A Titan, the youngest son of Uranus and Gaea who became the ruler of the universe after castrating his father (for details, see Gaea, Uranus). He married his sister Rhea, who gave him three daughters: Hestia, Demeter and Hera, and three sons: Hades, Poseidon and Zeus. Cronus lived in fear that he would be dethroned by one of his children as an oracle had predicted, so he swallowed each of his children as it was born. When she was pregnant with Zeus, Rhea asked her parents, Uranus and Gaea, to help her save the child. On their advice, she went to Crete and there, in a deep cavern she gave birth to Zeus. There Rhea wrapped up a stone in swaddling clothes and gave it to Cronus who swallowed it. Gaea took the newborn baby and undertook to bring it up.
The oracle which had predicted to Cronus that he would be overthrown by one of his sons had not lied. As soon as Zeus reached manhood, he wanted to seize power from Cronus. Metis, daughter of Oceanus, gave him a drug which made Cronus vomit up the children whom he had swallowed. Together with his brothers and sisters, Zeus attacked Cronus and the Titans. The outcome of the ten years long war was Zeus' victory. The Titans were expelled them from Heaven and locked them up in Tartarus (see Titans, Zeus).
According to Hesiod, there was a golden race at the time when Cronus was ruling in heaven. People in those days lived free from worries and safe from grief and distress. They remained eternally young. They had no need to work. When the time came for them to die, they went peacefully to sleep. This race vanished from the Earth in the reign of Zeus, and the Golden Age continued on the Islands of the Blessed, where Cronus was sent later, after reconciliation with Zeus.
Cronus is sometimes identified with Chronus, personification of time.