Rheawas a mother goddess

Rhea, or Ops or Magna Mater, was a mother goddess. She was sometimes identified with the Phrgyian mother goddess, Cybele.

Rhea was one of the Titans, the children of Gaea and Uranus. She was the sister of Cronus and when he became the supreme ruler of heaven and earth, he married her, to be his consort. However the marriage was not a happy one.

When Gaea foretold that Cronus would be overthrown by one of his children, Cronus cannibalizingly swallowed each child that Rhea bore to her brother. Five successive infants were swallowed.

Fearing to lose all her children, Rhea hid her last child, a son named Zeus, in the cave of the mountain of Crete. She tricked her husband/brother by giving a stone wrapped in swaddling cloth, tricking him into swallowing the stone. With the help of his mother and grandmother, Zeus had Cronus spewed out his brothers and sisters. Eventually Zeus and his brothers defeated Cronus and most of the male Titans, confining them in Tartarus.

Rhea was responsible for the reconciliation between her children, Zeus and Demeter, giving assurance that Persephone would spend two-third of a year with her mother Demeter, and only one third with her husband Hades in Erebus (Underworld). See Demeter and Persephone about the myth of Demeter.