The droves of kine and wide herds of goats and
 flocks of fleecy sheep, if she will, she increases from a few, or
 makes many to be less. So, then, albeit her mother's only child, Van Lennep explains that Hecate,
 having no brothers to support her claim, might have been
 slighted. she is honored amongst all the deathless
 gods. And the son of Cronos
 made her a nurse of the young who after that day saw with their eyes
 the light of all-seeing Dawn. So from the beginning she is a nurse of
 the young, and these are her honors.
 

 
 But Rhea was subject in love to Cronos and bore splendid children,
 Hestia, The goddess of the hearth (the Roman Vesta ), and so of the house. Cp. Homeric Hymns v. 22 ff.; XXIX. 1 ff. Demeter, and
 gold-shod Hera and strong Hades,
 pitiless in heart, who dwells under the earth, and the loud-crashing
 Earth-Shaker, and wise Zeus, father of gods and men, by whose thunder
 the wide earth is shaken. These great Cronos swallowed as
 each came forth from the
 womb to his mother's knees with this intent, that no other of the
 proud sons of Heaven should hold the kingly office amongst the
 deathless gods. For he learned from Earth and starry Heaven that he
 was destined to be overcome by his own son, strong though he was, through the contriving of
 great Zeus. The variant reading
 “of his father” ( sc. Heaven) rests on inferior MS. authority and is
 probably an alteration due to the difficulty stated by a
 Scholiast: “How could Zeus, being not yet begotten, plot
 against his father?” The phrase is, however, part of the
 prophecy. The whole line may well be spurious, and is rejected by
 Heyne, Wolf, Gaisford and Guyet. Therefore he kept no blind
 outlook, but watched and swallowed down his children: and unceasing
 grief seized Rhea. But when she was about to bear Zeus, the father of
 gods and men,