Zeus
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Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For
other uses, see Zeus (disambiguation).
Zeus
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King of the Gods
God of the Sky, Thunder and Lightning and Law, Order and Justice |
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Abode
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Symbol
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Thunderbolt, Eagle, Bull and Oak
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Consort
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Parents
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Siblings
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Children
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Roman equivalent
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![The Jupiter de Smyrne, discovered in Smyrna in 1680[1]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jupiter_Smyrna_Louvre_Ma13.jpg)
In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus (
/ˈzjuːs/ zews[3] zooss; Ancient Greek: Ζεύς; Modern Greek:
Δίας, Dias) is the
"Father of Gods and men" (Πατὴρ Θεῶν τὲ καὶ Ἀνθρώπων) [4] who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He is
the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology.
His Roman counterpart isJupiter and
his Etruscan counterpart
is Tinia.
/ˈzjuːs/ zews[3] zooss; Ancient Greek: Ζεύς; Modern Greek:
Δίας, Dias) is the
"Father of Gods and men" (Πατὴρ Θεῶν τὲ καὶ Ἀνθρώπων) [4] who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He is
the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology.
His Roman counterpart isJupiter and
his Etruscan counterpart
is Tinia.
Zeus was the child of Cronus and Rhea,
and the youngest of his siblings. In most traditions he was married to Hera, although, at the
oracle of Dodona, his
consort wasDione: according to the Iliad, he is the
father of Aphrodite by Dione.[2] He is known for his erotic escapades.
These resulted in many godly and heroic offspring, includingAthena, Apollo and Artemis, Hermes, Persephone (by Demeter), Dionysus, Perseus, Heracles, Helen of Troy, Minos, and the Muses (by Mnemosyne);
by Hera, he is usually said to have fathered Ares, Hebe and Hephaestus.[5]
As Walter Burkert points out in his book, Greek Religion, "Even the
gods who are not his natural children address him as Father, and all the gods
rise in his presence."[6] For the Greeks, he was the King of the Gods,
who oversaw the universe. As Pausanias observed,
"That Zeus is king in heaven is a saying common to all men".[7] In Hesiod's Theogony Zeus assigns the various gods their
roles. In the Homeric Hymns he is referred to as the chieftain of
the gods.
His symbols are the thunderbolt, eagle, bull,
and oak. In addition to his
Indo-European inheritance, the classical "cloud-gatherer" also
derives certain iconographic traits from the cultures of the Ancient Near
East, 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.
Contents
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Etymology
The
Chariot of Zeus, from an 1879 Stories
from the Greek Tragedians by
Alfred Church
In Greek, the god's name is Ζεύς Zeús /zdeús/ or /dzeús/ (Modern Greek /'zefs/)
in the nominative case and Διός Diós in the genitive case.
The earliest forms of the name are the Mycenaean Greek di-we and di-wo,
written in Linear b syllabic script.[8] With the apparent interchangeability
of "z" and "d", Zeus can also be Deus.
Zeus, poetically referred to
by the vocative Zeu pater ("O, father Zeus"), is a
continuation of *Di̯ēus, the Proto-Indo-European god of the daytime sky, also called *Dyeus ph2tēr ("Sky
Father").[9] The god is known under this name in Sanskrit (cf. Dyaus/Dyaus Pita), Latin (cf. Jupiter,
from Iuppiter, deriving
from the PIE vocative *dyeu-ph2tēr[10]),
deriving from the basic form *dyeu- ("to shine", and in its
many derivatives, "sky, heaven, god").[9] And in Germanic and Norse mythology (cf. *Tīwaz > OHG Ziu, ON Týr), together with
Latin deus, dīvus and Dis (a variation of dīves[11]),
from the related noun *deiwos.[11] To the Greeks and Romans, the god of
the sky was also the supreme god, whereas this function was filled out by Odin among the Germanic tribes.
Accordingly, they did not identify Zeus/Jupiter with either Tyr or Odin, but
with Thor (Þórr). Zeus is the only
deity in the Olympic pantheon whose name has such a transparent
Indo-European etymology.[12]
Zeus in myth
Zeus,
at the Getty Villa, A.D. 1 - 100 by unknown
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 Uranusthat 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 in Crete .
According to varying versions of the story:
1.
He was then raised by Gaia.
2.
He was raised by a goat named Amalthea, while a company of Kouretes—
soldiers, or smaller gods— danced, shouted and clashed their spears against
their shields so that Cronus would not hear the baby's cry (see cornucopia).
3.
He was raised by a nymph named Adamanthea.
Since Cronus ruled over the Earth, the heavens and the sea, she hid him by
dangling him on a rope from a tree so he was suspended between earth, sea
and sky and thus, invisible to his father.
4.
He was raised by a nymph named Cynosura.
In gratitude, Zeus placed her among
the stars.
6.
He was raised by a shepherd family under the
promise that their sheep would be saved from wolves.
King
of the gods
Colossal
seated Marnas fromGaza portrayed in the style of Zeus. Roman
period Marnas[13]was
the chief divinity of Gaza (Istanbul Archaeology Museum)
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,
killing their guard, Campe.
As a token of their
appreciation, the Cyclopes gave him thunder and the thunderbolt, or lightning,
which had previously been hidden by Gaia. Together, Zeus and his brothers and
sisters, along with the Gigantes, Hecatonchires and Cyclopes overthrew Cronus
and the other Titans, in the combat called the Titanomachy.
The defeated Titans were then cast into a shadowy underworld region known as
Tartarus. Atlas, one of the titans that fought against Zeus, was punished by
having to hold up the sky.
After the battle with the
Titans, Zeus shared the world with his elder brothers, Poseidon and Hades, by drawing lots:
Zeus got the sky and air, Poseidon the waters, and Hades the world of the dead
(the underworld). The ancient Earth, Gaia,
could not be claimed; she was left to all three, each according to their
capabilities, which explains why Poseidon was the "earth-shaker" (the
god of earthquakes) and Hades claimed the humans that died (see also Penthus).
Gaia resented the way Zeus
had treated the Titans, because they were her children. Soon after taking the
throne as king of the gods, Zeus had to fight some of Gaia's other children,
the monsters Typhon and Echidna. He vanquished Typhon and trapped him
under Mount Etna,
but left Echidna and her children alive.
Zeus
and Hera
Main
article: Hera
Zeus was brother and consort
of Hera. By Hera, Zeus sired Ares, Hebe and Hephaestus,
though some accounts say that Hera produced these offspring alone. Some also
includeEileithyia and Eris as their daughters. The conquests of
Zeus among nymphs and the mythic mortal progenitors of Hellenic dynasties are famous. Olympian
mythography even credits him with unions with Leto, Demeter, Dione and Maia.
Among mortals were Semele, Io, Europa and Leda (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 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
Divine
offspring
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Semi-divine/mortal
offspring
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