Rhea (mythology)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the Greek goddess. For other uses, see Rhea.
"Rheia" redirects here. For the 2016 album by Oathbreaker, see Rheia (album).
Rhea
Member of the Titans
Rhéa présentant une pierre emmaillotée à Cronos dessin du bas-relief d'un autel romain.jpg
Rhea presenting Cronus with the stone wrapped in swaddling bands
AnimalsLion
SymbolChariot, tambourine, crown, cornucopia
TreeSilver fir
Personal information
Parents
  • Uranus (father)
  • Gaia (mother)
Siblings
Titans
Hecatoncheires
Cyclopes
Other siblings
Half-siblings
ConsortCronus, Zeus (Orphic)
OffspringPoseidon, Hades, Demeter, Hestia, Hera, Zeus, Persephone (Orphic)
Equivalents
Roman equivalentOps
Canaanite equivalentAsherah[2]
Egyptian equivalentNut[1]

Rhea or Rheia (/ˈriːə/; Ancient Greek: Ῥέα [r̥é.aː] or Ῥεία [r̥ěː.aː]) is a goddess in Greek mythology, the Titaness daughter of the earth goddess Gaia and the sky god Uranus, Gaia's son. She is the older sister of Cronus, who was also her consort. In early traditions, she is known as "the mother of gods" and therefore is strongly associated with Gaia and Cybele, who have similar functions. The classical Greeks saw her as the mother of the Olympian gods and goddesses. The Romans identified her with Magna Mater (their form of Cybele), and the Goddess Ops.

Etymology[]

Rhea or Cybele, drawing of a marble relief (1888)

Some ancient etymologists derived Rhea (Ῥέα) (by metathesis) from ἔρα (éra, 'ground', 'earth');[3] the same is suggested also by modern scholars,[4] such as Robert Graves.[5]

A different tradition, embodied in Plato[6] and in Chrysippus,[7] connected the word with ῥέω (rhéo, 'flow, discharge'),[8] which is what A Greek–English Lexicon supports.[9] Alternatively, the name Rhea may be connected with words for the pomegranate: ῥόα (rhóa), and later ῥοιά (rhoiá).

The name Rhea may ultimately derive from a Pre-Greek or Minoan source.[10][11][12]

Family[]

According to Hesiod, Rhea had six children with Cronus: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus in that order.[13] The philosopher Plato recounts that Rhea, Cronus and Phorcys were the eldest children of Oceanus and Tethys.[14]

According to the Orphic myths, Zeus wanted to marry his mother Rhea. After Rhea refused to marry him, Zeus took away all of her powers and married her. She had Kore with Zeus.[15]

Mythology[]

Gaia and Uranus told Cronus that just as he had overthrown his own father, he was destined to be overcome by his own child; so as each of his children was born, Cronus swallowed them. Rhea, Uranus and Gaia devised a plan to save the last of them, Zeus. Rhea gave birth to Zeus in a cavern on the island of Crete, and gave Cronus a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes, which he promptly swallowed; Rhea hid her infant son Zeus in a cave on Mount Ida. Her attendants, the warrior-like Kouretes and Dactyls, acted as a bodyguard for the infant Zeus, helping to conceal his whereabouts from his father.

In some accounts, by the will of Rhea a golden dog guarded a goat which offered her udder and gave nourishment to the infant Zeus. Later on, Zeus changed the goat into an immortal among the stars while the golden dog that guarded the sacred spot in Crete was stolen by Pandareus.[16]

Cult[]

Rhea had "no strong local cult or identifiable activity under her control".[17] She was originally worshiped on the island of Crete, identified in mythology as the site of Zeus' infancy and upbringing. Her cults employed rhythmic, raucous chants and dances, accompanied by the tympanon (a wide, handheld drum), to provoke a religious ecstasy. Her priests impersonated her mythical attendants, the Curetes and Dactyls, with a clashing of bronze shields and cymbals.[17]

The tympanon's use in Rhea's rites may have been the source for its use in Cybele's – in historical times, the resemblances between the two goddesses were so marked that some Greeks regarded Cybele as their own Rhea, who had deserted her original home on Mount Ida in Crete and fled to Mount Ida in the wilds of Phrygia to escape Cronus.[18]

