Zeus

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Zeus

Zeus in Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the Ancient Greece concerning their List of Greek mythological figures#Immortals and Greek hero cult, Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices....
is the king of the gods

King of the Gods

In Polytheistic systems there is a tendency for one divinity, usually a male, to achieve pre-eminence as King of the Gods. This tendency is paralleled with the growth of hierarchy systems of political power, in which a monarch eventually comes to assume ultimate authority for human affairs....
, the ruler of Mount Olympus and the god of the sky

Sky father

The sky father is a recurring theme in mythology. The sky father is the complement of the earth mother and appears in some creation myths, many of which are European or ancient Near Eastern....
and thunder

List of thunder gods

Polytheism peoples of many cultures have postulated a thunder god, the personification or source of the forces of thunder and lightning. Frequently, the thunder god is known as the chief or king of the gods, for example Zeus in Greek mythology, or Indra in Hindu mythology, or otherwise a close relation, for example Thor, son of Odin, in Nors...
. His symbols are the thunderbolt

Thunderbolt

A thunderbolt is a traditional expression for a discharge of lightning or a symbolic representation thereof. In its original usage the word may also have been a description of meteors, although this is not currently the case....
, eagle

Eagle

Eagles are large bird of prey which are members of the bird family Accipitridae, and belong to several Genus which are not necessarily closely related to each other....
, bull

Bull (mythology)

Appearances of the Bull in mythology and worship are widespread in the ancient world. It is the subject of various cultural and Religion incarnations, as well as modern mentions in new age cultures....
, and oak

Oak

The term oak can be used as part of the common name of any of about 400 species of trees and shrubs in the genus Quercus , which are listed in the List of Quercus species, and some related genera, notably Lithocarpus....
. In addition to his Indo-European inheritance, the classical "cloud-gatherer" also derives certain iconographic traits from the cultures of the ancient Near East

Ancient Near East

The Ancient Near East refers to early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia , Fars Province, Elam and Medes , Anatolia , the Levant , and Ancient Egypt, from the rise of Sumer in the 4th millennium BCE until the region's conquest by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BCE, or covering both th...
, such as the scepter. Zeus is frequently depicted by Greek artists in one of two poses: standing, striding forward, with a thunderbolt leveled in his raised right hand, or seated in majesty.

Zeus was the child of Cronus

Cronus

Cronus or Kronos, , was the leader and the youngest of the first generation of Titan , divine descendants of Gaia , the earth, and Uranus , the sky....
and Rhea

Rhea (mythology)

This page is about the Greek mythological figure. For the bird, see Rhea .Rhea was the Titan daughter of Ouranos , the sky, and Gaia , the earth, in Classical Greece mythology....
, and the youngest of his siblings.

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Zeus in Greek mythology

Greek mythology

King of the Gods

Sky father

List of thunder gods

Thunderbolt

Eagle

Eagles are large bird of prey which are members of the bird family Accipitridae, and belong to several Genus which are not necessarily closely related to each other....
, bull

Bull (mythology)

Oak

Ancient Near East

Cronus

Cronus or Kronos, , was the leader and the youngest of the first generation of Titan , divine descendants of Gaia , the earth, and Uranus , the sky....
and Rhea

Rhea (mythology)

Hera

In the Twelve Olympians of classical Greek Mythology, Hera or Here was the wife and older sister of Zeus. Her chief function was as goddess of women and marriage....
, although, at the oracle of Dodona

Dodona

Dodona in Epirus in northwestern Greece, was a prehistoric oracle devoted to the Mother Goddess identified at other sites with Rhea or Gaia , but here called Dione and later, in historical times also to the Greek mythology God Zeus....
, his consort was Dione

Dione (mythology)

Dione in Greek mythology is a vague goddess presence who has her most concrete form in Book V of Homer's Iliad as the mother of Aphrodite who lived among the mortals was known for her kindness....
: according to the Iliad
ILiad

The iLiad is an electronic handheld device, or e-book device, which can be used for document reading and editing. Like the Sony Reader or Amazon Kindle, the iLiad makes use of an electronic paper display....
, he is the father of Aphrodite

Aphrodite

Aphrodite is the classical Greek mythology goddess of love, sex, and beauty. According to Greek oral poet Hesiod, she was born when Uranus was castrated by his son Cronus....
by Dione. He is known for his erotic escapades. These resulted in many godly and heroic offspring, including Athena

Athena

In Greek mythology, Athena is the shrewd companion of Hero and the goddess of Hero endeavour. She is the virgin patron of Athens, which built the Parthenon to worship her....
, Apollo

Apollo

In Greek mythology and Roman mythology, Apollo , is one of the most important and many-sided of the Twelve Olympians. The ideal of the kouros , Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of light and the sun; truth and prophecy; archery; medicine and healing; music, poetry, and the arts; and more....
and Artemis

Artemis

In Greek mythology, Artemis was the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo. She was the Hellenic goddess of forests and hills, child birth/virginity/fertility, the hunt and was often depicted as a huntress carrying a bow and arrows.....
, Hermes

Hermes

Hermes is the messenger of the gods in Greek mythology. An Twelve Olympians, he is also the patron of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of thieves and road travelers, of orators and wit, of literature and poets, of athletics, of weights and measures, of invention, of general commerce, and of the cunni...
, Persephone

Persephone

In Greek mythology, Persephone was the embodiment of the Earth's fertility at the same time that she was the Queen of the Greek Underworld, the kore , and the parthenogenesis daughter of Demeter and, in later Classical myths, a daughter of Demeter and Zeus....
(by Demeter

Demeter

File:Demeter in horse chariot w daughter kore 83d40m wikiC Tempio Y di Selinunte sec VIa.JPGDemeter , in Greek mythology, is the Goddess of cereal and fertility, the pure....
), Dionysus

Dionysus

In classical mythology, Dionysus or Dionysos , is the God of wine, the inspirer of ritual madness and ecstasy, and a major figure of Greek mythology, and one of the twelve Olympians, among whom Greek mythology treated Dionysus as a late arrival....
, Perseus

Perseus

Perseus , the legendary founder of Mycenae and of the Mycenae there, was the first of the mythic heroes of Greek mythology whose exploits in defeating various archaic monsters provided the founding myths in the cult of the Twelve Olympians....
, Heracles

Heracles

In Greek mythology, Heracles or Herakles meaning "glory of Hera", or "Glorious through Hera" Alcides or Alcaeus " was a hero, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus....
, Helen

Helen

In Greek mythology, Helen , better known as Helen of Sparta later Helen of Troy, was the daughter of Zeus and Leda , wife of King Menelaus of Sparta and sister of Castor and Pollux, Castor and Pollux and Clytemnestra....
, Minos

Minos

In Greek mythology, Minos was a mythical king of Crete, son of Zeus and Europa . After his death, Minos became a judge of the dead in Greek Underworld....
, and the Muse

Muse

File:Muse reading Louvre CA2220.jpgThe Muses in Greek mythology, poetry, and literature are the goddesses or spirits who inspire the creation of literature and the arts....
s (by Mnemosyne

Mnemosyne

Mnemosyne was the personification of memory in Greek mythology. This titan was the daughter of Gaia and Uranus and the mother of the Muses by Zeus....
); by Hera, he is usually said to have fathered Ares

Ares

In Greek mythology, Ares is the son of Zeus and Hera. Though often referred to as the Twelve Olympians God of warfare, he is more accurately the god of bloodlust, or slaughter personified: "Ares is apparently an ancient abstract noun meaning throng of battle, war."...
, Hebe

Hebe (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Hebe is the goddess of youth . She is the daughter of Zeus and Hera. H?b? was the cupbearer for the gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus, serving their nectar and ambrosia, until she was married to Heracles ; her successor was the young Troy prince Ganymede ....
and Hephaestus

Hephaestus

Hephaestus was a Greek god whose Roman equivalent was Vulcan . He was the god of technology, blacksmiths, craftsmen, artisans, sculpture, metals, metallurgy, Fire and volcanoes....
.

