Editing Rhea (mythology) (section)

== Cult ==
{{Ancient Greek religion}}
Rhea had "no strong local cult or identifiable activity under her control."<ref name=":1" /> 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 [[Tympanum (hand drum)|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.<ref name=":1" />

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 the wilds of Phrygia to escape Cronus.<ref>Roller, Lynn E., [https://books.google.com/books?id=dXQkDQAAQBAJ ''In Search of God the Mother: The Cult of Anatolian Cybele,'' University of California Press], 1999. [https://books.google.com/books?id=dXQkDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA171 p. 171]. See also [[Strabo]], ''[[Geographica]]'' [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/10C*.html 10.3].</ref>{{failed verification|reason=Neither Roller nor Strabo say Rhea fled from Crete to Phrygia, whether to escape Cronus or otherwise|date=January 2024}}

Rhea was often referred to as ''Meter Theon'' ("Mother of the Gods") and there were 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,<ref>[[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]]. ''Description of Greece,'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Paus.+1.31.1&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160:book=1:chapter=31&highlight=Mother 1.31.1].</ref> [[Megalopolis, Greece|Megalopolis]] in [[Arcadia (region)|Arkadia]],<ref>Pausanias. ''Description of Greece,'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Paus.+8.30.5&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160:book=8:chapter=30&highlight=Mother 8.30.5].</ref> on the Acropolis of Ancient Corinth,<ref>Pausanias. ''Description of Greece,'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Paus.+2.4.7&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160:book=2:chapter=4&highlight=Mother 2.4.7].</ref> and in the district of Keramaikos in Athens, where the statue was made by Pheidias.<ref>Pausanias. ''Description of Greece,'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Paus.+1.3.5&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160:book=1:chapter=3&highlight=Mother 1.3.5].</ref> In Sparta there was furthermore a sanctuary to ''Meter Megale'' ("[the] Great Mother").<ref>Pausanias. ''Description of Greece,'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Paus.+3.12.9&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160:book=3:chapter=12&highlight=Great 3.12.9].</ref> Olympia had both an altar<ref>Pausanias. ''Description of Greece,'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Paus.+5.14.9&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160:book=5:chapter=14&highlight=Mother 5.14.9].</ref> and 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.<ref>Pausanias. ''Description of Greece,'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Paus.+5.20.9&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160:book=5:chapter=20&highlight=Mother 5.20.9].</ref>

Her temple in [[Akriai]], Lakedaimon, was said to be her oldest sanctuary in the [[Peloponnese]]:
: 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 Peloponnesus.<ref>Pausanias. ''Description of Greece,'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Paus.+3.22.4&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160:book=3:chapter=22&highlight=Mother 3.22.4].</ref>

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.<ref>Pausanias. ''Description of Greece'', [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Paus.+4.31.6&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160:book=4:chapter=31&highlight=Mother 4.31.6].</ref> 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<ref>Pausanias. ''Description of Greece'', [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Paus.+9.41.6&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.01600:book=4:chapter=31&highlight=Rhea 9.41.6].</ref> 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.<ref>Pausanias. ''Description of Greece,'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Paus.+8.36.2&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160:book=8:chapter=36&highlight=Rhea 8.36.2].</ref>

The center of the worship of Rhea was however on Crete, where Mount Ida was said to be the birthplace 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.<ref>Diodorus Siculus, ''[[Bibliotheca Historica]],'' [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/5D*.html#64 5.65].</ref>

Upon Mount Ida, there was a cave sacred to Rhea:
: In Crete 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 and 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.<ref name=":0">[[Antoninus Liberalis]], ''Metamorphoses'' [https://topostext.org/work/216#19 19].</ref>