Rhea
Ῥεία, Ῥείη, (or Ῥέη). The name as well as the nature of this
divinity is one of the most difficult points in ancient
mythology. Some consider Ῥέα to be merely another form of
ἔρα, the earth, while others connect it with ῥέω, I flow
(Plat. Cratyl. p. 401, &c.); but thus much seems undeniable,
that Rhea, like Demeter, was a goddess of the earth.
According to the Hesiodic Theogony (133; comp. Apollod.
1.1.3), Rhea was a daughter of Uranus and Ge, and
accordingly a sister of Oceanus, Coeus, Hyperion, Crius,
Iapetus, Theia, Themis, and Mnemosyne. She became by Cronos
the mother of Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Aides, Poseidon, and
Zeus. According to some accounts Cronos and Rhea were
preceded in their sovereignty over the world by Ophion and
Eurynome ; but Ophion was overpowered by Cronos, and Rhea
cast Eurynome into Tartarus. Cronos is said to have devoured
all his children by Rhea, but when she was on the point of
giving birth to Zeus, she, by the advice of her parents,
went to Lyctus in Crete. When Zeus was born she gave to
Cronos a stone wrapped up like an infant, and the god
swallowed it as he had swallowed his other children. (Hes.
Th. 446, &c.; Apollod. 1.1.5, &c.; Diod. 5.70.) Homer (Hom.
Il. 15.187) makes only a passing allusion to Rhea, and the
passage of Hesiod, which accordingly must be regarded as the
most ancient Greek legend about Rhea, seems to suggest that
the mystic priests of Crete had already formed connections
with the more northern parts of Greece. In this manner, it
would seem, the mother of Zeus became known to the
Thracians, with whom she became a divinity of far greater
importance than she had been before in the south (Orph.
Hymn. 13, 25, 26), for she was connected with the Thracian
goddess Bendis or Cotys (Hecate), and identified with
Demeter. (Strab. x. p.470.)
The Thracians, in the mean time, conceived the chief
divinity of the Samothracian and Lemnian mysteries as Rhea-
Hecate, while some of them who had settled in Asia Minor,
became there acquainted with still stranger beings, and one
especially who was worshipped with wild and enthusiastic
solemnities, was found to resemble Rhea. In like manner the
Greeks who afterwards settled in Asia identified the Asiatic
goddess with Rhea, with whose worship they had long been
familiar (Strab. x. p.471; Hom. Hymn. 13, 31). In Phrygia,
where Rhea became identified with Cybele, she is said to
have purified Dionysus, and to have taught him the mysteries
(Apollod. 3.5.1), and thus a Dionysiac element became
amalgamated with the worship of Rhea. Demeter, moreover, the
daughter of Rhea, is sometimes mentioned with all the
attributes belonging to Rhea. (Eur. Hel. 1304.) The
confusion then became so great that the worship of the
Cretan Rhea was confounded with that of the Phrygian mother
of the gods, and that the orgies of Dionysus became
interwoven with those of Cybele. Strangers from Asia, who
must be looked upon as jugglers, introduced a variety of
novel rites, which were fondly received, especially by the
populace (Strab. 1. c.; Athen. 12.553 ; Demosth. de Coron.
p. 313). Both the name and the connection of Rhea with
Demeter suggest that she was in early times revered as
goddess of the earth.
Crete was undoubtedly the earliest seat of the worship of
Rhea; Diodorus (5.66) saw the site where her temple had once
stood, in the neighbourhood of Cnossus, and it would seem
that at one time she was worshipped in that island even
under the name of Cybele (Euseb. Chron. p. 56; Syncell.
Chronogr. p. 125). The common tradition, further, was that
Zeus was born in Crete, either on Mount Dicte or Mount Ida.
At Delphi there was a stone of not very large dimensions,
which was every day anointed with oil, and on solemn
occasions was wrapped up in white wool; and this stone was
believed to have been the one which Cronos swallowed when he
thought he was devouring Zeus (Paus. 10.24.5). Such local
traditions implying that Rhea gave birth to Zeus in this or
that place of Greece itself occur in various other
localities. Some expressly stated that he was born at Thebes
(Tzetz. ad Lyc. 1194). The temple of the Dindymenian mother
had been built by Pindarus (Paus. 9.25.3; Philostr. Icon.
