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128-601: Greeks of the classical age knew of several poems about the war between the gods and many of the Titans. The dominant one, and the only one that has survived, is the Theogony attributed to Hesiod . The Titans also played a prominent role in the poems attributed to Orpheus . Although only scraps of the Orphic narratives survive, they show differences from the Hesiodic tradition. The stage for

256-422: A sickle made of adamant and urged her children to punish their father. Only her son Cronus, the youngest Titan, was willing to do so. So Gaia hid Cronus in "ambush" and gave him the adamantine sickle, and when Uranus came to lie with Gaia, Cronus reached out and castrated his father. This enabled the Titans to be born and Cronus to assume supreme command of the cosmos. Cronus, having now taken over control of

384-494: A bride, and names it Daidale. When preparations are being made for the wedding, Hera rushes down from Cithaeron, followed by the women of Plataia , and upon discovering the trick, the couple are reconciled, with the matter ending in joy and laughter among all involved. After his marriage to Hera, different authors describe Zeus's numerous affairs with various mortal women. In many of these affairs, Zeus transforms himself into an animal, someone else, or some other form. According to

512-424: A cuckoo bird, landing on Mount Thornax. He creates a terrible storm, and when Hera arrives at the mountain and sees the bird, which sits on her lap, she takes pity on it, laying her cloak over it. Zeus then transforms back and takes hold of her; when she refuses to have intercourse with him because of their mother, he promises that she will become his wife. Pausanias similarly refers to Zeus transforming himself into

640-416: A cuckoo to woo Hera, and identifies the location as Mount Thornax. According to a version from Plutarch , as recorded by Eusebius in his Praeparatio evangelica , Hera is raised by a nymph named Macris on the island of Euboea when Zeus kidnaps her, taking her to Mount Cithaeron , where they find a shady hollow, which serves as a "natural bridal chamber". When Macris comes to look for Hera, Cithaeron,

768-633: A descendent line consisting primarily of sea deities, sea nymphs, and hybrid monsters. Their first child Nereus (Old Man of the Sea) married Doris , one of the Oceanid daughters of the Titans Oceanus and Tethys, and they produced the Nereids , fifty sea nymphs, which included Amphitrite , Thetis , and Psamathe . Their second child Thaumas married Electra, another Oceanid, and their offspring were Iris (Rainbow) and

896-469: A fragment of Epimenides, the nymphs Helike and Kynosura are the young Zeus's nurses. Cronus travels to Crete to look for Zeus, who, to conceal his presence, transforms himself into a snake and his two nurses into bears. According to Musaeus , after Zeus is born, Rhea gives him to Themis . Themis in turn gives him to Amalthea, who owns a she-goat, which nurses the young Zeus. Antoninus Liberalis , in his Metamorphoses , says that Rhea gives birth to Zeus in

1024-455: A great sickle , forged from adamantine, and hid it in a crevice on Mount Othrys . Gaia then proceeded to attempt to convince 12 of her other children from Uranus, who were known as the Titans, to castrate Uranus. Only Cronus was willing to do the deed, so Gaia gave him the adamantine sickle and positioned him in the same crevice that previously held his sickle. When Uranus met to consort with Gaia on Mount Othrys, Cronus ambushed Uranus, and with

1152-536: A great alarum", and in doing so deceiving Cronus, and relates that when the Kouretes were carrying the newborn Zeus that the umbilical cord fell away at the river Triton. Hyginus , in his Fabulae , relates a version in which Cronus casts Poseidon into the sea and Hades to the Underworld instead of swallowing them. When Zeus is born, Hera (also not swallowed), asks Rhea to give her the young Zeus, and Rhea gives Cronus

1280-505: A helmet of darkness. Fighting on the other side allied with Cronus were the other Titans with the important exception of Themis and her son Prometheus who allied with Zeus ( NB. for Hesiod , Clymene is the mother of Prometheus). Atlas was second in command after Cronus. The war lasted ten years, but eventually Zeus and the other Olympians won. Zeus had the important Titans imprisoned in Tartarus much like Cronus did to his father, and

