The earth goddess Gaia and the sky god Uranus gave birth to Rhea as one of their twelve or thirteen Titan children. She grew up alongside her siblings including Oceanus Crius Hyperion Iapetus Coeus Themis Theia Phoebe Tethys Mnemosyne and Cronus.
Rhea hid her youngest son Zeus in a cave on Mount Ida on the island of Crete to save him from being swallowed by Cronus. Her attendants the warrior-like Kouretes and Dactyls acted as bodyguards for the infant Zeus helping to conceal his whereabouts from his father.
Some ancient etymologists derived the name Rhea from words meaning ground or earth through metathesis while other roots have been suggested by modern scholarship but Hjalmar Frisk considers a convincing etymology to be lacking. A different tradition embodied in Plato's Cratylus and in Chrysippus connected the word with flow or discharge.
The center of the worship of Rhea was however on Crete where Mount Ida was said to be the birthplace of Zeus. Reportedly there was a House of Rhea in Knossos at the place where even to this day men point out foundations of a house of Rhea and a cypress grove which has been consecrated to her from ancient times.
Rhea only appears in Greek art from the fourth century BC when her iconography draws on that of Cybele so the two are often indistinguishable. Both can be shown wearing a crown either a Mural crown or a Polos seated on a throne flanked by lions riding a lion and on a chariot drawn by two lions.