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ZEUS (Roman – Jupiter)
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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.