In Greek, the god's name is Greek

Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
: nominative

Nominative case

The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments....
: Zeús , genitive

Genitive case

In grammar, the genitive case or possessive case is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun. It often marks a noun as being the possessor of another noun but it can also indicate various relationships other than possession; certain verbs may take argument in the genitive case; and it may have adverbial uses ....
: Diós; Modern Greek /'zefs/. His Roman

Roman mythology

Jupiter (mythology)

In Roman mythology, Jupiter or Jove was the king of the gods,and the god of sky and thunder. He is the equivalent of Zeus in the Greek pantheon....
and his Etruscan

Etruscan mythology

The Etruscan civilizations were a people of unknown origin living in Northern Italy, who were eventually integrated into Roman culture and politically became part of the Roman Republic....
counterpart Tinia

Tinia

The Etruscan bright sky god Tinia was the highest god in Etruscan mythology, the Etruscan equivalent of the Roman mythology Jupiter and the Greek mythology Zeus....
. In Hindu mythology his counterpart was Indra

Indra

Indra is the god of War and Weather, also the King of the gods or Deva and Lord of Heaven or Swarga in Hinduism. Mentioned first as the chief deity in the sacred Hindu text of Rig Veda, Indra is bestowed with a heroic and almost brash and amorous character....
with ever common weapon as thunderbolt

Thunderbolt

Cult of Zeus

Panhellenic cults of Zeus

The major center where all Greeks converged to pay honor to their chief god was Olympia

Olympia, Greece

Olympia , a sanctuary of ancient Greece in Elis, is known for having been the site of the Olympic Games in classical times, comparable in importance to the Pythian Games held in Delphi....
. Their quadrennial festival

Festival

A festival is an event, usually and ordinarily staged by a local community, which centers on some unique aspect of that community.Among many religions, a feast or festival is a set of celebrations in honour of God or Polytheism....
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

Polis

A polis -- plural: poleis --is a city, a city-state and also citizenship and body of citizens. When used to describe Classical Athens and its contemporaries, polis is often translated as "city-state."...
sanctuaries, there were no modes of worshipping Zeus precisely shared across the Greek world. Most of the titles listed below, for instance, could be found at any number of Greek temple

Greek temple

Greek temples were structures built to house deity statues within Greek sanctuaries in Greek paganism. The temples themselves did usually not directly serve a cult purpose, since the sacrifices and rituals dedicated to the respective deity took place outside them....
s from Asia Minor to Sicily

Sicily

Sicily is an Autonomous regions with special statute of Italy. Of all the regions of Italy, Sicily covers the largest land area at 25,708 km? and currently has just over five million inhabitants....
. 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 *

Dyeus

*Dyeus is the reconstructed chief deity of the Proto-Indo-Europeans pantheon . He was the god of the daylight sky, and his position may have mirrored the position of the patriarch or monarch in Proto-Indo-European society....
, the Proto-Indo-European

Proto-Indo-European religion

The existence of similarities among the Deity and religious practices of the Indo-Europeans peoples allows glimpses of a common Proto-Indo-Europeans religion and mythology....
god of the daytime sky, also called * ("Sky Father"). The god is known under this name in Sanskrit (cf. Dyaus/Dyaus Pita
Dyaus Pita

In the historical vedic religion is the Sky Father, husband of Prithvi and father of Agni and Indra .Derivatives can be found in the Proto-Indo-European religion sky god *Dyeus, who appears in Greek language as Zeus pater , in Latin as Jupiter , in Slavic mythology as Rod , and Germanic and Norse mythology as Tyr or Ziu....
), Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
(cf. Jupiter, from Iuppiter, deriving from the PIE

Pie

A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough shell that covers or completely contains a filling of various sweetness or savoury ingredients....
vocative *), deriving from the basic form *dyeu- ("to shine", and in its many derivatives, "sky, heaven, god"). And in Germanic and Norse mythology

Norse mythology

Norse, Viking or Scandinavian mythology comprises the beliefs, myths and legends of the Norse paganism of the North Germanic language people, including those who settled on Faroe Islands and Iceland, where most of the written sources for Norse mythology were assembled....
(cf. *Tiwaz > OHG Ziu, ON

Old Norse

Old Norse is a North Germanic languages that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
Týr
Tyr

File:T?r by Fr?lich.jpgT?r is the god of single combat, victory and heroic glory in Norse mythology, portrayed as a one-handed man. In the late Icelandic Eddas, he is portrayed, alternately, as the son of Odin or of Hymir , while the origins of his name and his possible relationship to Tuisto suggest he was once considered the father of...
), together with Latin deus, divus and Dis(a variation of dives), 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

Odin

Odin , is considered the chief ?sir in Norse paganism. Homologous with the Anglo-Saxons Woden and the Old High German Wotan, it is descended from Proto-Germanic *Wodanaz or *Wodanaz....
among the Germanic tribes. Accordingly, they did not identify Zeus/Jupiter with either Tyr or Odin, but with Thor

Thor

Thor is the red-haired and bearded god of thunder in Germanic mythology and Germanic paganism, and its subsets: Norse paganism, Anglo-Saxon paganism and Continental Germanic mythology....
. Zeus is the only deity in the Olympic pantheon whose name has such a transparent Indo-European etymology.

Role and epithets

Zeus played a dominant role, presiding over the Greek

Ancient Greece

The term Ancient Greece refers to the period of History of Greece lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman Republic conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth ....
Olympian pantheon. He fathered many of the heroes and was featured in many of their local cults. Though the Homeric "cloud collector" 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

Religion

A religion is an organized approach to human spirituality which usually encompasses a set of myth, symbols, beliefs and practices, often with a supernatural or transcendence quality, that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power or truth....
beliefs and the archetypal

Archetype

An archetype is an original model of a person, ideal example, or a prototype after which others are copied, patterned, or emulated; a symbol universally recognized by all....
Greek deity.

