Rea

Rea (in greco antico: Ῥέα, Rhéa ) è un personaggio della mitologia greca, figlia di Urano (il cielo) e di Gea (la terra)

Genealogia

Sposata al fratello Crono ebbe da lui Estia, Demetra, Hera, Ade, Poseidone e Zeus.

(GRC) «τῷ δὲ σπαργανίσασα μέγαν λίθον ἐγγυάλιξεν/Οὐρανίδῃ μέγ᾽ ἄνακτι, θεῶν προτέρῳ βασιλῆι»	(IT) «A quello poi, avvolta di fasce, una grande pietra essa dette,/ al figlio d'Urano grande signore, degli dèi primi re»
(Esiodo, Teogonia, 485-6; traduzione di Graziano Arrighetti)

Genealogia (Esiodo)

Urano

Gea

Genitali di Urano

Crono

Rea

Zeus

Era

Poseidone

Ade

Demetra

Estia

Ares

Efesto

Meti

Atena

Latona

Apollo

Artemide

Maia

Ermes

Semele

Dioniso

Dione

Afrodite

Mitologia

I suoi primi cinque figli furono divorati da Crono (suo marito e loro padre), che agì in quel modo perché temeva la profezia secondo cui sarebbe stato detronizzato e vinto da uno di loro e Rea, per salvare l'ultimo dei suoi figli, chiese aiuto ai propri genitori (Urano e Gea) che per salvare l'ultimo della sua prole la mandarono sull'isola di Creta. Qui si rifugiò nella grotta di Psychro, sul Monte Ditte, ove partorì.
Dopo il parto lei ingannò Crono che, raggiuntala sull'isola per mangiare anche Zeus, ricevette da Rea una pietra avvolta in fasce anziché il bambino, pietra che lui mangiò cadendo nell'inganno.

Culto

Il giovane re asiatico Adrasto, che combatté quale alleato di Priamo nella guerra di Troia, aveva una particolare devozione per questa dea.
Nella mitologia romana, Rea fu identificata con Opi e venne definita Magna Mater deorum Idaea.
Rea, raffigurata spesso su un carro tirato da due leoni, presenta una forte associazione con Cibele, dalla quale spesso non è sempre distinguibile.

Rea che consegna a Crono una pietra al posto di Zeus

Numérisation Google - Galerie mythologique, tome 1 d'A.L. Millin
1811

Opi

Opi è una divinità arcaica romana, personificazione della terra e dispensatrice dell'abbondanza agraria.

Origini

La tradizione romana le attribuisce origini sabine, in quanto culto introdotto a Roma da Tito Tazio, il re sabino che secondo la leggenda avrebbe regnato su Roma con Romolo.
A Roma fu associata nel culto a Saturno e a Conso, forse inizialmente sposa di quest'ultimo, da cui la denominazione Consiva.
Nel latino scritto del tempo, al nominativo singolare Ops gli autori classici preferivano Opis. Secondo Sesto Pompeo Festo:

(LA) «Opis dicta est coniux Saturni per quam voluerunt terram significare, quia omnes opes humano generi terra tribuit»	(IT) «Si dice che Opi sia moglie di Saturno Tramite lei si esplica la terra, poiché la terra distribuisce tutti i beni al genere umano.»
(Sesto Pompeo Festo, 203:19)

La parola latina ops significa ricchezza, abbondanza, doni, munificenza ed è anche correlata ad opis, la quale significa lavoro, in particolare quello agrario. Tale attività poteva essere intesa come sacra ed infatti era spesso accompagnata da rituali sacri per ottenere il favore delle Divinità ctonie, come Ops, Conso e Dis Pater. Il termine Ops si confronta con il sanscrito ápnas ("beni, proprietà").

