Rhea

At Hera’s orders, the Titans seized Dionysus, the newly born son of Zeus. He was horned and crowned with serpents. Although he changed his shape, the Titans caught him and tore him into pieces. They boiled the pieces in a cauldron, and the ground where his blood fell produced a pomegranate tree.

Rhea, Dionysus’s grandmother, rescued the remains and reassembled them. Dionysus came to life again. Zeus then entrusted him to Persephone, who took him to King Athamas of Orchomenus and his wife, Ino. She persuaded them to raise the child in the women’s quarters, disguised as a girl.

Hera was not deceived. She drove Athamas and Ino mad. Athamas killed their son Learchus, mistaking him for a stag. On Zeus’s instructions, Hermes changed Dionysus temporarily into a kid or a ram. Hermes then presented him to the nymphs Macris, Nysa, Erato, Bromie, and Bacche on Mount Nysa in Helicon. They cared for him in a cave and fed him honey.

Other accounts give a different restoration. In one, Dionysus was the son of Demeter, who pieced together his mangled limbs and made him young again. In Orphic accounts, the Titans boiled, roasted, and ate him, while Athena saved his still beating heart and carried it to Zeus. Zeus used the heart to beget another Dionysus by Semele. Another version says that Zeus raised Dionysus while he lay mortally wounded, or that he swallowed the heart and begot him afresh by Semele.

Cronus swallowed each child as Rhea bore it. He had been warned by Uranus and Gaia that one of his own children would overthrow him. He therefore refused to let his children survive to threaten his rule. Hestia was swallowed first, followed by Demeter, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon. Each was consumed at birth.

Rhea was Cronus’s sister and wife. She was disturbed and enraged by his actions. When she became pregnant with her sixth child, Zeus, she decided to conceal his birth. She bore him in secret, away from Cronus, and took measures to prevent him from being swallowed like the others.

Rhea gave Cronus a stone wrapped in baby clothes. He swallowed it without examining what he had been given. Zeus was taken to Crete and hidden in a cave. There, nymphs cared for him. In one account, Adrastea and Ida nursed him, while the Curetes concealed his cries by clashing their weapons. Another account names Adrastea, her sister Io, and the goat nymph Amaltheia as his nurses. Zeus was fed honey and drank Amaltheia’s milk.

The children swallowed by Cronus were the first six gods later called the Olympians. Hestia became goddess of the hearth, Hades god of the underworld, Poseidon god of the sea, and Demeter goddess of the earth. Zeus survived apart from them and later grew to maturity. The account of his birth preserves the reason for his concealment: Cronus feared that his son would fulfil the prophecy and take his place.