'Zeus' (in
Greek:
nominative: ''Zeús'',
genitive: ''Diós'') in
Greek mythology is the king of the gods, the ruler of
Mount Olympus, and god of the
sky and
thunder. His symbols are the
thunderbolt,
eagle,
bull and the
oak. In addition to his Indo-European inheritance, the classical Zeus also derives certain iconographic traits from the cultures of the
ancient Near East, such as the
scepter. Zeus is frequently envisaged by Greek artists in one of two poses: standing, striding forward, a thunderbolt leveled in his raised right hand, or seated in majesty.
The son of
Cronus and
Rhea, he was the youngest of his siblings. He was married to
Hera in most traditions, although at the oracle of
Dodona his consort was
Dione: according to the ''
Iliad'', he is the father of
Aphrodite by Dione. Accordingly, he is known for his erotic escapades, including one
pederastic relationship with
Ganymede. His trysts resulted in many famous offspring, including
Athena,
Apollo and
Artemis,
Hermes,
Persephone (by
Demeter),
Dionysus,
Perseus,
Heracles,
Helen,
Minos, and the
Muses (by
Mnemosyne); by Hera he is usually said to have sired
Ares,
Hebe and
Hephaestus.
His
Roman counterpart was '
Jupiter', and his
Etruscan counterpart was
Tinia.
Cult of Zeus
Panhellenic cults of Zeus
The major center at which all Greeks converged to pay honor to their chief god was
Olympia. The
quadrennial festival there featured the famous Games. There was also an altar to Zeus made not of stone, but of ash - from the accumulated remains of many centuries' worth of animals sacrificed there.
Outside of the major inter-
polis sanctuaries, there were no exact modes of worshipping Zeus that were shared across the Greek world. Most of the above titles, for instance, could be found at any number of
Greek temples from
Asia Minor to
Sicily. Certain modes of ritual were held in common as well: sacrificing a white animal over a raised altar, for instance.
History
Zeus, poetically referred to by the
vocative ''Zeu pater'' ("O, father Zeus"), is a continuation of
★
, the
Proto-Indo-European god of the daytime sky, also called
★ ("Sky Father").
[1] The god is known under this name in
Sanskrit (cf. ''
Dyaus/Dyaus Pita''),
Latin (cf. ''
Jupiter'', from ''Iuppiter'', deriving from the
PIE vocative
★
[2]), deriving from the basic form
★ ''dyeu''- ("to shine", and in its many derivatives, "sky, heaven, god").
[1] And in
Germanic and
Norse mythology (cf.
★ ''TÄ«waz'' >
OHG ''Ziu'',
ON ''
Týr''), together with Latin ''deus'', ''dīvus'' and ''Dis''(a variation of ''dīves''
[4]), from the related noun
★ ''deiwos''.
[4] To the Greeks and Romans, the god of the sky was also the supreme god, whereas this function was filled out by
Odin among the
Germanic tribes. Accordingly, they did not identify Zeus/Jupiter with either Tyr or Odin, but with
Thor (). Zeus is the only deity in the Olympic pantheon whose name has such a transparent Indo-European etymology.
[6]
Aside from forced transformation, Zeus is known to punish those who veered out of his pleasure with lightning bolts.
Role and epithets
Zeus played a dominant role, presiding over the
Greek Olympian pantheon. He fathered many of the heroes and heroines and was featured in many of their stories. Though the Homeric "cloud collecter" was the god of the sky and thunder like his Near-Eastern counterparts, he was also the supreme
cultural artifact; in some senses, he was the embodiment of Greek
religious beliefs and the
archetypal Greek deity.
The
epithets or titles applied to Zeus emphasized different aspects of his wide-ranging authority:
★ 'Zeus Olympios' emphasized Zeus's kingship over both the gods and the Panhellenic festival at
Olympia.
★ A related title was 'Zeus Panhellenios', ('Zeus of all the Hellenes') to whom
Aeacus' famous temple on
Aegina was dedicated.
★ As 'Zeus Xenios', Zeus was the patron of hospitality and guests, ready to avenge any wrong done to a stranger.
★ As 'Zeus Horkios', he was the keeper of oaths. Liars who were exposed were made to dedicate a
statue to Zeus, often at the sanctuary of Olympia.
