Kronos went down in history as one of the great titans who overthrew his father in order to take possession of the throne. In marriage with the goddess Rhea produced the future great gods of Olympus: Zeus, Hestia, Demeter, Poseidon, Aida and Hera . The oracle predicted to the lord that he would be overthrown by his son. To maintain power, Kronos began to devour his children.
Who is Kronos?
Kronos' father was the supreme god by myths, Uranus had a cruel character and great strength, his first children - hundreds of handful of fifty-headed hecatonhaires and three cyclops - he was imprisoned in Tartarus. Therefore, Kronos - the god of time - decided to take power into his own hands and take his place on the throne. Gae's mother helped him rescue the Titans and gave him a diamond sword. Together with his brothers and sisters Cron defeated his father, took the throne and married his sister - Titanide Ray. The titans and hecatoncheirs who helped him were again imprisoned in Tartarus.
The sign of Kronos
The sign of the god of time is called a clock, but in fact this role was played by the sickle of Kronos. With this tool, made of diamond, he scolded the former ruler of the sky of Uranus, that he never again produced children - possible rivals in the struggle for the throne. Killing his children Kronos became a symbol of time, which creates and destroys. They portrayed him in a hood, with wings on his back and a sickle in his hand, each object had its own symbolic meaning:
- The hood personified the autumn exhaustion of the power of the Sun;
- The wings reminded of the fast current time;
- the sickle showed the inevitability, the impossibility of changing anything in time.
Kronos - Mythology
Although the god Kronos in Greek mythology was called the lord of the "golden age", a time when people felt equal to the gods, he became more famous, as the father of the supreme god Olympus, Zeus. Mother Gaea predicted to Kron that his son would overthrow him, and from that moment the children of Kronos and Rhea were doomed. Vladyka swallowed them right after birth. Only Zeus managed to save the mother by slipping a stolen stone on her husband.
Rastili kid secretly on the island of Crete, according to legend, his divine goat Amalfeus nurtured. They guarded the boy with the kurts so that Kron would not hear them, these warriors would strike the shields when the child cried. Growing up, Zeus decided to overthrow his father and called for help from the cyclops, this war lasted 10 years. This time, when Zeus was fighting against Kronos, the earth was shaking and burning, they called it a titanomachia. Only after a long confrontation the future Thunderer ventured to withdraw from the Tartar hecatonheir, which helped to defeat the supreme titan. But how was it possible to free the children who had been swallowed earlier by Kronos?
Zeus asked the daughter of the Ocean to help the Titanide Methid, and she gave the young god a magic potion. When he was mixed in drinking Crohn, he began to spew everything swallowed earlier. The liberated children became the gods of Olympus:
- Hestia;
- Demeter;
- Poseidon;
- Hades;
- Hera.
Kronos and Rhea
The wife of Rhea Kronos was considered the goddess of the Earth and fertility, motherhood, abundance, in many ways, thanks to her, people during the reign of the Crown lived without grief and labor. There is a version that this name means "paradise, Irius", which reigned in the world. Homer mentioned Ray as a goddess, who lives at ease in the streams of time, accompanying people from birth to death. Wanting to free all of her children, she persuaded the Titans and Hecatonhaires to rebel against Crohn, risked saving Zeus and gave him a weapon against the titan. The ancient Thracians gave this goddess a few more names:
- Bendis;
- Cotis;
- Hecate.
The myth of Kronos and his children
Why did Kronos eat his children and not destroy them? The researchers tried to find the answer to this question, and they came to the conclusion that Kron could not deprive immortal beings of life, but only imprison them in a cocoon of eternity-in himself. This gesture became the symbol of all-consuming time: the children of Kronos are born and destroyed by him. After Gaia's mother predicted the overthrow of Kronos at the hands of her own son, he decided to devour them so that no one could release the children of the ruler of the sky.
Who killed Kronos?
Kronos and Zeus fought for power, but the researchers believe that the rebellious son tried to put an end to the frenzy of cosmic elements and bring order to the earth. Therefore, he removed all the titans under the earth, and put the Hecatonhaires in charge of the prisoners. Myths say that Zeus defeated his father in battle and imprisoned in Tartarus, but the orphics put forward other versions:
- The Thunderer chafed Kronos with honey and castrated, then sent to Tartarus.
- Zeus defeated the ruler of the cosmos in battle, but sent not to Tartarus, but to an island on the edge of the earth, beyond the ocean, where only the dead lived.
Myths preserved the tale of the seed of the god Kronos. From different sources and other beliefs, two versions were compiled:
- The seed of God was originally stored in an egg made of silver, in a time secret. From it were born, and the Earth, and the first generation of the gods, in some of the legends of Kronos is also called the Dragon-Serpent.
- Seed Krohn kept in a secret place Zeus after the overthrow of his father's titan. From this stock was born later the goddess of beauty Aphrodite .