Rhea was often referred to as Meter Theon (“Mother of the Gods”) and there were several temples around Ancient Greece dedicated to her under that name. Pausanias mentioned temples dedicated to Rhea under the name Meter Theon in Anagyros in Attika,[19] Megalopolis in Arkadia,[20] on the Acropolis of Ancient Corinth,[21] and in the district of Keramaikos in Athens, where the statue was made by Pheidias.[22] In Sparta there was further more a sanctuary to Meter Megale (“[the] Great Mother”).[23] Olympia had both an altar[24] and a temple to the Meter Theon:

"A temple of no great size [at Olympia] in the Doric style they have called down to the present day Metroion (Temple of the Mother), keeping its ancient name. No image lies in it of the Meter Theon (Mother of the Gods), but there stand in it statues of Roman emperors."[25]

Her temple in Akriai, Lakedaimon was said to be her oldest sanctuary in Peloponessos:

"Well worth seeing here [at Akriai, Lakedaimon] are a temple and marble image of the Meter Theon (Mother of the Gods). The people of Akriai say that this is the oldest sanctuary of this goddess in the Peloponessos."[26]

Statues of her were also standing in the sanctuaries of other gods and in other places, such as a statue of Parian marble by Damophon in Messene.[27] The scene in which Rhea gave Chronos a stone in the place of Zeus after his birth was assigned to have taken place on Petrakhos Mountain in Arcadia [28] as well as on Mount Thaumasios in Arcadia, both of which were holy places:

"Mount Thaumasios (Wonderful) lies beyond the river Maloitas [in Arkadia], and the Methydrians hold that when Rhea was pregnant with Zeus, she came to this mountain and enlisted as her allies, in case Kronos should attack her, Hopladamos and his few Gigantes. They allow that she gave birth to her son on some part of Mount Lykaios, but they claim that here Kronos was deceived, and here took place the substitution of a stone for the child that is spoken of in the Greek legend. On the summit of the mountain is Rhea's Cave, into which no human beings may enter save only the women who are sacred to the goddess."[29]

The center of the worship of Rhea was however on Crete, where Mount Ida was said to be the birthplace of Zeus. Reportedly, there was a "House of Rhea" in Knossos:

"The Titanes had their dwelling in the land about Knosos [in Krete], at the place where even to this day men point out foundations of a house of Rhea and a cypress grove which has been consecrated to her from ancient times."[30]

Upon Mount Ida, there was a cave sacred to Rhea:

"In Crete there is said to be a sacred cave full of bees. In it, as storytellers say, Rhea gave birth to Zeus; it is a sacred place and no one is to go near it, whether god or mortal. At the appointed time each year a great blaze is seen to come out of the cave. Their story goes on to say that this happens whenever the blood from the birth of Zeus begins to boil up. The sacred bees that were the nurses of Zeus occupy this cave."[16]

Iconography[]

Rhea rides on a lion, Pergamon Altar, Pergamon Museum, Berlin

Rhea only appears in Greek art from the fourth century BC, when her iconography draws on that of Cybele; the two therefore, often are indistinguishable;[31] both can be shown wearing a crown (either a Mural crown or a Polos), seated on a throne flanked by lions, riding a lion, and on a chariot drawn by two lions. In Roman religion, her counterpart Cybele was Magna Mater deorum Idaea, who was brought to Rome and was identified in Roman mythology as an ancestral Trojan deity. On a functional level, Rhea was thought equivalent to Roman Ops or Opis.

Depiction in ancient literature[]

In Homer, Rhea is the mother of the gods, although not a universal mother like Cybele, the Phrygian Great Mother, with whom she was later identified.

In the Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes, the fusion of Rhea and Phrygian Cybele is completed. "Upon the Mother depend the winds, the ocean, the whole earth beneath the snowy seat of Olympus; whenever she leaves the mountains and climbs to the great vault of heaven, Zeus himself, the son of Cronus, makes way, and all the other immortal gods likewise make way for the dread goddess," the seer Mopsus tells Jason in Argonautica; Jason climbed to the sanctuary high on Mount Dindymon to offer sacrifice and libations to placate the goddess, so that the Argonauts might continue on their way. For her temenos they wrought an image of the goddess, a xoanon, from a vine-stump. There "they called upon the mother of Dindymon, mistress of all, the dweller in Phrygia, and with her Titias and Kyllenos who alone of the many Cretan Daktyls of Ida are called 'guiders of destiny' and 'those who sit beside the Idaean Mother'." They leapt and danced in their armour: "For this reason the Phrygians still worship Rhea with tambourines and drums".[32]