Aside from local epithets that simply designated the deity to doing something random at some particular place, the epithet

Epithet

An epithet is a descriptive word or phrase accompanying or occurring in place of the name of a person or thing, which has become a fixed formula....
s or titles applied to Zeus emphasized different aspects of his wide-ranging authority:

Zeus Olympios emphasized Zeus's kingship over both the gods in addition to his specific presence at the Panhellenic festival at Olympia
Olympia, Greece

Olympia , a sanctuary of ancient Greece in Elis, is known for having been the site of the Olympic Games in classical times, comparable in importance to the Pythian Games held in Delphi....
.
A related title was Zeus Panhellenios ('Zeus of all the Hellenes'), to whom Aeacus
Aeacus

Aeacus was a Greek mythology king of the island of Aegina in the Saronic Gulf.He was son of Zeus and Aegina , a daughter of the river-god Asopus....
' famous temple on Aegina
Aegina

Aegina is one of the Greek islands of Greece in the Saronic Gulf, 17 miles from Athens. Tradition derives the name from Aegina, the mother of Aeacus, who was born in and ruled the island....
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. Exposed liars were made to dedicate a statue
Sculpture

Sculpture is Three-dimensional space artwork created by shaping or combining hard and or plastic material, sound, and or text and or light, commonly Stone sculpture , metal, glass, or wood....
to Zeus, often at the sanctuary of Olympia.
As Zeus Agoraeus, Zeus watched over business at the agora
Agora

The Agora was an open "place of assembly" in ancient Ancient Greece city-states. Early in Greek history , free-born male land-owners who were citizens would gather in the agora for military duty or to hear statements of the ruling king or council....
and punished dishonest traders.
As Zeus Aegiduchos or Aegiochos he was the bearer of the Aegis
Aegis

"Aegis" is a large collar or cape worn in ancient times to display the protection provided by a high religious authority or, it is the holder of a protective shield signifying the same, such as a bag-like garment that contained a shield....
with which he strikes terror into the impious and his enemies. Others derive this epithet from ("goat") and and take it as an allusion to the legend of Zeus' suckling at the breast of Amalthea
Amalthea (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Amalthea or Amaltheia is the most often mentioned among foster-mothers of Zeus. Her name in Greek is clearly an epithet, signifying the presence of an earlier nurturing goddess, whom the Hellenes, whose myths we know, knew to be located in Crete, where Minoan civilizations may have called her a version of "Dikte"...
.
As Zeus Meilichios, "Easy-to-be-entreated", he subsumed an archaic chthonic daimon
Daimon

Daimon may refer to:...
propitiated in Athens, Meilichios
Meilichios

As Zeus Meilichios, the Olympian gods of Greek mythology subsumed as an attributive epithet an earlier chthonic daimon, Meilichios, who was propitiated in Athens by archaic rituals, as Jane Ellen Harrison demonstrated in detail in Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion ....
.
As Zeus Tallaios
Talos

In the Cretan tales incorporated into Greek mythology, T?los or T?lon was a giant man of bronze who protected Europa in Crete, circling the island's shores three times daily while guarding it....
, or "Solar Zeus", he was worshiped in Crete
Crete

Crete is the largest of the Greek islands and the List of islands in the Mediterranean largest island in the Mediterranean Sea at 8,336 km? ....
.

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. With the epithet Zeus Aetnaeus he was worshiped on Mount Aetna

Mount Etna

Mount Etna is an active stratovolcano on the east coast of Sicily, close to Messina, Italy and Catania. Its Arabic name was Jebel Utlamat ....
, where there was a statue of him, and a local festival called the Aetnaea in his honor. Other examples are listed below.

As Zeus Aeneius or Aenesius, he was worshiped in the island of Cephalenia
Kefalonia

The island of Kefalonia, also known as Cephallenia, Cephallonia, Kefallinia, or Kefallonia , is the largest of the Ionian Islands in western Greece, with an area of 350 sq....
, where he had a temple on Mount Aenos
Mount Ainos

Mount Aenos or Ainos is the tallest mountain in Kefallinia, Greece, with an elevation of 1628 m .Most of the mountain range is designated as a park area....
.
As Zeus Agamemnon
Agamemnon (Zeus)

Agamemnon or Zeus Agamemnon was a cultic epithet of the Greek mythology Zeus, under which he was worshiped at Sparta. Some writers, such as Eustathius of Thessalonica, thought that the god derived this name from the resemblance between him and the Greek hero Agamemnon; others that Zeus Agamemnon was merely a synecdoche glorifying...
he was worshipped at Sparta
Sparta

Sparta was a city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the Eurotas River in the southern part of the Peloponnese. From circa 650 BC it rose to become the dominant military power in the region and as such was recognized as the overall leader of the combined Greek forces during the Greco-Persian Wars....
.

Cretan Zeus

With one exception, Greeks were unanimous in recognizing the birthplace of Zeus as Crete. Minoan culture contributed many essentials of ancient Greek religion: "by a hundred channels the old civilization emptied itself into the new", Will Durant observed, and Cretan Zeus retained his youthful Minoan features. The local child of the Great Mother, "a small and inferior deity who took the roles of son and consort", whose Minoan name the Greeks Hellenized as Velchanos, was in time assumed as an epithet

Epithet

An epithet is a descriptive word or phrase accompanying or occurring in place of the name of a person or thing, which has become a fixed formula....
by Zeus, as transpired at many other sites, and he came to be venerated in Crete as Zeus Velchanos, the "boy-Zeus", often simply the Kouros
Kouros

A kouros is the modern term given to those representations of male youths which first appear in the Archaic period in Greece. The term kouros, meaning youth, was first proposed for what were previously thought to be depictions of Apollo by V....
.

In Crete

Crete

Crete is the largest of the Greek islands and the List of islands in the Mediterranean largest island in the Mediterranean Sea at 8,336 km? ....
, Zeus was worshipped at a number of caves at Knossos

Knossos

Knossos , also known as the Knossos Palace is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and probably the ceremonial and political center of the Minoan civilization and culture....
, Ida

Ida

Ida or IDA can refer to:* Ida , a female name...
and Palaikastro. In the Hellenistic period a small sanctuary dedicated to Zeus Velchanos was founded at the Aghia Triada site of a long-ruined Minoan palace. Broadly contemporary coins from Phaistos

Phaistos

Phaistos , also transliteration as Phaestos, Festos and Phaestus is an ancient city on the island of Crete. Phaistos was located in the south-central portion of the island, about 5.6 kilometres from the Mediterranean Sea....
show the form under which he was worshiped: a youth sits among the branches of a tree, with a cockerel on his knees. On other Cretan coins Velchanos is represented as an eagle and in association with a goddess celebrating a mystic marriage. Inscriptions at Gortyn

Gortyn

Gortyn or Gortyna is an archaeological site on the Mediterranean island of Crete, 45 km away from the modern capital Heraklion. Gortyn, the Ancient Rome capital of Crete, was first inhabited around 3200 BC, and was a flourishing Minoan civilization town between 1600-1100 BC....
and Lyttos record a Velchania festival, showing that Velchanios was still widely venerated in Hellenistic Crete.

The stories of Minos

Minos

In Greek mythology, Minos was a mythical king of Crete, son of Zeus and Europa . After his death, Minos became a judge of the dead in Greek Underworld....
and Epimenides

Epimenides

Epimenides of Knossos was a semi-Greek mythology 6th century BC Greeks prophet and philosopher-Poetry, who is said to have fallen asleep for fifty-seven years in a Cretan cave sacred to Zeus, after which he reportedly awoke with the gift of prophecy....
suggest that these caves were once used for incubatory

Incubation (ritual)

Incubation is the religious practice of sleeping in a sacred area with the intention of experiencing a divinity inspired dream or cure. Incubation was practised by members of the cult of Asclepius....
divination by kings and priests. The dramatic setting of Plato

Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
'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". Ivory statuettes of the "Divine Boy" were unearthed near the Labyrinth

Labyrinth

In Greek mythology, the Labyrinth was an elaborate structure designed and built by the legendary artificer Daedalus for King Minos of Crete at Knossos....
at Knossos]] by Sir Arthur Evans. With the Kouretes, a band of ecstatic armed dancers, he presided over the rigorous military-athletic training and secret rites of the Cretan paideia
Paideia

In ancient Greek, the word paideia means "education" or "instruction." Paideia was the process of educating humans into their true form, the real and genuine human nature....
.