Divinità associate e parzialmente sovrapposte

Opi si distingue non sempre agevolmente da Abbondanza, la quale dispensava ricchezze non solo agrarie, nonché da Annonia, in quanto quest'ultima presiedeva esclusivamente ad una stagione, a sua volta distinta da Cerere, dea della fertilità e dei raccolti. Sempre della fertilità, ma anche femminile, era Bona Dea. Tutte e cinque si distinguevano da Tellus, la quale presiedeva tutta la terra, dalle ricchezze agrarie a quelle minerarie ed ai defunti. Tellus aveva un equivalente maschile, Dis Pater o Dite.
All'uomo moderno, Opi, Abbondanza, Annona, Cerere, Bona Dea e Tellus possono essere confuse come sei invocazioni differenti della stessa figura, che successivamente fu identificata con la anatolica Cibele, la gallica Rosmerta, nonché con le greche Demetra e Rea.
Tale molteplicità di figure si può in gran parte ricondurre al fatto che il culto romano arcaico, più che essere politeista, credeva a molte essenze di tipo divino: degli esseri invocati i fedeli non conoscevano molto più che il nome, le funzioni e il numen di questi esseri, ossia il loro potere, si manifestava in modi altamente specializzati. Poiché la coltura della terra e la raccolta delle messi occupava un ruolo centrale nella vita di allora, ne consegue l'interesse, la profusione dei riti, dei modi di invocazione e persino il numero delle figure invocate.

Culto

Le furono dedicati due santuari, uno sul Campidoglio e l'altro nel Foro, e in suo onore si celebravano le feste tradizionali degli Opiconsivia il 25 agosto e degli Opalia il 19 dicembre.
Alla sua protezione era affidato il grano mietuto e riposto nei granai. È raffigurata con una cornucopia, con del grano o con uno scettro.

Altri significati

Opi era anche una fanciulla iperborea insidiata da Orione; ma forse era soltanto un altro nome di Artemide.

Divinità romane parzialmente sovrapposte

Abbondanza
Annona
Cerere
Tellus
Bona Dea

Divinità correlate

Pomona
Conso
Saturno
Dis Pater

Divinità non romane corrispondenti

Cibele
Rosmerta
Rea
Demetra

Statua di Livia Drusilla rappresentata come Opi

sconosciuto - English Wikipedia, original upload 4 June 2004 by ChrisO

Livia Drusilla, standing marble sculpture as Ops, with wheat sheaf and cornucopia. Marble, Roman artwork, 1st century CE.

Rhea

Rhea (/ˈriːə/; Ancient Greek: Ῥέα [r̥é.aː]) 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 (their form of Cybele), and the Goddess Ops.

Etymology

Most ancient etymologists derived Rhea (Ῥέα) by metathesis from ἔρα "ground", although a tradition embodied in Plato and in Chrysippus connected the word with ῥέω (rheo), "flow", "discharge", which is what LSJ supports. Alternatively, the name Rhea may be connected with words for the pomegranate, ῥόα, later ῥοιά.
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'.

Family

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.

Mythology

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.

Cult

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's infancy and upbringing. Her cults employed rhythmic, raucous chants and dances, accompanied by the tympanon (a wide, handheld drum), 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, and it is probably true 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 in ancient times by the title Meter Theon (Mother of the Gods) and there where 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 the Meter Megale (Great Mother). Olympia had both an altar as well as a temple to the Meter Theon:

"A temple of no great size [at Olympia] in the Doric style they have called down to the present day Metroion (Temple of the Mother), keeping its ancient name. No image lies in it of the Meter Theon (Mother of the Gods), 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 [at Akriai, Lakedaimon] are a temple and marble image of the Meter Theon (Mother of the Gods). 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 (Wonderful) lies beyond the river Maloitas [in Arkadia], 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. They allow that she gave birth to her son on some part of Mount Lykaios, but they claim that here Kronos was deceived, and here took place the substitution of a stone for the child that is spoken of in the Greek legend. On the summit of the mountain is Rhea's Cave, into which no human beings may enter save only the women who are sacred to the goddess."

The center of the worship of Rhea was however on Crete, where the Ida Mountain was said to be the place of the birth of Zeus. Reportedly, there was a "House of Rhea" in Knossos:

"The Titanes had their dwelling in the land about Knosos [in Krete], at the place where even to this day men point out foundations of a house of Rhea and a cypress grove which has been consecrated to her from ancient times."

Upon the Ida Mountain, there was a cave sacred to Rhea:

"In Krete there is said to be a sacred cave full of bees. In it, as storytellers say, Rhea gave birth to Zeus; it is a sacred place an no one is to go near it, whether god or mortal. At the appointed time each year a great blaze is seen to come out of the cave. Their story goes on to say that this happens whenever the blood from the birth of Zeus begins to boil up. The sacred bees that were the nurses of Zeus occupy this cave."

