Odyssey magazine. - Noble Caledonia

So beautiful, mysterious
and palpably ancient did
Crete appear to the Greeks
that many believed it to
have been the birthplace
of the Gods. the island had certainly
played a key role in the childhood of
the greatest God of all: Zeus, the king
of the immortals.
according to Greek mythology, at
the time of Zeus’ birth the monarchy
of the heavens had been held by Zeus’
father, Cronus, who lived in terror of
a prophecy that one of his children
would overthrow him. accordingly,
whenever Rhea, his queen, gave birth,
he would swallow the infant whole.
Rhea, understandably upset by this
ongoing loss of her offspring, finally
decided that enough was enough.
When she gave birth to Zeus, her last
child, she did so in a cave on the side
of Mount ida, the tallest mountain on
Crete, and hid him in its tenebrous
depths. When Cronus demanded the
baby, Rhea gave him a stone wrapped
in swaddling clothes, which Cronus
duly gulped down. Meanwhile, on
Crete, Zeus was growing up.
When Zeus reached manhood,
Cronus was brought to vomit up the
still living children he had swallowed,
and these joined with Zeus in toppling
their father from his throne, hurling
him into a pit of darkness. Zeus, from
that moment on, reigned as king of
discover
crete
the heavens and earth.
even though he ruled from Mount
olympus, in the north of Greece, Zeus
did not forget his childhood island
sanctuary. four generations before
the trojan War, he changed himself
into a beautiful white bull, abducted
a princess from Phoenicia, took her to
Crete and fathered three sons with her.
the eldest, a boy called Minos, became
the greatest king of his day, ‘the lord
of many peoples, a man who holds the
sceptre of Zeus in his hands’.
long after Minos’ death, memories
of the time when Crete had ruled
the waves, and been mistress of a
great empire, were still preserved by
Greek historians. Such had been the
achievements of Minos’ reign, so
magnificent his cities, plentiful his
ships, and imperious his justice,
www.noble-caledonia.co.uk autumn/winter 2011-2012 odyssey
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