The myth of the death of Cretan Zeus, localised in numerous mountain sites though only mentioned in a comparatively late source, Callimachus

Callimachus

Callimachus was a native of the Greek colony of Cyrene, Libya, Libya. He was a noted poet, critic and scholar of the Library of Alexandria and enjoyed the patronage of ancient Egyptian Greeks Pharaohs Ptolemy II Philadelphus and Ptolemy III Euergetes....
, together with the assertion of Antoninus Liberalis

Antoninus Liberalis

Antoninus Liberalis was an Ancient Greece grammarian who probably flourished between AD 100 and 300.His only surviving work is the Metamorphoses, , a collection of forty-one very briefly summarised tales about mythical metamorphoses effected by offended deities, unique in that they are couched in prose, not verse....
that a fire shone forth annually from the birth-cave the infant shared with a mythic swarm of bees, suggests that Velchanos had been an annual vegetative spirit. The Hellenistic writer Euhemerus

Euhemerus

Euhemerus was a Greek Mythography at the court of Cassander, the king of Macedon. Euhemerus' birthplace is disputed, with Messina in Sicily or Messene in the Peloponnese as the most probable locations, while others champion Chios, or Tegea....
apparently proposed a theory that Zeus had actually been a great king of Crete

Crete

Crete is the largest of the Greek islands and the List of islands in the Mediterranean largest island in the Mediterranean Sea at 8,336 km? ....
and that posthumously his glory had slowly turned him into a deity. The works of Euhemerus himself 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

Lykaia

In Ancient Greece, the Lykaia was an archaic festival with a secret ritual on the slopes of Lycaeus , the tallest peak in rustic Arcadia. The rituals and myths of this primitive rite of passage centered upon an ancient threat of cannibalism and the possibility of a werewolf transformation for the Ephebos who were the participants....
on the slopes of Mount Lykaion

Lycaeus

Lykaion is a mountain in Arcadia, sacred to Zeus Lycaeus, who was said to have been born and brought up on it, and the home of Pelasgus and his son Lycaon_, who is said to have founded the ritual of Zeus practiced on its summit....
("Wolf Mountain"), the tallest peak in rustic Arcadia

Arcadia

Arcadia, Arkad?a , or Arcady is a region of Greece in the Peloponnesus. It takes its name from the mythological character Arcas....
; Zeus had only a formal connection with the rituals and myths of this primitive rite of passage

Rite of passage

A rite of passage is a ritual that marks a change in a person's social status. It is a universal phenomenon which can show anthropologists what social hierarchies, values and beliefs are important in specific cultures....
with an ancient threat of cannibalism

Cannibalism

Cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating other humans. The ritualistic eating of human flesh is also known as anthropophagy, from Greek: ?????p??, anthropos, "human being"; and fa?e??, phagein, "to eat"....
and the possibility of a werewolf

Werewolf

Werewolves, also known as lycanthropes from the Greek ????????p??, ????? and ?????p?? , are Mythology or folklore humans with the ability to shape shifting into Gray Wolf or anthropomorphism wolf-like creatures, either purposely, by being bitten by another werewolf, or after being placed under a curse....
transformation for the ephebe

Ephebe

Ephebe is either* the Anglicized form of the Greek word ephebos * the fictional country Ephebe from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series...
s who were the participants. Near the ancient ash-heap where the sacrifices took place was a forbidden precinct in which, allegedly, no shadows were ever cast. According to Plato

Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
(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

Megalopolis, Greece

Ancient Megalopolis, or now Megal?poli is a town in the western part of the prefecture of Arcadia. "Megalopolis" is a Greek word for Great city....
; 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

Lyceum

A Lyceum can be*an educational institution , or*a public hall used for cultural events like concerts.*Mount Lyceum . The holy mount of the Arcadians....
, which was made memorable as the site where Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greeks philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, Poetics , theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology....
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 as snakes or in human form in visual art, or, for emphasis as both together in one image. They also received offerings of black animal victims sacrificed into sunken pits, as did chthonic

Chthonic

Chthonic designates, or pertains to, deities or spirits of the underworld, especially in relation to Ancient Greek religion.Greek khthon is one of several words for "earth"; it typically refers to the interior of the soil, rather than the living surface of the Landscape or the land as territory ....
deities like Persephone

Persephone

Demeter

File:Demeter in horse chariot w daughter kore 83d40m wikiC Tempio Y di Selinunte sec VIa.JPGDemeter , in Greek mythology, is the Goddess of cereal and fertility, the pure....
, and also the hero

Hero

A hero , in Greek mythology and folklore, was originally a demigod, the offspring of a mortal and a deity,their Greek hero cult being one of the most distinctive features of Religion in ancient Greece....
es 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

Boeotia

Boeotia, Beotia, or B?otia , formerly Cadmeis, was a region of ancient Greece, north of the eastern part of the Gulf of Corinth. It was bounded on the south by Megaris and the Kithairon mountain range that forms a natural barrier with Attica, on the north by Opuntian Locris and the Euripus Strait at the Gulf of Euboea, and on the...
might belong to the hero Trophonius

Trophonius

Trophonius or Trophonios was a Greek mythology Greek hero cult or daemon or god - it was never certain which one - with a rich mythological tradition and an oracular cult at Livadeia in Boeotia....
or to Zeus Trephonius ("the nurturing"), depending on whether you believe Pausanias

Pausanias (geographer)

Pausanias was a Roman Greece traveller and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius....
, or Strabo

Strabo

Strabo was a Ancient Greeks history, geography and philosophy....
. The hero Amphiaraus

Amphiaraus

In Greek mythology, Amphiaraus was the son of Oicles and Hypermnestra, and husband of Eriphyle. Amphiaraus was the King of Argos along with Adrastus? the brother of Amphiaraus' wife, Eriphyle? and Iphis ....
was honored as Zeus Amphiaraus at Oropus outside of Thebes

Thebes, Greece

Thebes is a city in Greece, situated to the north of the Cithaeron range, which divides Boeotia from Attica, Greece, and on the southern edge of the Boeotian plain....
, and the Spartans even had a shrine to Zeus Agamemnon
Agamemnon

In Greek mythology, Agamemnon / is the son of King Atreus of Mycenae and Queen Aerope, the brother of Menelaus and the husband of Clytemnestra; different mythological versions make him the king either of Mycenae or of Argos....
.

Oracles of Zeus

Although most oracle sites were usually dedicated to Apollo

Apollo

Hero

Goddess

A goddess is a female deity. Often deities are part of a polytheism system that includes several deities in a pantheon .Common associations of goddesses are the Earth goddess, the Mother Goddess, Love goddess, and the hearth goddess, reflecting historical gender roles....
es like Themis

Themis

Themis is an Greek mythology. She is described as "of good counsel", and was the embodiment of divine order, law, and custom. Themis means "law of nature" rather than human ordinance, literally "that which is put in place", from the verb t?????, t?themi, to put....
, a few oracular sites were dedicated to Zeus.