1408-494: A living involvement with the divine order of things; and the absolute conviction that, beyond the totality of things, reality forms a beautiful and harmonious whole. In the Theogony , the origin ( arche ) is Chaos , a divine primordial condition, and there are the roots and the ends of the earth, sky, sea, and Tartarus . Pherecydes of Syros (6th century BC), believed that there were three pre-existent divine principles and called

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1536-614: A magnetite rock, given to her by her mother Gaia, wrapped in a blanket instead. Rhea brought Zeus to a cave in Crete , where he was raised by Amalthea and the Meliae. Upon reaching adulthood, Zeus masqueraded as Cronus' cupbearer. Once he had been established as a servant of Cronus, the Oceanid Metis gave Zeus a mixture of mustard and wine which would cause Cronus to vomit out his swallowed children, now grown. After freeing his siblings as well as

1664-486: A maiden..." Cronus took his father's title of ruler of land, sky, and sea. He then secured his power by forcing his siblings to bow down to his will. Cronus, paranoid of Uranus's curse and fearing the end of his rule, now turned into the tyrant his father Uranus had once been, swallowing each of his children whole as they were born from his sister-wife Rhea . Rhea, who began to resent Cronus, managed to hide her youngest newborn child Zeus , by tricking Cronus into swallowing

1792-485: A man who was guilty of murdering his father-in-law, by purifying him and bringing him to Olympus. However, Ixion started to lust after Hera. Hera complained about this to her husband, and Zeus decided to test Ixion. Zeus fashioned a cloud that resembles Hera ( Nephele ) and laid the cloud-Hera in Ixion's bed. Ixion coupled with Nephele, resulting in the birth of Centaurus . Zeus punished Ixion for lusting after Hera by tying him to

1920-567: A more complex narrative. Typhon is, similarly to in Hesiod, the child of Gaia and Tartarus, produced out of anger at Zeus's defeat of the Giants. The monster attacks heaven, and all of the gods, out of fear, transform into animals and flee to Egypt, except for Zeus, who attacks the monster with his thunderbolt and sickle. Typhon is wounded and retreats to Mount Kasios in Syria, where Zeus grapples with him, giving

2048-522: A priestess of Hera, who is subsequently turned into a cow, and suffers at Hera's hands: according to Apollodorus, Hera sends a gadfly to sting the cow, driving her all the way to Egypt, where she is finally transformed back into human form. In later accounts of Zeus's affair with Semele , a daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia , Hera tricks her into persuading Zeus to grant her any promise. Semele asks him to come to her as he comes to his own wife Hera, and when Zeus upholds this promise, she dies out of fright and

2176-459: A prophecy from his parents, Gaia and Uranus, that one of his own children is destined to one day overthrow him as he overthrew his father. This causes Rhea "unceasing grief", and upon becoming pregnant with her sixth child, Zeus, she approaches her parents, Gaia and Uranus, seeking a plan to save her child and bring retribution to Cronus. Following her parents' instructions, she travels to Lyctus in Crete , where she gives birth to Zeus, handing

2304-438: A punishing gift to compensate for the boon they had been given. He commands Hephaestus to mold from earth the first woman, a "beautiful evil" whose descendants would torment the human race. After Hephaestus does so, several other gods contribute to her creation. Hermes names the woman ' Pandora '. Pandora was given in marriage to Prometheus's brother Epimetheus . Zeus gave her a jar which contained many evils. Pandora opened

2432-579: A sacred cave in Crete, full of sacred bees, which become the nurses of the infant. While the cave is considered forbidden ground for both mortals and gods, a group of thieves seek to steal honey from it. Upon laying eyes on the swaddling clothes of Zeus, their bronze armour "split[s] away from their bodies", and Zeus would have killed them had it not been for the intervention of the Moirai and Themis ; he instead transforms them into various species of birds. According to

2560-532: A scholion on the Iliad (citing Hesiod and Bacchylides ), when Europa is picking flowers with her female companions in a meadow in Phoenicia, Zeus transforms himself into a bull, lures her from the others, and then carries her across the sea to the island of Crete, where he resumes his usual form to sleep with her. In Euripides ' Helen , Zeus takes the form of a swan, and after being chased by an eagle, finds shelter in

