In Greek Mythology, the first generation Titans were celestial descendants of Uranus and Gaia. Cronus was their leader and also the youngest of them. He ruled during the Golden Age after overthrowing his father. He was later overthrown by Zeus, his son, who imprisoned him in Tartarus. However, it is important to note that according to Plato the parents of Cronus were Oceanus and Tethys. Cronus was often shown with a sickle or a scythe, which he used to overthrow his father Uranus. He had also been associated with Saturn, the Roman deity.
CRONUS OVERTHROWS HIS FATHER
In an ancient myth, Cronus envied the power of his father Uranus, who was the ruler of the entire universe. Uranus angered Gaia, Cronus’s mother when he hid her youngest children, Hecatoncheires, who had a hundred hands and the one-eyed cyclopes. He hid them in Tartarus so that they wouldn’t see the light.
Gaia made a big sickle out of stone, called Cronus and his brothers, and attempted to persuade them to castrate Uranus. Cronus was the only one who accepted and she gave him the sickle and they set up an ambush. When Uranus met with Gaia, Cronus attacked him with the sickle. He castrated Uranus and threw his testicles into the sea.
Cronus and Rhea, his elder sister, took the throne of the world as king and queen. The period in which Cronus ruled was named the Golden Age. The people then did not need rules or laws. Everyone did the right thing, and immorality was absent.
CRONUS AND HIS SONS
Cronus learned from Uranus and Gaia that he would one day be dethroned by his sons the same way he had overthrown his father. As a result, he devoured all the gods he sired by Rhea as soon as they were born to prevent the prophecy. When Zeus was born, Rhea sought Gaia to come up with a plan to save them and to eventually get vengeance on Cronus for his acts against his father and children.
Rhea gave birth to Zeus secretly in Crete. She handed Cronus a stone wrapped in clothing, which he swallowed hurriedly, thinking it was his son. Rhea hid Zeus in a cave on Mount Ida. Some versions of the story have him being raised by a goat named Amalthea. Other versions of the myth exist where Zeus was raised by the nymph Adamanthea in some, and in others by his grandmother, Gaia.
Zeus dethrones Cronus
Once he had grown up, Zeus was given an emetic by Gaia. He used it to force Cronus to expel the contents of his stomach; first the stone, and then his two brothers and three sisters. In other versions of the tale, Metis gave Cronus an emetic to force him to disgorge the children.
After liberating his siblings, Zeus freed the Hecatoncheires and the Cyclopes who forged for him his thunderbolts, Hades’ helmet of darkness, and Poseidon’s trident. In a vast war called the Titanomachy, Zeus and his older brothers and sisters overthrew Cronus and the other Titans, with the help of the Hecatoncheires and Cyclopes. Afterward, many of the Titans were confined in Tartarus.
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After Cronus was dethroned by Zeus, he cursed him to suffer the same fate. Zeus was however warned in time by Prometheus. He avoided a union with Thetis who would have born the child destined to overthrow him.
Accounts of the fate of Cronus after the Titanomachy differ with one where he is imprisoned with the other Titans and another where he is imprisoned for eternity in the cave of Nyx. All in all, his reign ended by the hand of his son as prophecied. Over time he was identified with several gods including the Phoenician god of time El Olam and with Saturn by the Romans.