The Oracle at Dodona

The cult of Zeus at Dodona

Dodona

Epirus (region)

Epirus is a region in south-eastern Europe, currently divided between the Peripheries of Greece Epirus in Greece and the prefectures of Gjirokast?r, Vlor?, Kor??, and Berat in southern Albania....
, where there is evidence of religious activity from the second millennium BC onward, centered on a sacred oak. When the Odyssey

Odyssey

The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Hellenic civilization epic poetrys attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work traditionally ascribed to Homer....
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

Herodotus

Herodotus of Halicarnassus was a Greeks historian who lived in the 5th century BC and is regarded as the "Father of History" in Western culture....
wrote about Dodona, female priestesses called peleiades

Peleiades

Peleiades were the sacred women of Zeus and the Mother Goddess, Dione , at the Oracle at Dodona. Pindar made a reference to the Pleiades as the "peleiades" a flock of doves, but the connection seems witty and poetical, rather than mythic....
("doves") had replaced the male priests.

Zeus' consort at Dodona was not Hera

Hera

In the Twelve Olympians of classical Greek Mythology, Hera or Here was the wife and older sister of Zeus. Her chief function was as goddess of women and marriage....
, but the goddess Dione

Dione (mythology)

Titan (mythology)

In Greek mythology, the Titans ; were a race of powerful deities that ruled during the legendary golden age. Their role as Elder Gods was overthrown by a race of younger gods, the Twelve Olympians, effected a mythological paradigm shift that the Greeks borrowed from the Ancient Near East....
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

Amun

Amun, reconstructed Egyptian language Yamanu , was the name of a deity in Egyptian mythology who gradually rose from being an abstract concept to the patron deity of Thebes, Egypt and one of the most important deities in Ancient Egypt before fading into obscurity....
at the oasis of Siwa

Siwa Oasis

The Siwa Oasis is an oasis in Egypt, located between the Qattara Depression and the Egyptian Sand Sea in the Libyan Desert, nearly 50 kilometre east of the Libyan border, and 560 km from Cairo....
in the Western Desert of Egypt

Egypt

Egypt is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia. Covering an area of about , Egypt borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west....
did not lie within the bounds of the Greek world before Alexander

Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great , also known as Alexander III of Macedon was an ancient Greeks King of Macedon . He was one of the most successful military commanders of all time and is presumed undefeated in battle....
's day, but it already loomed large in the Greek mind during the archaic era: Herodotus

Herodotus

Herodotus of Halicarnassus was a Greeks historian who lived in the 5th century BC and is regarded as the "Father of History" in Western culture....
mentions consultations with Zeus Ammon in his account of the Persian War

Greco-Persian Wars

For other Persian wars, see Roman-Persian Wars, Islamic conquest of Persia, Iraq war , and Military history of Iran.The Greco-Persian Wars were a series of conflicts between several ancient Greece city-states and the Achaemenid Empire that started in 499 BC and lasted until 448 BC....
. Zeus Ammon was especially favored at Sparta

Sparta

Sparta was a city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the Eurotas River in the southern part of the Peloponnese. From circa 650 BC it rose to become the dominant military power in the region and as such was recognized as the overall leader of the combined Greek forces during the Greco-Persian Wars....
, where a temple to him existed by the time of the Peloponnesian War

Peloponnesian War

The Peloponnesian War which lasted from 431-404BC was an Ancient Greece military conflict, fought by Athens and its Athenian empire against the Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta....

After Alexander made a trek into the desert to consult the oracle at Siwa, the figure arose of a Libyan Sibyl

Libyan Sibyl

The Libyan Sibyl, named Phemonoe, was the prophetic priestess presiding over the Zeus Amun Oracle at Siwa Oasis in the Libyan Desert.The word Sibyl comes from the ancient Greek word sibylla, meaning prophetess....
.

Zeus and foreign gods

Zeus was equivalent to the Roman

Roman mythology

Roman mythology, or more appropriately, Latin mythology, refers to the mythology beliefs of the Italic people inhabiting the region of Latium and its main city, Rome....
god Jupiter and associated in the syncretic classical imagination (see interpretatio graeca
Interpretatio graeca

Interpretatio graeca is a Latin term for the common tendency of ancient Greek writers to equate foreign divinities to members of their own pantheon....
) with various other deities, such as the Egyptian

Egyptian mythology

Ancient Egyptian religion encompasses the various religious beliefs and rituals practiced in ancient Egypt over at least 3,000 years, from the Predynastic Egypt until the adoption of Coptic Christianity in the early centuries Common Era....
Ammon

Amun

Etruscan mythology

The Etruscan civilizations were a people of unknown origin living in Northern Italy, who were eventually integrated into Roman culture and politically became part of the Roman Republic....
Tinia

Tinia

The Etruscan bright sky god Tinia was the highest god in Etruscan mythology, the Etruscan equivalent of the Roman mythology Jupiter and the Greek mythology Zeus....
. He (along with Dionysus

Dionysus

Phrygia

In antiquity, Phrygia was a kingdom in the west central part of Anatolia, in what is now modern-day Turkey. The Phrygians initially lived in the Southern Balkans; according to Herodotus, under the name of Bryges, changing it to Phruges after their final migration to Anatolia, via the Hellespont....
n god Sabazios

Sabazios

Sabazios is the nomadic horseman and sky father god of the Phrygians and Thracians. In Indo-European languages, such as Phrygian language, the '-zios' element in his name derives from dyeus, the common precursor of 'deus' and Zeus....
in the syncretic

Syncretism

Syncretism consists of the attempt to reconcile disparate or contrary beliefs, often while melding practices of various schools of thought. The term may refer to attempts to merge and analogy several originally discrete traditions, especially in the theology and mythology of religion, and thus assert an underlying unity allowing for an inclu...
deity known in Rome as Sabazius.

Zeus in myth

the Chariot of Zeus Project Gutenberg Etext 14994

Birth

Cronus

Cronus or Kronos, , was the leader and the youngest of the first generation of Titan , divine descendants of Gaia , the earth, and Uranus , the sky....
sired several children by Rhea

Rhea (mythology)

This page is about the Greek mythological figure. For the bird, see Rhea .Rhea was the Titan daughter of Ouranos , the sky, and Gaia , the earth, in Classical Greece mythology....
: Hestia

Hestia

In Greek mythology, virginal Hestia, daughter of Cronus and Rhea , is the goddess of the hearth, of the right ordering of domesticity and the family, who received the first offering at every sacrifice in the household....
, Demeter

Demeter

File:Demeter in horse chariot w daughter kore 83d40m wikiC Tempio Y di Selinunte sec VIa.JPGDemeter , in Greek mythology, is the Goddess of cereal and fertility, the pure....
, Hera

Hera

In the Twelve Olympians of classical Greek Mythology, Hera or Here was the wife and older sister of Zeus. Her chief function was as goddess of women and marriage....
, Hades

Hades

Poseidon

In Greek mythology, Poseidon was the god of the sea and, as "Earth-Shaker," of earthquakes. The name of the god Nethuns in Etruscan mythology was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon....
, but swallowed them all as soon as they were born, since he had learned from Gaia

Gaia

Gaia or Gaea most commonly refers to Gaia , the primal Greek goddess of the earth. But it may also refer to:...
and Uranus

Uranus (mythology)

Uranus is the Latinized form of Ouranos , the Greek language word for sky. In Greek mythology Uranus , or Father Sky, is personified as the son and husband of Gaia , Mother Earth ....
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

Mount Ida

In Greek mythology, two sacred mountains are called Mount Ida, the "Mountain of the Goddess": Mount Ida, Crete, and Mount Ida, Turkey, known as Mount Ida, Turkey in Classical times....
in Crete. According to varying versions of the story:

He was then raised by Gaia
Gaia (mythology)