Descendants[]

hideDescendants of Cronus and Rhea [33]
Uranus' genitalsCronusRHEA
ZeusHeraPoseidonHadesDemeterHestia
    a [34]
     b [35]
AresHephaestus
Metis
Athena[36]
Leto
ApolloArtemis
Maia
Hermes
Semele
Dionysus
Dione
    a [37]     b [38]
Aphrodite

Significant modern namesakes[]

The name of the bird species Rhea is derived from the goddess name Rhea.[39]

Rhea, the second largest moon of the planet Saturn is named after her.

Notes[]

  1. ^ http://www.eoht.info/page/Geb
  2. ^ Miller, Patrick D. (1967). "El the Warrior". The Harvard Theological Review. 60 (4): 411–431. doi:10.1017/S0017816000003886. JSTOR 1509250.
  3. ^ Hopkinson, p. 176, noting: "For a full collection of evidence see O. Gruppe, Griechische Mythologie und Religionsgeschichte (Munich 1906), 1524 n. 2.".
  4. ^ Ιωάννης, Σταματάκος (2012). Dictionary of the Ancient Greek Language. Εκδόσεις Δεδεμάδη. p. 874. ISBN 9789609876292. ῾Ρέᾱ = Γη, από το ἔρα με μετάθεση των φθόγγων.
  5. ^ Robert Graves. The Greek Myths, section 7.
  6. ^ Plato. Cratylus 402b–c.
  7. ^ Chrysippus, Stoic, 2.318
  8. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert. "ῥέω" [rheō]. A Greek–English Lexicon. Perseus Digital Library. Tufts University.
  9. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert. "Ῥέα" [Rhea]. A Greek–English Lexicon. Perseus Digital Library. Tufts University.
  10. ^ "Rhea – Greek goddess". Encyclopædia Britannica.
  11. ^ Nilsson, Martin Persson (1 January 1950). The Minoan-Mycenaean Religion and its Survival in Greek Religion. Biblo & Tannen Publishers. ISBN 9780819602732 – via Google Books.
  12. ^ Sidwell, R.T. (1981). "Rhea was abroad: Pre-Hellenic Greek myths for post-Hellenic children". Children's Literature in Education. 12 (4): 171–176. doi:10.1007/BF01142761. S2CID 161230196.
  13. ^ Hesiod. Theogony, 453 ff.
  14. ^ Plato. Timaeus 40e. Translated by W.R.M. Lamb. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1925.
  15. ^ Meisner, Dwayne A. (2018-07-17). Orphic Tradition and the Birth of the Gods. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-066354-4.
  16. ^ Jump up to: a b Antoninus Liberalis. Metamorphoses, 36
  17. ^ Jump up to: a b Roller, Lynn E., In Search of God the Mother: The Cult of Anatolian Cybele, University of California Press, 1999. p. 171.
  18. ^ Roller, Lynn E., In Search of God the Mother: The Cult of Anatolian Cybele, University of California Press, 1999. p. 171. See also Strabo, Geographica (Book X, Ch. 3)
  19. ^ Pausanias. Description of Greece (Book 1, Ch. 31, sect. 1)
  20. ^ Pausanias. Description of Greece (Book 8, Ch. 30, sect. 5)
  21. ^ Pausanias. Description of Greece (Book 2, Ch. 4, sect. 7
  22. ^ Pausanias. Description of Greece (Book 1, Ch. 3, sect. 5)
  23. ^ Pausanias. Description of Greece (Book 3, Ch. 12, sect. 9)
  24. ^ Pausanias. Description of Greece (Book 5, Ch. 14, sect. 9)
  25. ^ Pausanias. Description of Greece (Book 5, Ch. 20, sect. 9)
  26. ^ Pausanias. Description of Greece (Book 3, Ch. 22, sect. 4)
  27. ^ Pausanias. Description of Greece, (Book 4, Ch. 31, sect. 6)
  28. ^ Pausanias. Description of Greece, (Book 9, Ch. 41, sect. 6)
  29. ^ Pausanias. Description of Greece (Book 8, Ch. 36, sect. 2)
  30. ^ Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica (Book V, Ch. 65)
  31. ^ Roller, Lynn E., In Search of God the Mother: The Cult of Anatolian Cybele, University of California Press, 1999. p. 171. ISBN 9780520210240
  32. ^ (Apollonius of Rhodes), Richard Hunter, tr., 1993. Jason and the Golden Fleece (Oxford: Clarendon Press), Book II, p. 29f.
  33. ^ This chart is based upon Hesiod's Theogony, unless otherwise noted.
  34. ^ According to Homer, Iliad 1.570–579, 14.338, Odyssey 8.312, Hephaestus was apparently the son of Hera and Zeus, see Gantz, p. 74.
  35. ^ According to Hesiod, Theogony 927–929, Hephaestus was produced by Hera alone, with no father, see Gantz, p. 74.
  36. ^ According to Hesiod, Theogony 886–890, of Zeus' children by his seven wives, Athena was the first to be conceived, but the last to be born; Zeus impregnated Metis then swallowed her, later Zeus himself gave birth to Athena "from his head", see Gantz, pp. 51–52, 83–84.
  37. ^ According to Hesiod, Theogony 183–200, Aphrodite was born from Uranus' severed genitals, see Gantz, pp. 99–100.
  38. ^ According to Homer, Aphrodite was the daughter of Zeus (Iliad 3.374, 20.105; Odyssey 8.308, 320) and Dione (Iliad 5.370–71), see Gantz, pp. 99–100.
  39. ^ C. Michael Hogan. 2009. Rhea pinnata, GlobalTwitcher.com, ed. N. Stromberg Archived 2011-10-04 at the Wayback Machine

