Ops, Rhea. Rhea is a character in Greek mythology, the Titaness daughter of the earth goddess Gaia and the sky god Uranus as well as sister and wife to Cronus. 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, but not as an Olympian goddess in her own right. The Romans identified her with Magna Mater, and the Goddess Ops. Some ancient etymologists derived Rhea from, ground; the same suggest also modern scholars, although a tradition embodied in Plato and in Chrysippus connected the word with, flow, discharge, which is what LSJ supports. Alternatively, the name Rhea may be connected with words for the pomegranate, later. The name Rhea may ultimately derive from a pre-Greek or Minoan source. Graves suggested that Rhea's name is probably a variant of Era, earth. According to Hesiod, Cronus sired six children by Rhea: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus in that order. The philosopher Plato recounts that Rhea, Cronus and Phorcys were the eldest children of Oceanus and Tethys. 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. Rhea had no strong local cult or identifiable activity under her control. 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, to provoke a religious ecstasy. Her priests impersonated her mythical attendants, the Curetes and Dactyls, with a clashing of bronze shields and cymbals. 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. A reverse view was expressed by Virgil, that cultural contacts with the mainland brought Cybele to Crete, where she was transformed into Rhea or identified with an existing local goddess and her rites. Rhea was often referred to as Meter Theon 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, Megalopolis in Arkadia, on the Acropolis of Ancient Corinth, and in the district of Keramaikos in Athens, where the statue was made by Pheidias. In Sparta there was further more a sanctuary to Meter Megale. Olympia had both an altar as well as a temple to the Meter Theon: A temple of no great size in the Doric style they have called down to the present day Metroion, keeping its ancient name. No image lies in it of the Meter Theon, but there stand in it statues of Roman emperors. Her temple in Akriai, Lakedaimon was said to be her oldest sanctuary in Peloponessos: Well worth seeing here are a temple and marble image of the Meter Theon. The people of Akriai say that this is the oldest sanctuary of this goddess in the Peloponessos. 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. 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 as well as on Mount Thaumasios in Arcadia, both of which were holy places: Mount Thaumasios lies beyond the river Maloitas, 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.