Myth Library · Local Birth And Concealment
Rhea Hides Poseidon in Arcadia
1 source witness · 1 source-scoped variant · reviewed 2026-08-30
An Arcadian tradition gives Poseidon a separate rescue: Rhea hides the newborn among lambs and makes Cronus swallow a foal instead.
Canonical narrative
Near Mantineia, Pausanias stops at a spring called Arne and reports what the Arcadians said about Poseidon’s birth. Rhea gives birth to the god and lays him among lambs so that he can remain beyond Cronus’ reach. The spring takes its name from the flock. When Cronus comes demanding the child, Rhea offers him a foal and he swallows the animal in the infant’s place.
The local tale changes the better-known succession sequence at its center. In Hesiod, Cronus swallows Poseidon with four older siblings, and only Zeus escapes through the wrapped stone. Here Rhea rescues Poseidon too. The substitution is not a stone but a living foal, and the hiding place is an Arcadian flock rather than the Cretan refuge attached to Zeus.
Pausanias does not force these versions together. His travel account preserves a story rooted in spring, pasture, and regional memory. Rhea remains the intelligence of the rescue, arranging concealment and confronting Cronus with a substitute. The foal belongs to this Arcadian birth story. It does not make foals, lambs, or the spring universal emblems of Rhea.
Episodes in this myth
Episode 2
Cronus swallows the foal
Rhea gives Cronus a foal in place of the hidden child, and the father consumes the substitute.
Participants and roles
Rhea
hides her newborn son among lambs and gives Cronus a foal instead
She performs both concealment and substitution in the Arcadian account.Poseidon
newborn hidden within the flock until Cronus leaves
His survival here differs from Hesiod’s swallowed-sibling sequence.Cronus
demands the child and swallows the substituted foal
The animal substitute satisfies his fear in this local story.Foal
living substitute swallowed in the newborn Poseidon’s place
The foal belongs to this Arcadian telling and is not a universal sacred animal.Source-scoped variants
Arcadian foal substitution
Rhea saves Poseidon among lambs and gives Cronus a foal, rather than allowing Poseidon to be swallowed.
What differs: The Arcadian account rescues Poseidon independently and replaces Hesiod’s stone with a foal for this birth, leaving only the local witness to control the change.
Greek Roman Imperial · ArcadiaSource witnesses
EXPLICIT PRIMARY · Reviewed
Description of Greece
Pausanias; Spiro Greek edition and Jones/Ormerod translation volumes · 1935
Entry Description of Greece · Book 8 · Chapter 8 · Section 2
Pausanias preserves the spring, lamb concealment, and foal substitution as an Arcadian account.
Open reviewed source