* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Download Zeus Short Read
Survey
Document related concepts
Transcript
ZEUS (Roman – Jupiter) Name: Date: Period: The supreme ruler of the Greek gods, known for his control of thunder, lightning, and rain as well as for maintaining justice, law, and morality. He was often referred to as Zeus Polieus, meaning ―Zeus of the City,‖ in which role he was seen as a protector of local Greek city-states. Another common name for him was Zeus Xenios, or ―Zeus the Protector of Strangers‖; this title reflected the belief that he oversaw the laws of hospitality and punished those who broke them. Others who felt Zeus's wrath were humans who denied others the right of religious sanctuary at religious altars, in which guise he was called Zeus Hikesios, ―Zeus the Protector of Suppliants,‖ or Zeus Soter, ―Zeus the Savior.‖ Given his importance, the Greeks dedicated numerous religious festivals and shrines to Zeus throughout Greece and Greek-speaking lands. The most famous of these was the Temple of Olympian Zeus at Olympia (the site of the ancient Olympic Games, in the northwestern Peloponnesus); inside that structure the great Athenian sculptor Phidias created a huge and magnificent statue of the god seated on a golden throne, a work that later came to be listed among the seven wonders of the ancient world. Like other Greek artists, Phidias depicted Zeus as bearded. Often the god was also shown with one or more of his major symbols—the thunderbolt, eagle, and oak tree. The latter was a reference to his sacred oak located at his oracle at Dodona (in northwestern Greece), the second-most famous oracle in the Greek world (next to Apollo's oracle at Delphi). Through the priestesses of Dodona, Zeus was thought to dispense prophecy and advice. Befitting his prominence in the Greek religious pantheon, Zeus played roles, both large and small, in dozens of myths. Among the more renowned of these were stories involving his birth and the crucial events that followed it. According to the early Greek poet Hesiod in his Theogony, Zeus was the youngest of the six children of the Titans Cronos and Rhea (the other five being Hestia, Hera, Poseidon, Hades, and Demeter). Cronos, ruler of the Titans, feared that one of these children would overthrow him, so he swallowed them one by one after they were born. The exception was Zeus. Rhea substituted a rock for the baby, the dim-witted Cronos swallowed the rock, and then Rhea secretly asked some nymphs to raise Zeus. Later, Zeus came back and forced Cronos to vomit up the other gods. Zeus himself soon swallowed his first wife, Metis, after she became pregnant. Gaia (Earth) had told Zeus that if the child were a girl, she would be equal to Zeus in wisdom and strength, and so he felt threatened. But swallowing Metis accomplished nothing since she gave birth to the child while Metis was inside of Zeus; and Metis's and Zeus's new daughter, Athena, emerged, fully clothed in armor, from Zeus's head. Zeus eventually led a rebellion against Cronos, and the two races of gods—the Titans and the Olympians—engaged in a mighty war (which the Greeks called the Titanomachy). The war lasted ten years; finally Zeus and his Olympians (and other allies, who included some of the Titans, notably Prometheus, Helios, Oceanus, and Tethys) won, and Zeus locked his defeated enemies away in the darkest reaches of the Underworld. Another famous myth involving Zeus tells about the exploits of the Titan Prometheus in the years following the Titanomachy. Prometheus created the human race out of clay. Afterward, Zeus asked him to decide the manner in which humans would offer sacrifices to the gods, obviously expecting that the gods would receive the best parts of sacrificed animals. But Prometheus wanted his mortal creations to get the meat, and he tricked Zeus by arranging for the gods to receive the bones and fat of the sacrificed animals. Angry, Zeus retaliated by denying the ―creatures of Prometheus‖ knowledge of fire; however, Prometheus took pity on the humans, stole some fire from heaven, and gave it to them. This time Zeus vented his wrath directly on Prometheus, ordering Hephaestos (god of the forge) to chain the disobedient Titan to a mountaintop, where a vulture daily devoured his liver (which grew back at night). Zeus later punished the humans again, both as a group and individually. He sent a number of floods against them, one of which ravaged the region of Phrygia (in Asia Minor), after Zeus, disguised as a human, had been refused hospitality at every house in the region. (The exception was the poor hovel of a kind couple, Baucis and Philemon, who welcomed the stranger and fed him what little food they had; for this, the god allowed them to live.) Zeus also banished Tantalus, a later king of Lydia (also in Asia Minor), to the Underworld for killing and cooking his own son, Pelops, and trying to feed the young man's flesh to the gods. (The deities saw through the ruse, refused to eat the repulsive meal, and restored Pelops to life.) When he was not involved in judging others and meting out punishment of one sort or another, Zeus spent much of his time having affairs with both goddesses and mortal women and begetting children by them. After his first consort, Metis, and he had produced Athena, he chose as his next consort the Titan Themis, who, in some versions of the myth, bore him the Fates. Then Zeus had relations with a nymph by whom he sired Endymion who became the famous human lover of Selene; the agricultural goddess Demeter, who bore him Persephone (who became queen of the Underworld); the Titan Mnemosyne, who made Zeus the father of the nine Muses (goddesses of the fine arts); and Leto, another Titan, who bore the famous deities Apollo and Artemis. After Leto, Zeus finally settled with the goddess Hera, as his permanent wife. Several versions of their marriage existed in ancient times; the commonest one held that Hera knew that Zeus found her attractive but that would never marry her due to her jealousy. Even before their marriage, Hera displayed her renowned jealousy for any female who caught Zeus's fancy by forbidding humans in many lands from giving the pregnant Leto a place to rest and have her babies. So, to trick him, she turned herself into the most beautiful bird and fluttered around the enamored Zeus. He instantly fell in the love with the bird’s beauty and said that if he could marry the bird, he would. Upon hearing this, the bird transformed back to Hera and she held him to his pledge. But at times Hera lived to regret her decision to marry Zeus, mainly because he continued to have affairs. And she made a point of harassing or punishing his mistresses and/or their offspring. Among the mortal women Zeus seduced were the following: Niobe (from Argos), Io (also from Argos), Europa (from the coast of Palestine, whom he approached disguised as a bull and took her away to Crete), Antiope (from Boeotia), Leda (queen of Sparta, who bore him Helen of Troy and the Dioscuri), Alcmena (from Tiryns and mother of the famous Greek hero Heracles), Danae (from Argos, whose son by Zeus—Perseus—became another renowned hero), and Semele (from Thebes, who bore the fertility god Dionysus). The case of Semele illustrates how formidable, relentless, and cruel Hera's wrath could be against such women and their children. After Zeus impregnated Semele, Hera tricked her into demanding that Zeus reveal to the young woman his true form, which was so radiant that she immediately shriveled up into a burnt-out husk. Thinking quickly, Zeus rescued the fetus from Semele's womb and placed it under the skin of his thigh; not long afterward, Dionysus was born from that thigh. To keep the infant god safe, the ruler of Olympus had to keep a watchful eye on his wife, for the jealous Hera was intent on harming the child any way she could. The only exception to Hera's usual retaliation against Zeus's mistresses and their offspring was the case of Maia, one of the Titan Atlas's daughters, who bore Zeus the messenger god, Hermes. Hermes tricked Hera into breast-feeding him, which made them close; so she did not seek vengeance against either Maia or Hermes.