Rhea

RHEIA (Rhea) was the Titanis (Titaness) mother of the gods, and goddess of female fertility, motherhood, and generation. Her name means "flow" and "ease." As the wife of Kronos (Cronus, Time), she represented the eternal flow of time and generations; as the great Mother (Meter Megale), the "flow" was menstrual blood, birth waters, and milk. She was also a goddess of comfort and ease, a blessing reflected in the common Homeric phrase "the gods who live at their ease (rhea)."

In myth, Rhea was the wife of the Titan Kronos (Cronus) and Queen of Heaven. When her husband heard a prophecy that he would be deposed by one of his children, he took to swallowing each of them as soon as they were born. But Rhea bore her youngest, Zeus, in secret and hid him away in a cave in Krete (Crete) guarded by shield-clashing Kouretes (Curetes). In his stead she presented Kronos with a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes which he promptly devoured.

Rhea was closely identified with the Anatolian mother-goddess Kybele (Cybele). They were both depicted as matronly women, usually wearing a turret crown, and attended by lions.