2688-518: A snake and raped her. Rhea became pregnant and gave birth to Persephone . Zeus in the form of a snake would mate with his daughter Persephone, which resulted in the birth of Dionysus . Zeus granted Callirrhoe's prayer that her sons by Alcmaeon , Acarnan and Amphoterus , grow quickly so that they might be able to avenge the death of their father by the hands of Phegeus and his two sons. Both Zeus and Poseidon wooed Thetis , daughter of Nereus . But when Themis (or Prometheus) prophesied that

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2816-404: A stone to swallow. Hera gives him to Amalthea, who hangs his cradle from a tree, where he is not in heaven, on earth or in the sea, meaning that when Cronus later goes looking for Zeus, he is unable to find him. Hyginus also says that Ida , Althaea, and Adrasteia , usually considered the children of Oceanus , are sometimes called the daughters of Melisseus and the nurses of Zeus. According to

2944-465: A transparent Indo-European etymology. Plato , in his Cratylus , gives a folk etymology of Zeus meaning "cause of life always to all things", because of puns between alternate titles of Zeus ( Zen and Dia ) with the Greek words for life and "because of". This etymology, along with Plato's entire method of deriving etymologies, is not supported by modern scholarship. Diodorus Siculus wrote that Zeus

3072-470: A tree which produces golden apples as a wedding gift. Eratosthenes and Hyginus attribute a similar story to Pherecydes, in which Hera is amazed by the gift, and asks for the apples to be planted in the "garden of the gods", nearby to Mount Atlas . Apollodorus specifies them as the golden apples of the Hesperides , and says that Gaia gives them to Zeus after the marriage. According to Diodorus Siculus ,

3200-416: A wheel that spins forever. Once, Helios the sun god gave his chariot to his inexperienced son Phaethon to drive. Phaethon could not control his father's steeds so he ended up taking the chariot too high, freezing the earth, or too low, burning everything to the ground. The earth itself prayed to Zeus, and in order to prevent further disaster, Zeus hurled a thunderbolt at Phaethon, killing him and saving

3328-504: A whole; this universalizing impulse was fundamental for the first later projects of speculative theorizing. Further, in the "Kings and Singers" passage (80–103) Hesiod appropriates to himself the authority usually reserved to sacred kingship. The poet declares that it is he, where we might have expected some king instead, upon whom the Muses have bestowed the two gifts of a scepter and an authoritative voice (Hesiod, Theogony 30–3), which are

3456-430: A youthful affair between Zeus and Hera. In the Iliad , the pair are described as having first lay with each other before Cronus is sent to Tartarus, without the knowledge of their parents. A scholiast on the Iliad states that, after Cronus is banished to Tartarus, Oceanus and Tethys give Hera to Zeus in marriage, and only shortly after the two are wed, Hera gives birth to Hephaestus , having lay secretly with Zeus on

3584-622: Is an ancient Greek epic poem attributed to Homer about the Trojan war and the battle over the City of Troy , in which Zeus plays a major part. Scenes in which Zeus appears include: When Hades requested to marry Zeus's daughter, Persephone , Zeus approved and advised Hades to abduct Persephone, as her mother Demeter would not allow her to marry Hades. In the Orphic "Rhapsodic Theogony" (first century BC/AD), Zeus wanted to marry his mother Rhea . After Rhea refused to marry him, Zeus turned into

3712-537: Is born, emerging from Zeus's head, but the foretold son never comes forth. Apollodorus presents a similar version, stating that Metis took many forms in attempting to avoid Zeus's embraces, and that it was Gaia alone who warned Zeus of the son who would overthrow him. According to a fragment likely from the Hesiodic corpus, quoted by Chrysippus, it is out of anger at Hera for producing Hephaestus on her own that Zeus has intercourse with Metis, and then swallows her, thereby giving rise to Athena from himself. A scholiast on

3840-502: Is called the "succession myth", which tells how Cronus overthrew Uranus , and how in turn Zeus overthrew Cronus and his fellow Titans , and how Zeus was eventually established as the final and permanent ruler of the cosmos. Uranus (Sky) initially produced eighteen children with his mother Gaia (Earth): the twelve Titans, the three Cyclopes , and the three Hecatoncheires (Hundred-Handers), but hating them, he hid them away somewhere inside Gaia. Angry and in distress, Gaia fashioned

