0313ANCIENTCronusOlympians

0313ANCIENTCronusOlympians_Roman

ogcma@byu

ClCv241

Mastery

MythMatters

National Gallery
Ovid Met.6.146-312

Rhea offers Cronus a Stone, ca. 160 A.D., Roman marble relief

ML page 72

Ancient Roman relief depicting a veiled woman presenting a swaddled infant to a seated, bearded, bare-chested man

To avoid overthrow, Cronus devoured his offspring at birth. Here Rhea dupes Cronus into devouring a stone rather than her prodigious offspring.

To conceal baby Zeus, Rhea had entrusted the child to Amalthea, the goat, for nursing in the custody of the nymphs on Mt. Dicte. While Cronus digested this lithic baby, Zeus grew up for overthrow. The Titanomachy began with the Titan's disgorging the other Olympians.

OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University.
The present resource contains information assembled for The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1400 – 1990’s, edited by J. Davidson Reid (Oxford 1994), and it is used with express permission from Oxford University Press.
Address concerns or inquiries to macfarlane@byu.edu.