2.12). Another legend stated that Rhea gave birth at
Chaeroneia in Boeotia (Paus. 9.41.3), and in a temple of
Zeus at Plataeae Rhea was represented in the act of handing
the stone covered in cloth to Crones (Paus. 9.2.5). At
Athens there was a temple of Rhea in the peribolos of the
Olympieium (Paus. 1.18.7), and the Athenians are even said
to have been the first among the Greeks who adopted the
worship of the mother of the gods (Julian, Orat. 5). Her
temple there was called the Metroum. The Arcadians also
related that Zeus was born in their country, on Mount
Lycaon, the principal seat of Arcadian religion (Paus.
8.36.2, 41.2; comp. Callim. Hymn. in Jov. 10, 16, &c.).
Similar traces are found in Messenia (Paus. 4.33.2), Laconia
(3.22.4), in Mysia (Strab. xiii. p.589), at Cyzicus (i. p.
45, xii. p. 575). Under the name of Cybele, we find her
worship on Mount Sipylus (Paus. 5.13.4), Mount Coddinus
(3.22.4), in Phrygia, which had received its colonists from
Thrace, and where she was regarded as the mother of
Sabazius. There her worship was quite universal, for there
is scarcely a town in Phrygia on the coins of which she does
not appear. In Galatia she was chiefly worshipped at
Pessinus, where her sacred image was believed to have fallen
from heaven (Herodian, 1.35). King Midas I. built a temple
to her, and introduced festive solemnities, and subsequently
a more magnificent one was erected by one of the Attali. Her
name at Pessinus was Agdistis (Strab. xii. p.567). Her
priests at Pessinus seem from the earliest times to have
been, in some respects, the rulers of the place, and to have
derived the greatest possible advantages from their priestly
functions. Even after the image of the goddess was carried
from Pessinus to Rome, Pessinus still continued to be looked
upon as the metropolis of the great goddess, and as the
principal seat of her worship. Under different names we
might trace the worship of Rhea even much further east, as
far as the Euphrates and even Bactriana. She was, in fact,
the great goddess of the Eastern world, and we find her
worshipped there in a variety of forms and under a variety
of names. As regards the Romans, they had from the earliest
times worshipped Jupiter and his mother Ops, the wife of
Saturn. When, therefore, we read (Liv. 29.11, 14) that,
during the Hannibalian war, they fetched the image of the
mother of the gods from Pessinus, we must understand that
the worship then introduced was quite foreign to them, and
either maintained itself as distinct from the worship of
Ops, or became united with it. A temple was built to her on
the Palatine, and the Roman matrons honoured her with the
festival of the Megalesia. The manner in which she was
represented in works of art was the same as in Greece, and
her castrated priests were called Galli.
The various names by which we find Rhea designated, are,
"the great mother," "the mother of the gods," Cybele,
Cybebe, Agdistis, Berecyntia, Brimo, Dindymene, "the great
Idaean mother of the gods." Her children by Cronos
areenumerated by Hesiod : under the name of Cybele she is
also called the mother of Alce, of the Phrygian king Midas,
and of Nicaea (Diod. 3.57; Phot. Bibl. 224). In all European
countries Rhea was conceived to be accompanied by the
Curetes, who are inseparably connected with the birth and
bringing up of Zeus in Crete, and in Phrygia by the
Corybantes, Atys, and Agdistis. The Corybantes were her
enthusiastic priests, who with drums, cymbals, horns, and in
full armour, performed their orgiastic dances in the forests
and on the mountains of Phrygia. The lion was sacred to the
mother of the gods, because she was the divinity of the
earth, and because the lion is the strongest and most
important of all animals on earth, in addition to which it
was believed that the countries in which the goddess was
worshipped, abounded in lions (comp. Ov. Met. 10.682). In
Greece the oak was sacred to Rhea (Schol. ad Apollon. Rhod.
1.1124). The highest ideal of Rhea in works of art was
produced by Pheidias; she was seldom represented in a
standing posture, but generally seated on a throne, adorned
with the mural crown, from which a veil hangs down. Lions
usually appear crouching on the right and left of her
throne, and sometimes she is seen riding in a chariot drawn
by lions. (Comp. CURETES; ZEUS; CRONOS.) - A Dictionary of
Greek and Roman biography and mythology, William Smith, Ed.
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