Rhea: Titan Goddess and Mother of the Olympians

The Story of Rhea

Rhea was one of the twelve Titans, a daughter of Uranus and Gaia. When her brother Cronus overthrew their father and became king of the cosmos, Rhea became his wife and queen. Together they ruled the world in the age before the Olympian gods.

Her marriage soon turned to grief. Cronus had been warned that one of his children would take his throne, so he swallowed each baby as soon as Rhea gave birth. One after another, Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades and Poseidon vanished into their father.

When Rhea was about to have her sixth child, she turned to her parents, Gaia and Uranus, for advice. They sent her to Crete, where she gave birth to Zeus in secret. She then wrapped a stone in swaddling clothes and handed it to Cronus, who swallowed it whole, believing it was his son.

Rhea hid the baby in a cave on Crete, in most tellings on Mount Ida or Mount Dikte. The goat Amalthea fed him, and young warriors called the Curetes danced and clashed their spears against their shields so that Cronus would never hear the baby cry. In this way the future king of the gods grew up safe and unseen.

When Zeus was grown, he returned to free his brothers and sisters. Cronus was made to bring them all up, and the young gods went to war against the Titans and won. Rhea's courage had made the rule of the Olympians possible, and she was honored as the mother of the gods.

Rhea was often linked with the great mother goddess Cybele, who came to Greece from Asia Minor. Artists showed her seated on a throne with lions beside her or pulling her chariot, and wearing a crown shaped like city walls. Her worshippers celebrated her with wild music of drums and cymbals.

The Cretans proudly pointed to the caves where Rhea had hidden her son, and the stone she gave Cronus was said to be kept at Delphi. Though she appears in fewer stories than her children, Rhea stands at the turning point of Greek myth. Without her trick, there would have been no Zeus and no Olympians at all.