★ As 'Zeus Agoraios', Zeus watched over business at the
agora, and punished dishonest traders.
★ As 'Zeus Meilichios', "Easy-to-be-entreated", he subsumed an archaic chthonic ''
daimon'' propitiated in Athens,
Meilichios.
Some local Zeus-cults
In addition to the Panhellenic titles and conceptions listed above, local cults maintained their own idiosyncratic ideas about the king of gods and men. A few examples are listed below.
Cretan Zeus
On
Crete, Zeus was worshipped at a number of caves at
Knossos,
Ida and
Palaikastro. The stories of
Minos and
Epimenides suggest that these caves were once used for
incubatory divination by kings and priests. The dramatic setting of
Plato's ''Laws'' is along the pilgrimage-route to one such site, emphasizing archaic Cretan knowledge. On Crete, Zeus was represented in art as a long-haired youth rather than a mature adult, and hymned as ''ho megas kouros'' "the great youth". With the
Kouretes, a band of ecstatic armed dancers, he presided over the rigorous military-athletic training and secret rites of the Cretan
paideia.
The Hellenistic writer
Euhemerus apparently proposed a theory that Zeus had actually been a great king of
Crete and that posthumously his glory had slowly turned him into a deity. The works of Euhemerism have not survived, but Christian patristic writers took up the suggestion with enthusiasm.
Zeus Lykaios in Arcadia
The epithet ''Lykaios'' ("wolf-Zeus") is assumed by Zeus only in connection with the archaic festival of the
Lykaia on the slopes of
Mount Lykaion ("Wolf Mountain"), the tallest peak in rustic
Arcadia; Zeus had only a formal connection
[7] with the rituals and myths of this primitive
rite of passage with an ancient threat of
cannibalism and the possibility of a
werewolf transformation for the
ephebes who were the participants.
[8] Near the ancient ash-heap where the sacrifices took place
[9] was a forbidden precinct in which, allegedly, no shadows were ever cast.
[10] According to
Plato (''Republic'' 565d-e), a particular clan would gather on the mountain to make a sacrifice every nine years to Zeus Lykaios, and a single morsel of human entrails would be intermingled with the animal's. Whoever ate the human flesh was said to turn into a wolf, and could only regain human form if he did not eat again of human flesh until the next nine-year cycle had ended. There were games associated with the Lykaia, removed in the fourth century to the first urbanization of Arcadia,
Megalopolis; there the major temple was dedicated to Zeus Lykaios.
Apollo, too had an archaic wolf-form, ''Apollo Lycaeus'', worshipped in Athens at the Lykeion, or
Lyceum, which was made memorable as the site where
Aristotle walked and taught.
Subterranean Zeus
Although etymology indicates that Zeus was originally a sky god, many Greek cities honored a local Zeus, who lived underground. Athenians and Sicilians honored Zeus ''Meilichios'' ("kindly" or "honeyed") while other cities had Zeus ''Chthonios'' ("earthy"), ''Katachthonios'' ("under-the-earth) and ''Plousios'' ("wealth-bringing"). These deities might be represented indifferently as snakes or men in visual art. They also received offerings of black animal victims sacrificed into sunken pits, as did
chthonic deities like
Persephone and
Demeter, and also the
heroes at their tombs. Olympian gods, by contrast, usually received white victims sacrificed upon raised altars.
In some cases, cities were not entirely sure whether the ''daimon'' to whom they sacrificed was a hero or an underground Zeus. Thus the shrine at Lebadaea in
Boeotia might belong to the hero
Trophonius or to Zeus ''Trephonius'' ("the nurturing"), depending on whether you believe
Pausanias or
Strabo. The hero
Amphiaraus was honored as ''Zeus Amphiaraus'' at Oropus outside of
Thebes, and the Spartans even had a shrine to ''Zeus
Agamemnon''.
Oracles of Zeus
Although most oracle sites were usually dedicated to
Apollo, the
heroes, or various
goddesses like
Themis, a few oracular sites were dedicated to Zeus.
