Zeus

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 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, 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.

Zeus in Myth

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 from wolves.

Childhood

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.
5. He was raised by Melissa, who nursed him with goats-milk

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. 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 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.

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 in Popular Culture

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 Lightingbolts 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. He is also 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 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 (yet a loving dad and husband) god in Disney's Hercules. He is Hera's only husband. He is portrayed to have one mythological accuracy where Hephaestus manufactures his thunderbolts.

References

• 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 0-8196-0148-9 (reprint)
  • Volume 2: Zeus, God of the Dark Sky (Thunder and Lightning), Biblo-Moser, June 1, 1964, ISBN 0-8196-0156-X
  • Volume 3: Zeus, God of the Dark Sky (earthquakes, clouds, wind, dew, rain, meteorites)
• Druon, Maurice, The Memoirs of Zeus, 1964, Charles Scribner's and Sons. (tr. Humphrey Hare)
• 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]

External links

• 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