Rhadamanthus, the
son of Zeus and Europa and the brother of Minos, king of Crete. According
to Homer, Rhadamanthus dwelt in Elysium. Later legends report that, respected
for his judgment and probity, he was made one of the three judges of the
underworld.
Rhea , mother of the gods,
a Titan, the daughter of Uranus and Gaea, Heaven and Earth, and the sister
and wife of the Titan Cronus. For many ages, Cronus and Rhea ruled the
universe. Cronus, having been warned that one of their children was destined
to seize his throne, tried to avert this fate by swallowing his offspring
as soon as they were born. After the birth of her sixth child, the god
Zeus, Rhea outwitted her husband by giving him a stone wrapped in swaddling
clothes, which he swallowed, thinking it was the baby. In the meantime,
she had hidden the child in Crete. Later, when Zeus was grown, he forced
his father to disgorge the stone, along with the five other children who
had been born to Rhea: Poseidon, god of the sea; Hades, god of the dead;
Demeter, goddess of the earth; Hestia, goddess of the hearth; and Hera,
goddess of marriage, who became the wife of Zeus. In Roman mythology, Rhea
was identified with Cybele, the great mother of the gods.
