3.6.5: Zeus and Kronos (Cronos)
- Page ID
- 279497
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Finally, Hesiod comes to the birth of the Olympians who will occupy so much of mythology. Suitably, Zeus’ presence promises the most noise:
But Rhea was subject in love to Kronos and bare splendid children, Hestia, Demeter, and gold-shod Hera and strong Hades, pitiless in heart, who dwells under the earth, and the loud-crashing Earth-Shaker, and wise Zeus, father of gods and men, by whose thunder the wide earth is shaken (ll. 453-59).
However, sensing the oncoming threat, Kronos seizes each child and swallows them, except, of course, Zeus who has been stolen away by his mother to be reared in secret on the island of Crete. On the advice of her parents, Rhea gives Kronos a swaddled stone in place of the last baby which he greedily swallows, content he has mitigated the family tradition of patricide. Rhea, seeking to restore her offspring, engages Earth who coaxes Kronos into vomiting up the stone (the Omphalos or Navel Stone). At that moment, Zeus, now in full possession of his cosmic powers, defeats his father and liberates his older siblings “from their deathly bonds,” acting as a midwife of sorts, and forever earning their loyalty. Without further question, he is appointed king of the Olympians and gifted with his iconic thunder and lightning bolt.