Zeus Grown Up in a Cave


The Titans are a race of godlike giants who were the personifications of the forces of nature. They are the twelve children (six sons and six daughters) of Gaia (Mother Earth) and Uranus (the god of the sky). Each son married (or had children of) one of his sisters. Two of them were Cronus and his wife Rhea.

But Cronus was warned that one of his children would depose him. He knew the consequences, as he had overthrown his father Uranus and castrated him. So he tried to secure his rule by eating his own children. He took them immediately after birth and swallowed them whole, retaining them inside his body. He ate Demeter, Hades, Hera, Hestia, and Poseidon this way.

Cronus' wife Rhea did not want to lose all her children, and with the help of her mother Gaia, she managed to rescue one son, Zeus. She hid him in a cave on Crete and gave Cronus a stone, wrapped in the clothes of the infant, which he swallowed. Thus, Rhea succeeded in making him believe that he had killed all of his children.

The Nymphs Adrasteia and Ida raised Zeus, feeding him wild honey and milk from the divine goat Amaltheia. Adrasteia is an epithet of Rhea Cybele in her attribute of the Mother who punishes human injustice, which is a transgression of the natural right order of things. She is also called Nemesis. Other legends tell, Amaltheia suckled and raised Zeus. Some legends say, Amaltheia was a nymph, who nourished Zeus with honey and the milk of a goat. When Zeus cried, the Kourites (five Cretans) covered his cries by hitting their swords against their shields.

When Zeus reached maturity, he overpowered and dethroned his father Cronus, but first he made him disgorge his siblings. Again, there are several versions of the legend. Some tell that he compelled his father with the help of Gaia to regurgitate them. In another version his first wife Metis helped him by giving Cronus an emetic potion, which made him vomit up the children. Then Zeus led a revolt against his father and the dynasty of the titans, called Titanomachy. He defeated them in a ten-year war and placed them in Tartarus, where they are guarded for eternity by the Hecatonchires.


This tale is part of the Greek mythology and was told many times. An important version was written by Hesiod in his Theogony.

Some versions of the legend tell Zeus was born in a cave on Crete, and he sometimes has the epithet "the one born on Crete". Two caves in Crete are considered to be this place, the Dictean Cave near Psichro and the Idaian Cave at Mount Psiloritis. The cave where Zeus was risen, is also described as being a cave on Crete, on Mount Dicte. But there is also a text where he was relocated to Náxos and risen there in a cave. There are actually numerous different versions of the story, one where Zeus was born in Dictaean Andros and then fled to Idaeo Andros, one where he was born and raised in Idaeo Andros, and one where he was born and raised in Dictaean Andros.

Very interesting are several details of this story. All three generations of kings of the gods, Uranus, Cronos and Zeus were warned by an oracle that they would be overpowered by their own offspring. First, there was no alternative, there was nobody else, they had to marry their siblings because there existed no other gods. So if they are overpowered, it must be one of their children or one of the siblings. All three tried to avoid this fate by doing something stupid, and by doing so, they created the situation which caused their downfall. The only exception was actually Zeus. His first wife Metis prophesied to him that she would give birth first to a girl and afterwards to a boy, to whom the rule of the world was destined by fate. For this reason Zeus devoured her, when she was pregnant with Athena, and afterwards he himself gave birth to Athena, who issued from his head. The self-fulfilling oracle is a rather common motive in Greek mythology.