and wife of Cronus, and the mother of the first Olympians.
Rhea is one of the twelve children of Uranus and Gaia. She marries her brother Cronus, and by him bears Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon and finally Zeus.
The story that defines her is the saving of Zeus. Cronus swallowed every child as it was born, so when she was about to bear Zeus she asked her parents for help. They sent her to Lyktos in Crete, where she hid the baby in a cave and gave Cronus a stone in swaddling cloth to swallow. The Curetes, armed attendants, drowned out the baby's cries with the noise of their clashing weapons, according to later accounts.
Greeks often linked her to Cybele, the mother goddess of Anatolia, whose cult came into Greece in the classical period and then to Rome. In art she is drawn in a chariot pulled by lions.
In later art and language
One of the larger moons of Saturn is named Rhea.
Ancient sources
- Hesiod, Theogony 453-491
- Apollodorus, Library 1.1.5-1.2.1