Gaia Gaia is a Greek primordial gods and chthonic deity in the Ancient Greek Pantheon and considered a Mother Goddess or Great Goddess....
.
He was raised by a goat
Goat

The domestic goat is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the Bovidae family and is closely related to the sheep: both are in the goat-antelope subfamily Caprinae....
named Amalthea
Amalthea (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Amalthea or Amaltheia is the most often mentioned among foster-mothers of Zeus. Her name in Greek is clearly an epithet, signifying the presence of an earlier nurturing goddess, whom the Hellenes, whose myths we know, knew to be located in Crete, where Minoan civilizations may have called her a version of "Dikte"...
, 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
Cornucopia

The cornucopia is a symbol of food and abundance dating back to the 5th century BC, also referred to as horn of plenty, Horn of Amalthea, and harvest cone....
.)
He was raised by a nymph
Nymph

In Greek mythology, a nymph is any member of a large class of mythological entities in human form. They were typically associated with a particular location or landform....
named Adamanthea
Adamanthea

A nymph in Greek mythology, Adamanthea helped raise the infant Zeus to hide him from his father, Cronus. Reacting to a prophecy from his mother Gaia that his own offspring would overthrow his supreme position in the pantheon, Cronus swallowed all of his children immediately after birth....
. Since Cronus ruled over the Earth
Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun. Earth is the largest of the terrestrial planets in the Solar System in diameter, mass and density. It is also referred to as the World and Wiktionary:Terra.Note that by International Astronomical Union convention, the term "Terra" is used for naming extensive land masses, rather...
, the heaven
Heaven

Heaven may refer to the physical heavens, the atmosphere or the seemingly endless expanse of the universe beyond. This is the traditional literal meaning of the term in English, however since at least AD 1000, it is typically also used to refer to an afterlife plane of existence in various religions and spirituality philosophy, often descri...
s and the sea
SEA

See also: Sea and seasThe three-letter acronym SEA may refer to:People/organizations/businesses*Scientists and Engineers for America, a pro-science political advocacy group....
, she hid him by dangling him on a rope
Rope

A rope is a length of fibers, twisted or braided together to improve strength for pulling and connecting. It has tensile strength but is too flexible to provide compressive strength ....
from a tree
TREE

TREE was a Boston hardcore punk band formed in the summer of 1990. They were active in the Boston music scene until disbanding in 2002....
so he was suspended between earth, sea and sky and thus, invisible to his father.
He was raised by a nymph
Nymph

In Greek mythology, a nymph is any member of a large class of mythological entities in human form. They were typically associated with a particular location or landform....
named Cynosura
Cynosura

In Greek mythology, Cynosura was a nymph on Mount Ida, Crete. Cynosura nursed Zeus when he was being hidden from his father, Cronus. In gratitude, Zeus placed her in the heavens as the constellation Ursa Minor; according to folk etymology and the myth, Kynosoura is from ????? ???? "dog's tail, because it appeared to be the tail of the adjac...
. In gratitude, Zeus placed her among the stars
Catasterismi

Catasterismi is an Alexandrian prose retelling of the Greek mythologyic origins of stars and constellations, as they were interpreted in Hellenistic civilization....
.
He was raised by Melissa
Melissa

Melissa is a given name for a female. It is of Greek language origin, meaning honey bee."Mellissa" Can mean Scornful, or Full of wrath.In 2007, Melissa was the 137th most popular name for girls born in the United States, dropping steadily from its peak of second place in 1977....
, who nursed him with goat
Goat

The domestic goat is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the Bovidae family and is closely related to the sheep: both are in the goat-antelope subfamily Caprinae....
's-milk and honey.
He was raised by a shepherd family under the promise that their sheep would be saved from wolves.

-wreathed head of Zeus on a gold stater

Stater

The stater was an ancient coin of Ancient Greece or Lydian origin which circulated from about 700 BC to 50 AD. It was also heavily used by Celtic tribes....
, Lampsacus

Lampsacus

File:Stater Zeus Lampsacus CdM.jpgLampsacus was an ancient Greece city strategically located on the eastern side of the Hellespont in the northern Troad....
, c 360-340 BCE (Cabinet des Médailles

Cabinet des Médailles

The Cabinet des M?dailles, or Cabinet de France, more formally known as Le d?partement des Monnaies, M?dailles et Antiquit?s de la Biblioth?que Nationale, is a department of the Biblioth?que nationale de France in Paris, housed in its former premises in rue de Richelieu....
)]]

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

Omphalos

An omphalos is an ancient religious stone Artifact , or baetylus. In Greek language, the word omphalos means "navel" . According to the ancient Greeks, Zeus sent out two eagles to fly across the world to meet at its center, the "navel" of the world....
) then his siblings in reverse order of swallowing. In some versions, Metis

Metis (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Metis was of the Titan generation and, like several primordial figures, an Oceanid, in the sense that M?tis was born of Oceanus and Tethys , of an earlier age than Zeus and his siblings....
gave Cronus an emetic to force him to disgorge the babies, or Zeus cut Cronus' stomach

Stomach

In most mammals, the stomach is a hollow muscular organ of the gastrointestinal tract involved in the second phase of digestion, following mastication....
open. Then Zeus released the brothers of Cronus, the Gigantes

Gigantes

In Greek mythology, the Gigantes or, commonly, Giants, were a race of giants, children of Gaia or Gaea, who were fertilized by the blood of Uranus_, after being castration by his son Cronus....
, the Hecatonchires

Hecatonchires

The Hecatonchires, or Hekatonkheires, were three gargantuan figures of an archaic stage of Greek mythology. According to Hesiod they were children of Gaia and Uranus , simply the issue of Earth and Sky, or of Earth and Sea thus part of the very beginning of things in the submerged prehistory of Greek myth, though they played no part...
and the Cyclopes

Cyclops

In Greek mythology and later Roman mythology, a cyclops , is a member of a primordial race of giant , each with a single eye in the middle of its forehead....
, from their dungeon in Tartarus

Tartarus

In classic Roman mythology, below Heaven, Earth, and Pontus is Tartarus, or Tartaros . It is a deep, gloomy place, a pit, or an abyss used as a dungeon of torment and suffering that resides beneath the Hades....
, killing their guard, Campe

Campe

A chthonic female monster in Greek mythology Kamp? was set by Kronos to guard the Hecatonchires and Cyclops in Tartarus after Kronos imprisoned them there; she was killed by Zeus when he rescued the Cyclopes for help in the Titanomachy Campe was a she-dragon with a woman's head and torso and a scorpion-like tail....
. As a token of their appreciation, the Cyclopes gave him thunder

Thunder

Thunder is the sound made by lightning. Depending on the nature of the lightning and distance of the listener, it can range from a sharp, loud crack to a long, low rumble ....
and the thunderbolt, or lightning

Lightning

File:Blesk.jpgLightning is an Earth's atmosphere discharge of electricity usually accompanied by thunder, which typically occurs during thunderstorms, and sometimes during volcano or dust storms....
, 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

Titanomachy

In Greek mythology, the Titanomachy, or War of the Titans , was the ten-year series of battles fought between the two races of deities long before the existence of mankind: the Titan , fighting from Mount Othrys, or Mount Etna and the Twelve Olympians, who would come to reign on Mount Olympus ....
. 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

Poseidon

Hades

Hades refers both to the ancient Greek underworld, the abode of Hades, and to the god of the underworld. Hades in Homer referred just to the god; the genitive case , Haidou, was an elision to denote locality: "[the house/dominion] of 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