The Oracle at Dodona
The cult of Zeus at
Dodona in
Epirus, where there is evidence of religious activity from the
2nd millennium BC onward, centered around a sacred oak. When the
Odyssey was composed (circa
750 BC), divination was done there by barefoot priests called ''Selloi'', who lay on the ground and observed the rustling of the leaves and branches (''Odyssey'' 14.326-7). By the time
Herodotus wrote about Dodona, female priestesses called
peleiades ("doves") had replaced the male priests.
Zeus' consort at Dodona was not
Hera, but the goddess
Dione — whose name is a feminine form of "Zeus". Her status as a
titaness suggests to some that she may have been a more powerful pre-Hellenic deity, and perhaps the original occupant of the oracle.
The Oracle at Siwa
The oracle of
Ammon at the
oasis of Siwa in the Western Desert of
Egypt did not lie within the bounds of the Greek world before
Alexander's day, but it already loomed large in the Greek mind during the archaic era:
Herodotus mentions consultations with Zeus Ammon in his account of the
Persian War. Zeus Ammon was especially favored at
Sparta, where a temple to him existed by the time of the
Peloponnesian War (Pausanias 3.18).
After Alexander made a trek into the desert to consult the oracle at Siwa, the figure arose of a
Libyan Sibyl.
Other oracles of Zeus
The chthonic Zeuses (or heroes)
Trophonius and
Amphiaraus were both said to give oracles at the cult-sites.
Zeus and foreign gods
Zeus was equivalent to the
Roman god
Jupiter and associated in the syncretic classical imagination (see ''
interpretatio graeca'') with various other deities, such as the
Egyptian Ammon and the
Etruscan Tinia. He (along with
Dionysus) absorbed the role of the chief
Phrygian god
Sabazios in the
syncretic deity known in Rome as
Sabazius.
Zeus in myth
The Chariot of Zeus, from an 1879 ''Stories from the Greek Tragedians'' by Alfred Church
Birth
Cronus sired several children by Rhea: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon, but swallowed them all as soon as they were born, since he had learned from Gaia and Uranus that he was destined to be overcome by his own son as he had overthrown his own father— an oracle that Zeus was to hear and avert. But when Zeus was about to be born, Rhea sought Gaia to devise a plan to save him, so that Cronus would get his retribution for his acts against Uranus and his own children. Rhea gave birth to Zeus in Crete, handing Cronus a rock wrapped in swaddling clothes, which he promptly swallowed.
Infancy
Rhea hid Zeus in a cave on
Mount Ida in Crete. According to varying versions of the story:
# He was then raised by
Gaia.
# He was raised by a
goat named
Amalthea, while a company of
Kouretes— soldiers, or smaller gods— danced, shouted and clashed their spears against their shields so that Cronus would not hear the baby's cry. (See
cornucopia.)
# He was raised by a
nymph named
Adamanthea. Since Cronus ruled over the
Earth, the
heavens and the
sea, she hid him by dangling him on a
rope from a
tree so he was suspended between earth, sea and sky and thus, invisible to his father.
# He was raised by a
nymph named
Cynosura. In gratitude, Zeus
placed her among the stars.
# He was raised by
Melissa, who nursed him with
goat's-milk and honey.
# He was raised by a shepherd family under the promise that their sheep would be saved from wolves.
Zeus becomes king of the gods
After reaching manhood, Zeus forced Cronus to disgorge first the stone (which was set down at
Pytho under the glens of
Parnassus to be a sign to mortal men, the
Omphalos) then his siblings in reverse order of swallowing. In some versions,
Metis gave Cronus an
emetic to force him to disgorge the babies, or Zeus cut Cronus'
stomach open. Then Zeus released the brothers of Cronus, the
Gigantes, the
Hecatonchires and the
Cyclopes, from their dungeon in
Tartarus (The
Titans; he killed their guard,
Campe. As gratitude, the Cyclopes gave him
thunder and the thunderbolt, or
lightning, which had previously been hidden by Gaia.) Together, Zeus and his brothers and sisters, along with the Gigantes, Hecatonchires and Cyclopes overthrew Cronus and the other Titans, in the combat called the
Titanomachy. The defeated Titans were then cast into a shadowy underworld region known as Tartarus. Atlas, one of the titans that fought against Zeus, was punished by having to hold up the sky.