3968-424: Is given "ephemeral fruits" by the Moirai , which reduce his strength. The monster then flees to Thrace, where he hurls mountains at Zeus, which are sent back at him by the god's thunderbolts, before, while fleeing to Sicily , Zeus launches Mount Etna upon him, finally ending him. Nonnus , who gives the longest and most detailed account, presents a narrative similar to Apollodorus, with differences such as that it

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4096-674: Is his sister Demeter , with whom he has Persephone . Zeus's next consort is the Titan Mnemosyne ; as described at the beginning of the Theogony , Zeus lies with Mnemosyne in Piera each night for nine nights, producing the nine Muses. His sixth wife is the Titan Leto , who bears him the twins Apollo and Artemis , who, according to the Homeric Hymn to Apollo , are born on the island of Delos . In Hesiod's account, Zeus's seventh and final wife

4224-442: Is his sister Hera . While Hera is Zeus's seventh wife in Hesiod's version, in other accounts she is his first and only wife. In the Theogony , the couple has three children, Ares , Hebe , and Eileithyia . While Hesiod states that Hera produces Hephaestus on her own after Athena is born from Zeus's head, other versions, including Homer, have Hephaestus as a child of Zeus and Hera as well. Various authors give descriptions of

4352-598: Is instead Cadmus and Pan who recovers Zeus's sinews, by luring Typhon with music and then tricking him. In the Iliad , Homer tells of another attempted overthrow, in which Hera, Poseidon, and Athena conspire to overpower Zeus and tie him in bonds. It is only because of the Nereid Thetis , who summons Briareus, one of the Hecatoncheires , to Olympus, that the other Olympians abandon their plans (out of fear for Briareus). According to Hesiod, Zeus takes Metis , one of

4480-422: Is reduced to ashes. According to Callimachus, after Zeus sleeps with Callisto, Hera turns her into a bear, and instructs Artemis to shoot her. In addition, Zeus's son by Alcmene, the hero Heracles , is persecuted continuously throughout his mortal life by Hera, up until his apotheosis. According to Diodorus Siculus , Alcmene, the mother of Heracles, was the very last mortal woman Zeus ever slept with; following

4608-405: Is the element or first principle of all things, a permanent nature or substance which is conserved in the generation of the rest of it. From this, all things come to be, and into it they are resolved in a final state. It is the divine horizon of substance that encompasses and rules all things. Thales (7th – 6th century BC), the first Greek philosopher, claimed that the first principle of all things

4736-406: Is water. Anaximander (6th century BC) was the first philosopher who used the term arche for that which writers from Aristotle on call the "substratum". Anaximander claimed that the beginning or first principle is an endless mass ( Apeiron ) subject to neither age nor decay, from which all things are being born and then they are destroyed there. A fragment from Xenophanes (6th century BC) shows

4864-557: The Iliad , in contrast, states that when Zeus swallows her, Metis is pregnant with Athena not by Zeus himself, but by the Cyclops Brontes. The motif of Zeus swallowing Metis can be seen as a continuation of the succession myth: it is prophesied that a son of Zeus will overthrow him, just as he overthrew his father, but whereas Cronos met his end because he did not swallow the real Zeus, Zeus holds onto his power because he successfully swallows

4992-620: The Cyclopes , who, in return, and out of gratitude, give him his thunderbolt, which had previously been hidden by Gaia. Then begins the Titanomachy , the war between the Olympians, led by Zeus, and the Titans, led by Cronus, for control of the universe, with Zeus and the Olympians fighting from Mount Olympus , and the Titans fighting from Mount Othrys . The battle lasts for ten years with no clear victor emerging, until, upon Gaia's advice, Zeus releases

5120-633: The Giants , who fight the Olympian gods in a battle known as the Gigantomachy. According to Hesiod, the Giants are the offspring of Gaia, born from the drops of blood that fell on the ground when Cronus castrated his father Uranus; there is, however, no mention of a battle between the gods and the Giants in the Theogony . It is Apollodorus who provides the most complete account of the Gigantomachy. He says that Gaia, out of anger at how Zeus had imprisoned her children,

