• General Notes

  NOTE:
  He was one of the 12 Titans and the youngest son of Uranus and Gaea, the personifications of heaven and earth. The first sons of his parents were the three Hecatonchires, the 100-handed, 50-headed monsters whom Uranus had imprisoned in a secret place. Gaea sought to rescue them and appealed for help from her other offspring, including the Cyclopses. Cronus alone accepted the challenge. He attacked Uranus and wounded him severely; Cronus thus became the ruler of the universe.
  
  Cronus had been warned that he would be overthrown by one of his children, and he swallowed each of his first five children as soon as it was born. Rhea, however, substituted a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes for their sixth child, Zeus. Zeus was hidden in Crete, and when he was grown, with the aid of Gaea, forced Cronus to disgorge the other five children together with the stone. The stone was later removed to Delphi. Zeus and his five brothers and sisters waged war on Cronus and the other Titans. Zeus was aided by the Hecatonchires and the Cyclopses, whom he freed from the prison where they were kept by Cronus. Cronus and the Titans were thereafter confined inTartarus, a cave in the deepest part of the underworld.
  
  The Roman counterpart of Cronus is Saturn, the god of sowing and seed. Earth, and some of the children of the 12. Often called the Elder Gods,they were for many ages the supreme rulers of the universe and were of enormous size and incredibly strong. Cronus, the most important of theTitans, ruled the universe until he was dethroned by his son Zeus, who seized power for himself. The other important Titans were Oceanus, the river that flowed around the earth; Tethys, his wife; Mnemosyne, thegoddess of memory; Themis, the goddess of divine justice; Hyperion, the father of the sun, the moon, and the dawn; Iapetus, the father of Prometheus, who created mortals; and Atlas, who carried the world on his shoulders. Of all the Titans only Prometheus and Oceanus sided with Zeus against Cronus. As a result, they were honored and the others were bound in Tartarus. Eventually, however, Zeus was reconciled with the Titans, and Cronus was made ruler of the Golden Age.
  
  "Titans," Microsoft (R)Encarta. Copyright (c) 1994 Microsoft Corporation. Copyright (c) 1994Funk & Wagnall's Corporation.
  

Details of (Ruler of the Universe) Kronos (Cronus)'s family with Rheia ??