She is the older sister of Cronus, who was also her consort, and the mother of the five eldest Olympian gods (Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Poseidon, and Zeus) and Hades, king of the underworld.

When Rhea had her sixth and final child, Zeus, she spirited him away and hid him in Crete, giving Cronus a rock to swallow instead, thus saving her youngest son who would go on to challenge his father's rule and rescue the rest of his siblings.

Some ancient etymologists derived Rhea (Ῥέα) (by metathesis) from ἔρα (éra, 'ground', 'earth');[2] the same is suggested also by modern scholars,[3] such as Robert Graves.

[9][10][11] Rhea is the sister of the Titans (Oceanus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus, Coeus, Themis, Theia, Phoebe, Tethys, Mnemosyne, Cronus, and sometimes Dione), the Cyclopes, the Hecatoncheires, the Giants, the Meliae, and the Erinyes; and the half-sister of Aphrodite (in some versions), Typhon, Python, Pontus, Thaumas, Phorcys, Nereus, Eurybia, and Ceto.

[14] Rhea was born to the earth goddess Gaia and the sky god Uranus, one of their twelve (or thirteen[15]) Titan children.

With the help of Gaia, the youngest child, Cronus, overthrew his father, became king in his place, freed his siblings, and took his sister Rhea to wife.

[18] Gaia and Uranus told Cronus that just as he had overthrown his own father and become ruler of the cosmos, he was destined to be overcome by his own child; so as each of his children was born, he swallowed them.

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.

[21] In an obscure version, attested only on the east frieze of a temple at Lagina, the goddess of crossroads Hecate assisted Rhea in saving Zeus from his father.

[citation needed] Following Zeus's ascension, Rhea withdrew from spotlight as she was no longer queen of gods, but remained an ally of her children and their families.

Rhea (or Cybele[35]), remembering that those hulls had been crafted from trees felled on her holy mountains, transformed the vessels into sea nymphs.

Her cults employed rhythmic, raucous chants and dances, accompanied by the tympanon (a wide, handheld drum), to provoke a religious ecstasy.

[43][failed verification] 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,[44] Megalopolis in Arkadia,[45] on the Acropolis of Ancient Corinth,[46] and in the district of Keramaikos in Athens, where the statue was made by Pheidias.

In Roman religion, her counterpart Cybele was Magna Mater deorum Idaea, who was brought to Rome and was identified in as an ancestral Trojan deity.

"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.