5248-648: The Hundred-Handers , who (similarly to the Cyclopes) were imprisoned beneath the Earth's surface. He gives them nectar and ambrosia and revives their spirits, and they agree to aid him in the war. Zeus then launches his final attack on the Titans, hurling bolts of lightning upon them while the Hundred-Handers attack with barrages of rocks, and the Titans are finally defeated, with Zeus banishing them to Tartarus and assigning

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5376-737: The Hydra . Next comes the Chimera (whose mother is unclear, either Echidna or the Hydra). Finally Orthus (his mate is unclear, either the Chimera or Echidna) produced two offspring: the Sphinx and the Nemean Lion . The Titans, Oceanus, Hyperion, Coeus, and Cronus married their sisters Tethys, Theia, Phoebe and Rhea, and Crius married his half-sister Eurybia, the daughter of Gaia and her son, Pontus. From Oceanus and Tethys came

5504-486: The Muses . He was respected as a sky father who was chief of the gods and assigned roles to the others: "Even the gods who are not his natural children address him as Father, and all the gods rise in his presence." He was equated with many foreign weather gods , permitting Pausanias to observe "That Zeus is king in heaven is a saying common to all men". Zeus's symbols are the thunderbolt , eagle , bull , and oak . In addition to his Indo-European inheritance ,

5632-549: The Mycenaean tradition than the result of oriental contacts in Hesiod's own time. The decipherment of Hittite mythical texts, notably the Kingship in Heaven text first presented in 1946, with its castration mytheme , offers in the figure of Kumarbi an Anatolian parallel to Hesiod's Uranus–Cronus conflict. One of the principal components of the Theogony is the presentation of what

5760-540: The Nereid Amphitrite was born Triton , and from Ares and Aphrodite came Phobos (Fear), Deimos (Terror), and Harmonia (Harmony). Zeus, with Atlas 's daughter Maia , produced Hermes , and with the mortal Alcmene , produced the hero Heracles , who married Hebe . Zeus and the mortal Semele , daughter of Harmonia and Cadmus , the founder and first king of Thebes , produced Dionysus , who married Ariadne , daughter of Minos , king of Crete . Helios and

5888-407: The Oceanid daughters of Oceanus and Tethys , as his first wife. However, when she is about to give birth to a daughter, Athena , he swallows her whole upon the advice of Gaia and Uranus, as it had been foretold that after bearing a daughter, she would give birth to a son, who would overthrow him as king of gods and mortals; it is from this position that Metis gives counsel to Zeus. In time, Athena

6016-484: The Ourea (Mountains), and Pontus (Sea). Uranus mated with Gaia, and she gave birth to the twelve Titans : Oceanus , Coeus , Crius , Hyperion , Iapetus , Theia , Rhea , Themis , Mnemosyne , Phoebe , Tethys and Cronus ; the Cyclopes : Brontes, Steropes and Arges ; and the Hecatoncheires ("Hundred-Handers"): Cottus, Briareos, and Gyges. When Cronus castrated Uranus, from Uranus' blood which splattered onto

6144-538: The Proto-Indo-European vocative * dyeu-ph 2 tēr ), deriving from the root * dyeu - ("to shine", and in its many derivatives, "sky, heaven, god"). Albanian Zoj-z and Messapic Zis are clear equivalents and cognates of Zeus . In the Greek, Albanian, and Messapic forms the original cluster *di̯ underwent affrication to *dz . Zeus is the only deity in the Olympic pantheon whose name has such

6272-433: The Theogony , after Zeus reaches manhood, Cronus is made to disgorge the five children and the stone "by the stratagems of Gaia, but also by the skills and strength of Zeus", presumably in reverse order, vomiting out the stone first, then each of the five children in the opposite order to swallowing. Zeus then sets up the stone at Delphi , so that it may act as "a sign thenceforth and a marvel to mortal men". Zeus next frees