Gaia (mythology)

Gaia Gaia is a Greek primordial gods and chthonic deity in the Ancient Greek Pantheon and considered a Mother Goddess or Great Goddess....
, 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

Penthus

In Greek mythology, Penthus was the personification of grief. When Zeus began passing out domains to the various gods, Penthus was not there. As such, he received the one domain no one wanted: grief and sadness....
)

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 monster

Monster

A monster is any of a large number of legendary creatures which usually appear in, legend, or horror fiction. The word originates from the ancient Latin :la:monstrum, meaning "omen", from the root of :wikt:monere and also meaning "prodigy" or "miracle"....
s Typhon

Typhon

In Greek mythology, Typhon , also Typheus/Typhoeus , Typhaon or Typhos is the final son of Gaia , fathered by Tartarus, and is the god of wind....
and Echidna

Echidna (mythology)

In the most ancient layers of Greek mythology, Echidna was called the "Mother of All Monsters". Echidna was described by Hesiod as a female monster spawned in a cave, who mothered with her mate Typhon every major horrible monster in the Greek myths,...
. 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

Hera

In the Twelve Olympians of classical Greek Mythology, Hera or Here was the wife and older sister of Zeus. Her chief function was as goddess of women and marriage....
. By Hera, Zeus sired Ares

Ares

Hebe (mythology)

Hephaestus

Ilithyia

Eileithyia , was the Minoan civilization whom Greek mythology adapted as the goddess of childbirth and midwifery. Her name does not appear to have an Indo-European languages etymology, which for R....
and Eris

Eris (mythology)

Eris is the Greek mythology goddess of strife, her name being translated into Latin as Discordia. Her Greek opposite is Harmonia , whose Latin counterpart is Concordia ....
as their daughters. The conquests of Zeus among nymph

Nymph

In Greek mythology, a nymph is any member of a large class of mythological entities in human form. They were typically associated with a particular location or landform....
s and the mythic mortal progenitors of Hellenic

Greeks

The Greeks , also known as Hellenes, are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighbouring regions, who can also be found in Greek diaspora communities around the world....
dynasties are famous. Olympian mythography even credits him with unions with Leto

Leto

In Greek mythology, Let? is a daughter of the Titan Coeus and Phoebe : Kos claimed her birthplace. In the Olympian scheme of things, Zeus is the father of her twins, Apollo and Artemis, the Letoides....
, Demeter

Demeter

File:Demeter in horse chariot w daughter kore 83d40m wikiC Tempio Y di Selinunte sec VIa.JPGDemeter , in Greek mythology, is the Goddess of cereal and fertility, the pure....
, Dione

Dione (mythology)

Maia (mythology)

Maia in Greek mythology, was the eldest of the Pleiades , the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione . She and her sisters, born on Mount Cyllene in Arcadia, are sometimes called mountain goddesses, oreads, for Simonides of Ceos sang of "mountain Maia" "of the lively black eyes"....
. Among mortals were Semele

Semele

File:Gustave Moreau 004.jpgIn Greek mythology, Semele, daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia , was the mortal mother of Dionysus by Zeus in one of his many origin myths....
, Io

Io (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Io was a priestess of Hera in Argos who was seduced by Zeus, who changed her into a heifer to escape detection. Her mistress Hera set ever-watchful Argus Panoptes to guard her, but Hermes was sent to distract the guardian and slay him....
, Europa

Europa (mythology)

Europa was a Phoenician woman of high lineage in Greek mythology, from whom the name of the continent Europe has ultimately been taken. The story of her abduction by Zeus in the form of a white bull was a Cretan story, as K?roly Ker?nyi points out; "most of the love-stories concerning Zeus originated from more ancient tales describing his ma...
and Leda

Leda (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Leda was daughter of the Aetolian king Thestius, and wife of the king Tyndareus, of Sparta. Her myth gave rise to the popular motif in Renaissance and later art of Leda and the Swan....
. (For more details, see below).

Many myths render Hera as jealous of his amorous conquests and a consistent enemy of Zeus' mistresses and their children by him. For a time, a nymph

Nymph

In Greek mythology, a nymph is any member of a large class of mythological entities in human form. They were typically associated with a particular location or landform....
named Echo

Echo (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Echo was an Oread who loved her own voice. Zeus loved consorting with beautiful nymphs and visited them on Earth often. Eventually, Zeus's wife, Hera, became suspicious, and came from Mount Olympus in an attempt to catch Zeus with the nymphs....
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.

Hera is also represented as having despised Ganymede

Ganymede (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Ganymede, or Ganymedes is a divine hero whose homeland was the Troad. He was a Troy prince, son of the eponym Tros of Dardania, and of Callirrhoe , and brother of Ilus and Assaracus....
, a Trojan boy whom he brought into Olympus to be cup-bearer to the gods as well as his lover

Eromenos

In the Pederasty in ancient Greece of Athens, the eromenos was an adolescence boy who was in a love relationship with an adult man, known as the erastes ....
.

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

Themis

Chaos (mythology)

In Greek myth, Chaos or Khaos is the original state of existence from which the first gods appeared. In other words, the dark void of space....
or Anake

Ananke (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Ananke was the personification of destiny, necessity and wiktionary:fate, depicted as holding a Spindle . She marks the beginning of the cosmos, along with Chronos....
.

†Hermes

Hermes

Poseidon

In Greek mythology, Poseidon was the god of the sea and, as "Earth-Shaker," of earthquakes. The name of the god Nethuns in Etruscan mythology was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon....
also played a part in Orion's conception and are also biological fathers of him. He is described as being "Earth-born" and was gestated buried beneath the ground; this is Gaia's domain, though she had no direct involvement in his birth or development. Other versions of his parentage include a version of the former excluding Poseidon and one with solely Poseidon and Euryale

Euryale

Euryale , in Greek mythology, was one of the immortal Gorgons, three vicious sisters with brass hands, sharp fangs, and hair of living, venomous snakes....
as his parents.

Zeus miscellany

Zeus turned Pandareus
Pandareus

In Greek mythology, Pandareus was the son of Clymene and Merops. His residence was given as either Ephesus or Miletus. At the request of his friend, Tantalus, Pandareus stole a bronze dog from a temple to Zeus on Crete....
to stone for stealing the golden dog
Dog

The dog is a domesticated subspecies of the Gray Wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties....
which had guarded him as an infant in the holy Dictaeon Cave of Crete
Crete

Crete is the largest of the Greek islands and the List of islands in the Mediterranean largest island in the Mediterranean Sea at 8,336 km? ....
.
Zeus killed Salmoneus
Salmoneus

In Greek mythology, Salmoneus was the son of Aeolus and Enarete, the brother of Athamas, Sisyphus and the father of Tyro. Salmoneus became King of Elis and founded the city of Salmaneo....
with a thunderbolt for attempting to impersonate him, riding around in a bronze
Bronze

Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive, but sometimes with other chemical element such as phosphorus, manganese, aluminium, or silicon....
chariot
Chariot

The chariot is the earliest and simplest type of carriage, used in both peace and war as the chief vehicle of many ancient peoples. Chariots were built in Mesopotamia by the Mesopotamians as early as 3000 BC and in China during the 2nd millennium BC....
and loudly imitating thunder
Thunder

Thunder is the sound made by lightning. Depending on the nature of the lightning and distance of the listener, it can range from a sharp, loud crack to a long, low rumble ....
.
Zeus turned Periphas
Periphas

