Cronos

The deities Cronos (also spelled Cronus or Kronos/Kronus) and his wife Rhea were the rulers of the world in the Golden Age.

Cronos was the youngest of the first-generation Titans and the father of the gods and goddesses of Mt. Olympus. The first-generation Titans were children of Earth and Sky. Earth was known as Gaia and Sky as Ouranos or Uranus. The Titans weren't the only children of Gaia and Ouranos. There were also the 100-handers or Hecatoncheires and the Cyclopes. These brothers of the Titans Ouranos had imprisoned in the Underworld in the place of torment known as Tartarus (Tartaros).

Gaia was not happy that so many of her children had been locked up in Tartarus, so she asked the 12 Titans if they would help her out. Only Cronos was willing. Gaia gave him a sickle with which to castrate his father. Cronos obliged. Once castrated, Ouranos was no longer fit to rule, so the Titans awarded the rule to Cronos. Cronos freed the Hecatoncheires and Cyclopes, but then re-imprisoned them.

The Titans brothers and sisters married each other. The two humanoid Titans, Rhea and Cronos, married and produced the gods and goddesses of Mt. Olympus. Cronos was told that he would be deposed by his son, just as he had deposed his father. Cronos, determined to prevent this, swallowed the children Rhea gave birth to. When Zeus was about to be born, Rhea gave her husband a stone wrapped in swaddling to swallow, which is hard to believe since Cronos was supposed to be a smart Titan. Rhea then raced to Crete to give birth. Zeus was raised there safely.

Cronos, induced to take an emetic, vomited out the children he had swallowed. They, the gods and goddesses, got together with those gods like Zeus who hadn't been swallowed, to fight the Titans. As with most myths there are variations. One has Gaia giving Cronos a horse to swallow in place of the sea and horse god Poseidon, so Poseidon, like Zeus, grew up safely. The battle between gods and Titans was called the Titanomachy. The battle lasted a long time until Zeus freed his uncles the Hecatoncheires and Cyclopes from Tartarus. Zeus and company won and the Titans were shackled and imprisoned in Tartarus.

Zeus released Cronos from Tartarus to make him the ruler of the Underworld area called the Islands of the Blest.

Before Zeus came to power, man lived blissfully. There was no pain, death, disease, hunger, or any other evil. Mankind was happy and children were born autochthonously from the earth. When Zeus came to power, he put an end to mankind's happiness.

Despite his being fooled by the stone in swaddling clothes, Cronos is regularly described as wily, like Odysseus. Cronos is associated with agriculture in Greek mythology and honored at a harvest festival.

The Romans had an agricultural god named Saturn who is in many ways the same as the Greek god Cronos. Saturn is married to Ops who is associated with the Greek goddess (Titan) Rhea. Ops was patroness of wealth. The festival known as the Saturnalia honors Saturn.