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Zeus

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Divinities

   The Statue of Zeus at OlympiaPhidias created the 12-m (40-ft) tall
   statue of Zeus at Olympia about 435 BC. The statue was perhaps the most
   famous sculpture in Ancient Greece, imagined here in a 16th century
   engraving
   Enlarge
   The Statue of Zeus at Olympia
   Phidias created the 12-m (40-ft) tall statue of Zeus at Olympia about
   435 BC. The statue was perhaps the most famous sculpture in Ancient
   Greece, imagined here in a 16th century engraving

   In Greek mythology, Zeus (in Greek: nominative: Ζεύς Zeús, genitive:
   Διός Díos) is the king of the gods, the ruler of Mount Olympus, and god
   of the sky and thunder. The eagle and oak tree are sacred to him. His
   attributes include thunder and the lightning bolt.

   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
   (by Leto), 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

   Bust of Zeus in the British Museum
   Enlarge
   Bust of Zeus in the British Museum

History

   nak kuh Zeus, poetically referred to by the vocative Zeu pater ("O,
   father Zeus"), is a continuation of * Di̯ēus, the Proto-Indo-European
   god of the daytime sky, also called *Dyeus ph[2]tēr ("Sky Father"). The
   god is known under this name in Sanskrit (cf. Dyaus/Dyaus Pita), Latin
   (cf. Jupiter, from Iuppiter, deriving from the PIE vocative
   *dyeu-ph[2]tēr), deriving from the basic form *dyeu- ("to shine", and
   in its many derivatives, "sky, heaven, god"). And in Germanic and Norse
   mythology (cf. *Tīwaz > OHG Ziu, ON Týr), together with Latin deus,
   dīvus and Dis(a variation of dīves), from the related noun *deiwos. 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 (Þórr). Zeus is the only deity in the Olympic
   pantheon whose name has such a transparent Indo-European etymology.

   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 envisaged by Greek artists
   especially in two poses: standing, striding forward a thunderbolt
   levelled in his raised right hand and seated in majesty.

   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:
     * Olympios emphasized Zeus's kingship over both the gods and the
       Panhellenic festival at Olympia.
     * A related title was Panhellenios, ('Zeus of all the Hellenes') to
       whom Aeacus' famous temple on Aegina was dedicated.
     * As Xenios, Zeus was the patron of hospitality and guests, ready to
       avenge any wrong done to a stranger.
     * As 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 Agoraios, Zeus watched over business at the agora, and punished
       dishonest traders.

Panhellenic cults of Zeus

   The major center at which all Greeks converged to pay honour 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 certain 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.

   On the other hand, certain cities had Zeus-cults that operated in
   markedly different ways.
   Colossal seated Zeus from Gaza, Roman period Istanbul Archaeology
   Museum)
   Enlarge
   Colossal seated Zeus from Gaza, Roman period Istanbul Archaeology
   Museum)

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 title Lykaios is morphologically connected to lyke "brightness",
   and yet it looks a lot like lykos "wolf". This semantic ambiguity is
   reflected in the strange cult of Zeus Lykaios in the backwoods of
   Arcadia, where the god takes on both lucent and lupine features. On the
   one hand, he presides over Mount Lykaion ("the bright mountain") the
   tallest peak in Arcadia, and home to a precinct in which, allegedly, no
   shadows were ever cast ( Pausanias 8.38). On the other hand, he is
   connected with Lycaon ("the wolf-man") whose ancient cannibalism was
   commemorated with bizarre, recurring rites. According to Plato
   (Republic 565d-e), a particular clan would gather on the mountain to
   make a sacrifice every eight 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
   eight-year cycle had ended.

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
   Enlarge
   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. His mother hid Zeus in a basket
   under a tree and was raised by a shepherd family under the promise that
   their sheep would be saved from wolves.

Childhood

   Rhea hid Zeus in a cave on Mount Ida in Crete. According to varying
   versions of the story:
    1. He was then raised by Gaia.
    2. 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.)
    3. 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.
    4. He was raised by a nymph named Cynosura. In gratitude, Zeus placed
       her among the stars.
    5. He was raised by Melissa, who nursed him with goats-milk

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 as challenges for future heroes.

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 Demeter, Latona, 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

Deific mother

    Mother

                      Children

   Ananke*
              1. Moirae ( Fates)*
                   1. Atropos
                   2. Clotho
                   3. Lachesis

   Demeter
              1. Persephone

   Dione
              1. Aphrodite

   Hera
              1. Ares
              2. Eileithyia
              3. Hephaestus
              4. Hebe

   Eos
              1. Ersa

   Leto
              1. Apollo
              2. Artemis

   Maia
              1. Hermes

   Metis
              1. Athena

   Mnemosyne
              1. Muses (Original three)
                   1. Aoide
                   2. Melete
                   3. Mneme
              2. Muses (Later nine)
                   1. Calliope
                   2. Clio
                   3. Erato
                   4. Euterpe
                   5. Melpomene
                   6. Polyhymnia
                   7. Terpsichore
                   8. Thalia
                   9. Urania

   Selene
              1. Ersa
              2. Nemea
              3. Pandia

   Thalassa  Aphrodite
   Themis
              1. Astraea
              2. Dike
              3. Horae
                   1. First Generation
                        1. Auxo
                        2. Carpo
                        3. Thallo
                   2. Second Generation
                        1. Dike
                        2. Eirene
                        3. Eunomia
              4. Moirae ( Fates)*
                   1. Atropos
                   2. Clotho
                   3. Lachesis

   *The Greeks variously claimed that they were the daughters of Zeus and
   the Titaness Themis or of primordial beings like Nyx, Chaos or Ananke.

Mortal/nymph/other mother

       Mother

                          Children

   Aegina         Aeacus
   Alcmene        Heracles (Hercules)
   Antiope
                   1. Amphion
                   2. Zethus

   Callisto       Arcas
   Carme          Britomartis
   Danae          Perseus
   Elara
                   1. Tityas

   Electra
                   1. Dardanus
                   2. Iasion

   Europa
                   1. Minos
                   2. Rhadamanthys
                   3. Sarpedon

   Eurynome       Charites( Graces)
                   1. Aglaea
                   2. Euphrosyne
                   3. Thalia

   Himalia
                   1. Kronios
                   2. Spartaios
                   3. Kytos

   Iodame         Thebe
   Io             Epaphus
   Lamia           ???
   Laodamia       Sarpedon
   Leda
                   1. Polydeuces ( Pollux)
                   2. Helen of Troy

   Maera          Locrus
   Niobe
                   1. Argos
                   2. Pelasgus

   Olympias       Alexander the Great
   Plouto         Tantalus
   Podarge
                   1. Balius
                   2. Xanthus

   Pyrrha         Hellen
   Semele         Dionysus
   Taygete        Lacedaemon
   Thalia         Palici
   Unknown mother Litae
   Unknown mother Tyche
   Unknown mother Ate

Zeus miscellany

     * Though Zeus could be petty and malicious, he also had a righteous
       element, perhaps best exemplified in his aid on behalf of Atreus
       and his murder of Capaneus for unbridled arrogance. He was also the
       protector of strangers and travelers against those who might seek
       to victimize them.
     * 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 Sisyphus 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 many, many children Zeus spawned, Hercules was often
       described as his favorite. Indeed, Hercules was often called by
       various gods and people as "the favorite son of Zeus"(where
       Hercules resents both the title and his father for much of the
       shows run), Zeus and Hercules 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 Hercules 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.

Zeus in popular culture

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