Zeus
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Statue of Zeus
Phidias created the 12-m (40-ft) tall statue of Zeus at Olympia about 435 BCE. The statue was perhaps the most famous sculpture in ancient Greece, imagined here in a 16th-century engraving. |
Zeus (
Greek:
nominative Ζεύς,
Zeús genitive "ιός,
Díos) is the king of the gods, ruler of
Mount Olympus, and
god of the
sky and
thunder in
Greek mythology.
His attributes included
thunder and the
lightningbolt, the scepter, and the eagle. The son of
Cronus and
Rhea, he was among the youngest of his siblings
Hestia,
Demeter,
Hera,
Hades, and
Poseidon. He was married to Hera, although some sources imply that his original wife was
Dione, about whom little is known. Known for his numerous affairs with women, he also had one
pederastic relationship, with
Ganymede. His trysts resulted in many offspring, some of the more important being
Apollo and
Artemis by
Leto,
Hermes by
Maia,
Dionysus by
Semele,
Perseus by
Danae,
Heracles by
Alcmene, and the
Muses by
Mnemosyne; By Hera, he sired
Ares,
Eileithyia,
Hebe and
Hephaestus. According to the
Iliad, he is the father of
Aphrodite by Dione.
His
Roman counterpart was
Jupiter, and his
Etruscan counterpart was
Tinia.
History
Zeus, also poetically referred to by the
vocative Zeu pater ("O, father Zeus") is a continuation of *
the god of the sky in the
Proto-Indo-European religion, also called * "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 *
), deriving from the basic form
dyeu-.
And in
Germanic and
Norse mythology (cf.
Tīwaz >
OHG Ziu,
ON ), together with Latin
deus and
Dis(a variation of
dīves, meaning "wealthy", "blessed"), from the 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(). 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 transforming, 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 gatherer" was the god of the sky and thunder like his Near-Eastern counterparts, he was also the most 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 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 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.
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.
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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 Uranus and 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 shepard family under the promise that their sheep would be saved by wolfs.
Childhood
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
goats-milk6. He was raised by a shepard family.
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.
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. The only issue of their union was
Ares, though Hera produced other offspring of her own:
Hephaistos,
Eileithyia,
Hebe. 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
Mortal/nymph/other mother
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". Unlike in the TV show "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys"(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 is portrayed to be a character in the Marvel Universe who frequently fights with his older brother Hades (who plans to overthrow him) and his disowned son Ares. He disowned Ares due to his crude nature and so did Hera. Unlike in the comics, he is capable of producing his own thunderbolts without anybody's help, putting him at a bigger advantage over the mythological versions.
*In DC Comics, he is a lecherous god who wanted to rape Wonder Woman. He also threw Hades off balance due to the fact Hades wanted to rule in his place.
*Zeus is a stocky, clean-shaven, old man and later a slim old man with a white beard, looking younger in "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys" who doesn't get along with his son that much, ever since Hercules learned of his paternity as an illegitimate son of Zeus.
*Zeus is portrayed as a jovial, silly god in Disney's Hercules. He is portrayed to have one mythological accuracy where Hephaestus manufactures his thunderbolts.
*Zeus is portrayed to be the father of the current
Wonder Girl in the DC comics universe, and has given her a lasso made from his lightning to use as a weapon.
| Zeus Myths as told by story tellers |
|---|
| 1. Zeus and Tantalus, (including Pelops and Poseidon episode), read by Timothy Carter |
| 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) |
| 2. Zeus and Ganymede, read by Timothy Carter |
| 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 II.16 Eagle; II.29 Aquarius (2nd c. AD); Lucian, Dialogues of the Gods (AD 170); First Vatican Mythographer, 184 Ganymede; Second Vatican Mythographer 198 Ganymede |
|
*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 0819601489 (reprint)
**Volume 2:
Zeus, God of the Dark Sky (Thunder and Lightning), Biblo-Moser, June 1, 1964, ISBN 081960156X
**Volume 3:
Zeus, God of the Dark Sky (earthquakes, clouds, wind, dew, rain, meteorites)* 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.
* 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. [
1]
* 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, [
2], article on Zeus [
3]
*
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 *
The myths of Zeus and Ganymede; and Zeus and Tantalus| - | NOTE: Categorising a story as a myth does not necessarily imply that it is untrue. Religion and mythology differ, but have overlapping aspects. Many English speakers understand the terms "myth" and "mythology" to mean fictitious or imaginary. However, according to many dictionary definitions, these terms can also mean a traditional story or narrative that embodies the belief or beliefs of a group of people, and this Wikipedia category should be understood in this sense only. The use of these terms in this category does not imply that any story so categorized is historically true or false or that any belief so embodied is itself either true or false. |
