Rhea&Ops
Motherhood, Fertility, & the Great Mother
Rhea
Mother of the Gods
Lion, tympanum, turret crown, pine
Titaness who hid the infant Zeus from Cronus, preserving the Olympian line.
Protective and cunning — the archetypal mother who deceives to save.
The Rheaia: cakes, fruits and bloodless offerings.
Maternal power as the guarantee of dynastic succession.
Ops
Ops Consiva, Lady of Plenty
Cornucopia, throne, sheaves of grain
Italic goddess of abundance, consort of Saturn and keeper of the harvest store.
A quiet, abundant provider rather than an actor in myth.
The Opalia and Opiconsivia, attended by the Vestal Virgins.
Stored wealth and fertility as the foundation of the state.
Syncretism Analysis
Rhea is a narrative hero of myth; Ops is an abstract goddess of plenty. Rome kept the mother and discarded the plot — abundance mattered more than the story of how it was won.