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The birth of Zeus

LYKTOS (Ancient city) KASTELI
  When she (Rhea) was about to bear Zeus, the father of gods and men, then she besought her own dear parents, Earth and starry Heaven, to devise some plan with her that the birth of her dear child might be concealed, and that retribution might overtake great, crafty Cronos for his own father and also for the children whom he had swallowed down. And they readily heard and obeyed their dear daughter, and told her all that was destined to happen touching Cronos the king and his stout-hearted son. So they sent her to Lyctus, to the rich land of Crete, when she was ready to bear great Zeus, the youngest of her children. Him did vast Earth receive from Rhea in wide Crete to nourish and to bring up. To that place came Earth carrying him swiftly through the black night to Lyctus first, and took him in her arms and hid him in a remote cave beneath the secret places of the holy earth on thick-wooded Mount Aegeum; but to the mightily ruling son of Heaven, the earlier king of the gods, she gave a great stone wrapped in swaddling clothes. Then he took it in his hands and thrust it down into his belly: wretch! he knew not in his heart that in place of the stone his son was left behind, unconquered and untroubled, and that he was soon to overcome him by force and might and drive him from his honors, himself to reign over the deathless gods.

This extract is from: Hesiod, Theogony. Cited Nov 2003 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains comments & interesting hyperlinks.

• http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=...

Lyctus

Lyctus (Luktos), a son of Lycaon, and the mythical founder of the ancient town of Lyctos in Crete. (Hom. Il. ii. 647; Eustath. ad Hom.; Steph. Byz. s. v.)

• http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Per...