Amalthea. In Greek mythology, Amaltheia is the most-frequently mentioned foster-mother of Zeus.
The name Amaltheia, in Greek tender goddess, is clearly an epithet, signifying the presence of an earlier nurturing goddess, whom the Hellenes, whose myths we know, knew to be located in Crete, where Minoans may have called her a version of Dikte. There were different traditions regarding Amaltheia.
Amaltheia is sometimes represented as the goat who nurtured the infant-god in a cave in Cretan Mount Aigaion, sometimes as a goat-tending nymph of uncertain parentage. The possession of multiple and uncertain mythological parents indicates wide worship of a deity in many cultures having varying local traditions.
Other names, like Adrasteia, Ide, the nymph of Mount Ida, or Adamanthea, which appear in mythology handbooks, are simply duplicates of Amaltheia. In the tradition represented by Hesiod's Theogony, Cronus swallowed all of his children immediately after birth.
The mother goddess Rhea, Zeus' mother, deceived her brother consort Cronus by giving him a stone wrapped to look like a baby instead of Zeus. Since she instead gave the infant Zeus to Adamanthea to nurse in a cave on a mountain in Crete, it is clear that Adamanthea is a doublet of Amalthea. In many literary references, the Greek tradition relates that in order that Cronus should not hear the wailing of the infant, Amalthea gathered abou
The name Amaltheia, in Greek tender goddess, is clearly an epithet, signifying the presence of an earlier nurturing goddess, whom the Hellenes, whose myths we know, knew to be located in Crete, where Minoans may have called her a version of Dikte. There were different traditions regarding Amaltheia.
Amaltheia is sometimes represented as the goat who nurtured the infant-god in a cave in Cretan Mount Aigaion, sometimes as a goat-tending nymph of uncertain parentage. The possession of multiple and uncertain mythological parents indicates wide worship of a deity in many cultures having varying local traditions.
Other names, like Adrasteia, Ide, the nymph of Mount Ida, or Adamanthea, which appear in mythology handbooks, are simply duplicates of Amaltheia. In the tradition represented by Hesiod's Theogony, Cronus swallowed all of his children immediately after birth.
The mother goddess Rhea, Zeus' mother, deceived her brother consort Cronus by giving him a stone wrapped to look like a baby instead of Zeus. Since she instead gave the infant Zeus to Adamanthea to nurse in a cave on a mountain in Crete, it is clear that Adamanthea is a doublet of Amalthea. In many literary references, the Greek tradition relates that in order that Cronus should not hear the wailing of the infant, Amalthea gathered abou
Wikipedia ...