In Greek mythology, King Periphas of Attica, Greece was changed into an eagle , by Zeus, as a reward for being righteous and just. Zeus made him King of all birds and gave him the right both to guard his holy scepter and to approach his throne....
into an eagle
Eagle

Eagles are large bird of prey which are members of the bird family Accipitridae, and belong to several Genus which are not necessarily closely related to each other....
after his death
Death

Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that define a life organism. It refers to both a particular event and to the condition that results thereby....
, as a reward for being righteous and just.
At the marriage of Zeus and Hera, a nymph named Chelone
Chelone (Greek mythology)

Chelone , an Oread nymph of Arcadia in Greek mythology, invented to provide an etiology myth for the tortoise: in one of Aesop's Fables, she refused to attend or was very naughty and disrespectful at the marriage of Zeus and Hera, and as a result she was transformed into a tortoise, condemning her to eternal silence....
refused to attend. Zeus transformed her into a tortoise (chelone in Greek).
Zeus, with Hera, turned King Haemus
Haemus

In Greek mythology, King Haemus of Thrace was the son of Boreas. He was vain and haughty and compared himself and his wife, Queen Rhodope, to Zeus and Hera....
and Queen Rhodope
Queen Rhodope

In Greek mythology, Queen Rhodope of Thrace was the wife of Haemus. Haemus was vain and haughty and compared himself and Rhodope to Zeus and Hera, who were offended and changed the couple into mountains ....
into mountain
Mountain

A mountain is a landform that stretches above the surrounding land in a limited area usually in the form of a peak. A mountain is generally steeper than a hill....
s (the Balkan mountains
Balkan Mountains

The Balkan mountain range is a mountain in the eastern part of the Balkan Peninsula. The Balkan range runs 560 km from the Vrashka Chuka Peak on the border between Bulgaria and eastern Serbia eastward through central Bulgaria to Cape Emine on the Black Sea....
, or Stara Planina, and Rhodope mountains
Rhodope Mountains

The Rhodopes are a mountain range in Southeastern Europe, with over 83% of its area in southern Bulgaria and the remainder in Greece. Its highest peak, Golyam Perelik , is the seventh highest Bulgarian mountain....
, respectively) for their vanity.
Zeus condemned Tantalus
Tantalus

In Greek mythology Tantalus was a son of Zeus and the nymph Plouto. Thus he was a king in the primordial world, the father of a son Broteas whose very name signifies "mortals" ....
to eternal torture in Tartarus for trying to trick the gods into eating the flesh of his butchered son.
Zeus condemned Ixion
Ixion

In Greek mythology, Ixion was king of the Lapiths, the most ancient tribe of Thessaly, and a son of Ares or Antion or the notorious evildoer Phlegyas, whose name connotes "fiery"....
to be tied to a fiery wheel for eternity as punishment for attempting to violate Hera.
Zeus sunk the Telchines
Telchines

In Greek mythology, the Telchines were the original inhabitants of the island of Rhodes, and were known in Crete and Cyprus. They were regarded as excellent metallurgists....
beneath the sea for blighting the earth with their fell magics.
Zeus blinded the seer Phineus
Phineus

Phineus may refer to:* Phineus, killed by Perseus. See Boast of Cassiopeia* Blind King Phineus or Phineas of Thrace, visited by Jason and the Argonauts...
and sent the Harpies to plague him as punishment for revealing the secrets of the gods.
Zeus rewarded Tiresias
Tiresias

In Greek mythology, Tiresias was a blind prophet of Thebes , famous for being transformed into a woman for seven years. He was the son of the shepherd Everes and the nymph Chariclo; Tiresias participated in fully seven generations at Thebes, beginning as advisor to Cadmus himself....
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
Hera

In the Twelve Olympians of classical Greek Mythology, Hera or Here was the wife and older sister of Zeus. Her chief function was as goddess of women and marriage....
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
Heracles

In Greek mythology, Heracles or Herakles meaning "glory of Hera", or "Glorious through Hera" Alcides or Alcaeus " was a hero, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus....
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.
Athena
Athena

In Greek mythology, Athena is the shrewd companion of Hero and the goddess of Hero endeavour. She is the virgin patron of Athens, which built the Parthenon to worship her....
has at times been called his favorite daughter.
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
Oak

The term oak can be used as part of the common name of any of about 400 species of trees and shrubs in the genus Quercus , which are listed in the List of Quercus species, and some related genera, notably Lithocarpus....
, symbol of strength. Olive tree
Olive Tree

The Olive Tree was a denomination used for several successive centre-left List of political parties in Italy from 1995 to 2007.The historical leader and ideologue of these coalitions was Romano Prodi, Professor of Economics and former left-wing politics Christian Democracy , who invented the name and the symbol of The Olive Tree with Artur...
s were also sacred to him.
Zelus
Zelus

In Greek mythology, Zelus was the son of Pallas and Styx . Zelus and siblings Nike , Cratos and Bia were angel who stood in attendance at Zeus' throne and formed part of his retinue....
, Nike
Nike (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Nike , was a goddess who personified triumph throughout the ages of the ancient Greek culture. The Roman equivalent was Victoria ....
, Cratos
Cratos

In Greek mythology, Cratos was a son of Pallas and Styx , and he was the personification of strength and power. Cratos and his siblings, Nike , Bia and Zelus , were all companions of Zeus....
and Bia
Bia (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Bia was the personification of force, daughter of Pallas and Styx . She was the sister of Nike , Cratos, and Zelus; she and her siblings were constant companions of Zeus....
were Zeus' retinue
Retinue

A retinue is a body of persons "retained" in the service of a nobility or royal family personage, a suite of "retainers."...
.
Zeus condemned Prometheus
Prometheus

In Greek mythology, Prometheus is a Titan known for his wily intelligence, who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to human beings for their use....
to having his liver eaten by a giant eagle for giving the Flames of Olympus to the mortals.

In Philosophy

In Neoplatonism

Neoplatonism

Neoplatonism is the modern term for a school of religious and mystical philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century AD, founded by Plotinus and based on the teachings of Plato and earlier Platonism....
, Zeus' relation to the Gods familiar from mythology is taught as the Demiurge

Demiurge

Demiurge in philosophical and religious language is a term for a creator deity, responsible for the Creation myth of the physical universe.In the sense of a divine creative principle as expressed in ergon or energy, the word was first introduced by Plato in Timaeus , 41a ....
or Divine Mind

Nous

Nous is a philosophical term for mind or intellect. Outside of a philosophical context, it is used, in English, to denote "common sense," with a different pronunciation ....
. Specifically within Plotinus

Plotinus

Plotinus was a major Philosophy of the ancient world who is widely considered the founder of Neoplatonism . Much of our biographical information about him comes from Porphyry 's preface to his edition of Plotinus' Enneads....
' work the Enneads

Enneads

The Six Enneads, sometimes abbreviated to The Enneads or Enneads, is the collection of writings of Plotinus, edited and compiled by his student Porphyry ....

Other names/epithets

?????, Zenon,
??a?, Dias
Zeus Hospites- as a protector of guests
Zeus Philoxenon- as a protector of foreigners
Olumpios- the Olympian
Astrapios- literally, "the lightninger"
Brontios- the Thunderer

Spoken-word myths — audio files

Argive genealogy in Greek mythology

External links

stories of Zeus in myth
summary, stories, classical art
cult and statues
from National Geographic