Iconography

Rhea only appears in Greek art from the fourth century BC, when her iconography draws on that of Cybele; the two therefore, often are indistinguishable; both can be shown on a throne flanked by lions, riding a lion, or on a chariot drawn by two lions. In Roman religion, her counterpart Cybele was Magna Mater deorum Idaea, who was brought to Rome and was identified in Roman mythology as an ancestral Trojan deity. On a functional level, Rhea was thought equivalent to Roman Ops or Opis.

Depiction in ancient literature

In Homer, Rhea is the mother of the gods, although not a universal mother like Cybele, the Phrygian Great Mother, with whom she was later identified.
In the Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes, the fusion of Rhea and Phrygian Cybele is completed. "Upon the Mother depend the winds, the ocean, the whole earth beneath the snowy seat of Olympus; whenever she leaves the mountains and climbs to the great vault of heaven, Zeus himself, the son of Cronus, makes way, and all the other immortal gods likewise make way for the dread goddess," the seer Mopsus tells Jason in Argonautica; Jason climbed to the sanctuary high on Mount Dindymon to offer sacrifice and libations to placate the goddess, so that the Argonauts might continue on their way. For her temenos they wrought an image of the goddess, a xoanon, from a vine-stump. There "they called upon the mother of Dindymon, mistress of all, the dweller in Phrygia, and with her Titias and Kyllenos who alone of the many Cretan Daktyls of Ida are called 'guiders of destiny' and 'those who sit beside the Idaean Mother'." They leapt and danced in their armour: "For this reason the Phrygians still worship Rhea with tambourines and drums".

Descendants

Descendants of Cronus and Rhea

Uranus' genitals

Cronus

RHEA

Zeus

Hera

Poseidon

Hades

Demeter

Hestia

Ares

Hephaestus

Metis

Athena

Leto

Apollo

Artemis

Maia

Hermes

Semele

Dionysus

Dione

Aphrodite

Modern namesakes

The name of the bird species Rhea is derived from the goddess name Rhea.
Rhea, the second largest moon of the planet Saturn is named after her.

Rhea or Cybele, drawing of a marble relief (1888)

Ops

In ancient Roman religion, Ops or Opis (Latin: "Plenty") was a fertility deity and earth goddess of Sabine origin.

Mythology

In Ops' statues and coins, she is figured sitting down, as Chthonian deities normally are, and generally holds a scepter, or a corn spray and cornucopia. The husband of Ops was Saturn. In Roman mythology, and in Greek mythology where Ops is identified as Rhea, her husband was Cronus, the bountiful monarch of the golden age. Cronus was Rhea's husband and brother.
In Latin writings of the time, the singular nominative (Ops) is not used; only the form Opis is attested by classical authors. According to Festus (203:19), "Ops is said to be the wife of Saturn and the daughter of Caelus. By her they designated the earth, because the earth distributes all goods to the human genus" (Opis dicta est coniux Saturni per quam uolerunt terram significare, quia omnes opes humano generi terra tribuit). The Latin word ops means "riches, goods, abundance, gifts, munificence, plenty". The word is also related to opus, which means "work", particularly in the sense of "working the earth, ploughing, sowing".^{[citation needed]} This activity was deemed sacred, and was often attended by religious rites intended to obtain the good will of chthonic deities such as Ops and Consus. Ops is also related to the Sanskrit word ápnas ("goods, property").
According to Roman tradition, the cult of Opis was instituted by Titus Tatius, one of the Sabine kings of Rome. Opis soon became the matron of riches, abundance, and prosperity. Opis had a famous temple in the Capitolium. Originally, a festival took place in Opis' honor on August 10. Additionally, on December 19 (some say December 9), the Opalia was celebrated. On August 25, the Opiconsivia was held. Opiconsivia was another name used for Opis, indicating when the earth was sown. These festivals also included activities that were called Consualia, in honor of Consus, her consort.
Opis, when syncretized with Greek mythology, was not only the wife of Saturn, she was his sister and the daughter of Caelus. Her children were Jupiter, Neptune, Pluto, Juno, Ceres, and Vesta.^{[citation needed]} Opis also acquired queenly status and was reputed to be an eminent goddess. By public decree temples, priests, and sacrifices were accorded her.
When Saturn learned of a prophecy that stated his and Opis' children would end up overthrowing him as leader, he ate his children one by one after they were born. Opis, being the loving mother that she was, could not just stand by and let all of her children be eaten by her husband. So, instead of feeding Saturn their final child Jupiter, she wrapped a rock in swaddling clothes, and fed that to Saturn instead of Jupiter. Opis then went on to raise Jupiter, and then helped him free his siblings from their father's stomach.