After the battle with the Titans, Zeus shared the world with his elder brothers,
Poseidon and
Hades, by drawing lots: Zeus got the sky and air, Poseidon the waters, and Hades the world of the dead (the underworld). The ancient Earth,
Gaia, could not be claimed; she was left to all three, each according to their capabilities, which explains why Poseidon was the "earth-shaker" (the god of earthquakes) and Hades claimed the humans that died. (See also:
Penthus)
Gaia resented the way Zeus had treated the Titans, because they were her children. Soon after taking the throne as king of the gods, Zeus had to fight some of Gaia's other children, the
monsters
Typhon and
Echidna. He vanquished Typhon and trapped him under a mountain, but left Echidna and her children alive.
Zeus and Hera
Zeus was brother and consort of
Hera. By Hera, Zeus sired
Ares,
Hebe and
Hephaestus, though some accounts say that Hera produced these offspring alone. Some also include
Eileithyia as their daughter. The conquests of Zeus among
nymphs and the mythic mortal progenitors of
Hellenic dynasties are famous. Olympian mythography even credits him with unions with
Leto,
Demeter,
Dione and
Maia.
Among the mortals:
Semele,
Io,
Europa and
Leda. (For more details, see below).
Many myths renders Hera as jealous of his amorous conquests and a consistent enemy of Zeus' mistresses and their children by him. For a time, a
nymph named
Echo had the job of distracting Hera from his affairs by incessantly talking: when Hera discovered the deception, she cursed Echo to repeat the words of others.
Consorts and children
By divine mothers
Mortal/nymph/other mother
★ The Greeks variously claimed that the Fates were the daughters of Zeus and the Titaness
Themis or of primordial beings like
Nyx,
Chaos or
Ananke.
Zeus miscellany
★ Zeus turned
Pandareus to stone for stealing the golden
dog which had guarded him as an infant in the holy Dictaeon Cave of
Crete.
★ Zeus killed
Salmoneus with a thunderbolt for attempting to impersonate him, riding around in a
bronze chariot and loudly imitating
thunder.
★ Zeus turned
Periphas into an
eagle after his
death, as a reward for being righteous and just.
★ At the marriage of Zeus and Hera, a nymph named
Chelone refused to attend. Zeus transformed her into a tortoise (chelone in Greek).
★ Zeus, with Hera, turned King
Haemus and
Queen Rhodope into
mountains (the
Balkan mountains, or Stara Planina, and
Rhodope mountains, respectively) for their vanity.
★ Zeus condemned
Tantalus to eternal torture in Tartarus for trying to trick the gods into eating the flesh of his butchered son.
★ Zeus condemned
Ixion be tied to a fiery wheel for eternity as punishment for attempting to violate Hera.
★ Zeus sunk the
Telchines beneath the sea for blighting the earth with their fell magics.
★ Zeus blinded the seer
Phineus and sent the
Harpies to plague him as punishment for revealing the secrets of the gods.
★ Zeus rewarded
Tiresias with a life three times the norm as reward for ruling in his favour when he and Hera contested which of the sexes gained the most pleasure from the act of love.
★ Zeus punished
Hera by having her hung upside down from the sky when she attempted to drown Heracles in a storm.
★ Of all the children Zeus spawned,
Heracles was often described as his favorite. Indeed, Heracles was often called by various gods and people as "the favorite son of Zeus", Zeus and Heracles were very close and in one story, where a tribe of earth-born Giants threatened Olympus and the Oracle at Delphi decreed that only the combined efforts of a lone god and mortal could stop the creature, Zeus chose Heracles to fight by his side. They proceeded to defeat the monsters.
★ His sacred bird was the golden eagle, which he kept by his side at all times. Like him, the eagle was a symbol of strength, courage, and justice.
★ His favourite tree was the oak, symbol of strength. Olive trees were also sacred to him.
★
Zelus,
Nike,
Cratos and
Bia were Zeus'
retinue.
