Uranos was deposed from the throne, and succeeded by his son Chronos. He
was called "the ripener, the harvest-god," and was probably identified
with the beginning of the Agricultural Period. He married his sister
Rhea, who bore him Pluto, Poseidon, Zeus, Hestia, Demeter, and Hera. He
anticipated that his sons would dethrone him, as he had dethroned his
father, Uranos, and he swallowed his first five children, and would have
swallowed the sixth child, Zeus, but that his wife Rhea deceived him
with a stone image of the child; and Zeus was conveyed to the island of
Crete, and there concealed in a cave and raised to manhood. Subsequently
Chronos "yielded back to the light the children he had swallowed." This
myth probably means that Chronos had his children raised in some secret
place, where they could not be used by his enemies as the instruments of
a rebellion against his throne; and the stone image of Zeus, palmed off
upon him by Rhea, was probably some other child substituted for his own.
His precautions seem to have been wise; for as soon as the children
returned to the light they commenced a rebellion, and drove the old
gentleman from his throne.
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