Opi o Abbondanza, non distinguibili in quanto dalla cornucopia fuoriescono solo frutti della terra. Pieter Paul Rubens, 1630 circa, Museo nazionale d'arte occidentale, Tokyo

Rhea a cavallo di un leone, sul Pergamon Altar di Berlino

Claus Ableiter - Opera propria

Pergamonnmuseum Berlin, Pergamonaltar, Gigantomachie, Rhea reitet auf einem Löwen, Rhea rides on a lion, Andrasteia (?)

Opi rappresentata su un Denario rappresentata con gli stessi attributi di Cerere, ma distinguibile dalla scritta a lato

J-A. Hild, art. Ops, in C. Daremberg - E. Saglio (edd.), Le Dictionnaire des Antiquités Grecques et Romaines, IV.1, Parijs, (1919), p. 380.

OPI DIVIN TR P COS II, Ops seated left, holding two corn ears, left hand on top of throne. RIC 8a, RSC 33a. (munt van Pertinax, Ar Denarius)

Statue der Rhea im Barockgarten Großsedlitz

Le livre des échecs amoureux moralisés, c.1401, Evrart de Conty; detail: Saturn devouring his own children, holding his symbolic attribute of a scythe. (gallica.bnf.fr) Français 143, f.28r, Bibliothèque nationale de France Júpiter castrando a Saturno, Ops (diosa de la plenitud) repartiendo pan a los pobres , Saturno-Kronos devorando a sus propios hijos. «La castración vuelve a los hombres mucho menos propensos a vagar o pelear, previene el cáncer testicular, y reduce el riesgo de cáncer de próstata»

Robinet Testard

Barockgarten großsedlitz 2

Ops. Miniature extraite de la collection De mulieribus claris de Boccace.

sconosciuto - Bibliothèque nationale de France (BNF). Cote : Français 599, Folio 7.

XVe-XVIe siècle

Composition for Rhea, c1920-25 Oil on canvas, signed and inscribed on stretcher verso, Sketch for Rhea/ R C W Bunny, 52 x 75 cm

Rupert Bunny

Sala di opi, trionfo di opi, di vasari, c. gherardi e marco da faenza 2.

Palazzo Vecchio - Firenze

Sailko - Opera propria

Corvinus University of Budapest, west facade, Hephaestus, Rhea statues, 2016 Budapest

Globetrotter19 - Opera propria

Elsa Dax. Rhea and Chronos

the Goddess Ops by G. Palmer

Title: Manual of mythology : Greek and Roman, Norse, and old German, Hindoo and Egyptian mythology Year: 1875 (1870s) Authors: Murray, A. S. (Alexander Stuart), 1841-1904 Subjects: Mythology Publisher: New York : Scribner, Armstrong Contributing Library: New York Public Library

Text Appearing After Image: Rhea. KRONOS. 29 K R O N O S, (plate I.,) The ripencr, the harvest god, was, as we have already re-marked, a son of Uranos. That he continued for a long timeto be identified with the Roman deity, Saturnus, is a mis-take which recent research has set right, and accordingly weshall devote a separate chapter to each. Uranos, deposedfrom the throne of the gods, was succeeded by Kronos, whomarried his own sister Rhea, a daughter of Gaea, who borehim Pluto, Poseidon (Neptune), and Zeus (Jupiter),Hestia (Vesta), Demeter (Ceres), and Hera (Juno). Toprevent the fulfilment of a prophecy Svhich had been commu-nicated to him by his parents, that, like his father, he toowould be dethroned by his youngest born, Kronos swallowedhis first five children apparently as each came into the world.But when the sixth child appeared, Rhea, his wife, determinedto save it, and succeeded in duping her husband by givinghim a stone (perhaps rudely hewn intc? the figure of an infant)wrapped in swaddling clothes