Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth

by Natalie Haynes

According to Hesiod’s Theogony, Rhea gives birth to the following children in this order: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus.2 Kronos swallows each of the first five deities, and Rhea is understandably consumed with grief. She consults her parents – Gaia and Ouranos, Earth and Heaven. They tell her to go to Crete to give birth to Zeus, the youngest of her children.3 Rhea gives birth and then plays a trick on Kronos: instead of giving him their youngest child to consume, she gives him a rock, disguised as a baby. The inability to even register the difference between a god and a rock suggests Kronos was not just a terrible father, but also an inattentive eater. He vomits up the stone and then his older children. If Zeus is the youngest of these gods – as Hesiod clearly states – then Hestia must be the eldest.