References[]

  • Apollodorus, Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
  • Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica translated by Robert Cooper Seaton (1853–1915), R. C. Loeb Classical Library Volume 001. London, William Heinemann Ltd, 1912. Online version at the Topos Text Project.
  • Anonymous, The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Homeric Hymns. Cambridge, MA.,Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
  • Antoninus Liberalis, The Metamorphoses of Antoninus Liberalis translated by Francis Celoria (Routledge 1992). Online version at the Topos Text Project.
  • Callimachus. Hymns, translated by Alexander William Mair (1875–1928). London: William Heinemann; New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons. 1921. Online version at the Topos Text Project.
  • Clement of Alexandria, Recognitions from Ante-Nicene Library Volume 8, translated by Smith, Rev. Thomas. T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh. 1867. Online version at theio.com
  • Diodorus Siculus, Diodorus Siculus: The Library of History. Translated by Charles Henry Oldfather. Twelve volumes. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.Online version at the Lacus Curtius: Into the Roman World.
  • Fulgentius, Mythologies translated by Whitbread, Leslie George. Ohio State University Press.1971. Online version at theio.com
  • Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Cambridge, MA.,Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
  • Homer, The Iliad with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, Ph.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
  • Homer, The Odyssey with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, Ph.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1919. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
  • Hopkinson, N, "Rhea in Callimachus' Hymn to Zeus" in The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 104 (1984), 176–177. JSTOR 630292
  • Hyginus, Fabulae from The Myths of Hyginus translated and edited by Mary Grant. University of Kansas Publications in Humanistic Studies. Online version at the Topos Text Project.
  • Hyginus, Fabulae from The Myths of Hyginus translated and edited by Mary Grant. University of Kansas Publications in Humanistic Studies. Online version at the Topos Text Project.
  • Nonnus, Dionysiaca translated by William Henry Denham Rouse (1863–1950), from the Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1940. Online version at the Topos Text Project.
  • Ovid, Metamorphoses translated by Brookes More (1859–1942). Boston, Cornhill Publishing Co. 1922. Online version at the Topos Text Project.
  • Gantz, Timothy, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, Two volumes: ISBN 978-0-8018-5360-9 (Vol. 1), ISBN 978-0-8018-5362-3 (Vol. 2).
  • Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica translated by Mozley, J H. Loeb Classical Library Volume 286. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1928. Online version at theio.com.
  • Vergil, Aeneid. Theodore C. Williams. trans. Boston. Houghton Mifflin Co. 1910. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.

External links[]

Retrieved from ""