Spoken-word myths - audio files
| Zeus Myths as told by story tellers |
|---|
|
| Bibliography of reconstruction: Homer, ''Odyssey,'' 11.567 (7th c. BC); Pindar, ''Olympian Odes,'' 1 (476 BC); Euripides, ''Orestes,'' 12-16 (408 BC); Apollodorus, ''Epitomes'' 2: 1-9 (140 BC); Ovid, ''Metamorphoses,'' VI: 213, 458 (AD 8); Hyginus, ''Fables,'' 82: Tantalus; 83: Pelops (1st c. AD); Pausanias, ''Description of Greece,'' 2.22.3 (AD 160 - 176) |
|
| Bibliography of reconstruction: Homer, ''Iliad'' 5.265ff; 20.215-235 (700 BC); Anonymous, ''Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite'' 202ff. (7th c. BC); Sophocles, ''The Colchian Women'' (after Athenaeus, 602) (b. 495 - d. 406 BC); Euripides, ''Iphigenia in Aulis'' (410 BC); Apollodorus, ''Library and Epitome'' iii.12.2 (140 BC); Diodorus Siculus, ''Histories'' 4.75.3 (1st c. BC); Virgil, ''Aeneid'' 5. 252 - 260 (19 BC); Ovid, ''Metamorphoses'' 10.155ff. (AD 1 - 8); Hyginus, ''Poetica Astronomica'' |
See also
★
Deception of Zeus
★
USS ''Zeus'' (ARB-4)
In popular culture
★ In the computer game , Zeus is one of the gods to whom the player can build a temple. His temple includes an oracle which may periodically be consulted for advice, and Zeus's presence in the city means that attacks from any other god will be instantly thwarted.
★ Zeus was a recurring character in the series '' and, less frequently, in ''.
★ Like the rest of the Greek pantheon, he appeared in the
Disney animated feature ''
Hercules''. The storyline took extensive liberties with the Hercules legend, such as making Hercules the son of Zeus and Hera.
★ Zeus appears in both
God of War video games. In the first
God of War video game, he gives the main character
Kratos the ability to fire thunderbolts and also appears as a gravedigger. In
God of War II, he offers
Kratos the Blade of Olympus in which he kills him after his Godly powers have been drained. It is soon revealed that Kratos is Zeus' son in which Kratos wages war against Zeus by going back in time to bring the Titans to the present time to face the Olympians.
References
★ Burkert, Walter, (1977) 1985. ''Greek Religion'', especially section III.ii.1 (Harvard University Press)
★
Cook, Arthur Bernard, ''Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion'', (3 volume set), (1914-1925). New York, Bibilo & Tannen: 1964.
★
★ Volume 1: ''Zeus, God of the Bright Sky'', Biblo-Moser, June 1, 1964, ISBN 0-8196-0148-9 (reprint)
★
★ Volume 2: ''Zeus, God of the Dark Sky (Thunder and Lightning)'', Biblo-Moser, June 1, 1964, ISBN 0-8196-0156-X
★
★ Volume 3: ''Zeus, God of the Dark Sky (earthquakes, clouds, wind, dew, rain, meteorites)''
★
Druon, Maurice, ''The Memoirs of Zeus'', 1964, Charles Scribner's and Sons. (tr. Humphrey Hare)
★ Farnell, Lewis Richard, ''Cults of the Greek States'' 5 vols. Oxford; Clarendon 1896-1909. Still the standard reference.
★ Farnell, Lewis Richard, ''Greek Hero Cults and Ideas of Immortality, 1921.
★
Graves, Robert; ''
The Greek Myths'', Penguin Books Ltd. (1960 edition)
★
Mitford,William, ''The History of Greece'', 1784. Cf. v.1, Chapter II, ''Religion of the Early Greeks''
★ Moore, Clifford H., ''The Religious Thought of the Greeks, 1916.
★
Nilsson, Martin P., ''Greek Popular Religion'', 1940.
★ Nilsson, Martin P., ''History of Greek Religion'', 1949.
★
Rohde, Erwin, ''Psyche: The Cult of Souls and Belief in Immortality among the Greeks'', 1925.
★
Smith, William, ''
Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'', 1870,
[4], William Smith, ''Dictionary'': "Zeus"
[5]
External links
★
Greek Mythology Link, Zeus stories of Zeus in myth
★
Theoi Project, Zeus summary, stories, classical art
★
Theoi Project, Cult Of Zeus cult and statues
★
Pictures of the Altar of Zeus and its meaning in Scripture
★
Photo: Pagans Honor Zeus at Ancient Athens Temple from National Geographic
★
Learn what the name Zeus means
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