6400-513: The Vedic and Hindu cosmologies. In the Vedic cosmology the universe is created from nothing by the great heat. Kāma (Desire) the primal seed of spirit, is the link which connected the existent with the non-existent In the Hindu cosmology, in the beginning there was nothing in the universe but only darkness and the divine essence who removed the darkness and created the primordial waters. His seed produced

6528-526: The gods " ) is a poem by Hesiod (8th–7th century BC) describing the origins and genealogies of the Greek gods , composed c.  730–700 BC . It is written in the Epic dialect of Ancient Greek and contains 1022 lines. It is one of the most important sources for the understanding of early Greek cosmology . Hesiod's Theogony is a large-scale synthesis of a vast variety of local Greek traditions concerning

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6656-431: The oracle of Dodona , his consort was said to be Dione , by whom the Iliad states that he fathered Aphrodite . According to the Theogony , Zeus's first wife was Metis , by whom he had Athena . Zeus was also infamous for his erotic escapades. These resulted in many divine and heroic offspring, including Apollo , Artemis , Hermes , Persephone , Dionysus , Perseus , Heracles , Helen of Troy , Minos , and

6784-508: The tutelary deity of the mountain, stops her, saying that Zeus is sleeping there with Leto. Photius , in his Bibliotheca , tells us that in Ptolemy Hephaestion 's New History , Hera refuses to lay with Zeus, and hides in a cave to avoid him, before an earthborn man named Achilles convinces her to marry Zeus, leading to the pair first sleeping with each other. According to Stephanus of Byzantium , Zeus and Hera first lay together at

6912-489: The universal germ ( Hiranyagarbha ), from which everything else appeared. In the Babylonian creation story Enûma Eliš the universe was in a formless state and is described as a watery chaos . From it emerged two primary gods, the male Apsu and female Tiamat , and a third deity who is the maker Mummu and his power for the progression of cosmogonic births to begin. Norse mythology also describes Ginnungagap as

7040-442: The "true" cosmological history. In the Theogony the initial state of the universe, or the origin ( arche ) is Chaos , a gaping void ( abyss ) considered as a divine primordial condition, from which appeared everything that exists. Then came Gaia (Earth), Tartarus (the cave-like space under the earth; the later-born Erebus is the darkness in this space), and Eros (representing sexual desire—the urge to reproduce—instead of

7168-609: The Hecatonchires and Cyclopes, Zeus led them in rebellion against the Titans. Zeus then waged a war against his father with his disgorged brothers and sisters as allies: Hestia , Demeter , Hera , Hades , and Poseidon . Zeus released the Hecatonchires and the Cyclopes from the earth (where they had been imprisoned by Cronus) and they allied with him as well. The Hecatonchires hurled stones. The Cyclopes forged for Zeus his iconic thunder and lightning, for Poseidon his trident and for Hades

7296-466: The Hecatonchires were made their guards. Atlas was given the special punishment of holding up the sky. In some accounts, when Zeus became secure in his power he relented and gave the Titans their freedom. Hyginus relates the Titanomachy differently: "After Hera saw that Epaphus , born of a concubine, ruled such a great kingdom (Egypt), she saw to it that he should be killed while hunting, and encouraged

7424-579: 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 beliefs and the archetypal Greek deity. Popular conceptions of Zeus differed widely from place to place. Local varieties of Zeus often have little in common with each other except the name. They exercised different areas of authority and were worshiped in different ways; for example, some local cults conceived of Zeus as

7552-632: The Hundred-Handers the task of acting as their warders. Apollodorus provides a similar account, saying that, when Zeus reaches adulthood, he enlists the help of the Oceanid Metis , who gives Cronus an emetic , forcing to him to disgorge the stone and Zeus's five siblings. Zeus then fights a similar ten-year war against the Titans, until, upon the prophesying of Gaia, he releases the Cyclopes and Hundred-Handers from Tartarus, first slaying their warder, Campe . The Cyclopes give him his thunderbolt, Poseidon his trident and Hades his helmet of invisibility, and

7680-402: The Hundred-Handers, who joined the war against the Titans, helping Zeus to gain the upper hand. Zeus then cast the fury of his thunderbolt at the Titans, defeating them and throwing them into Tartarus , thus ending the Titanomachy. A final threat to Zeus' power was to come in the form of the monster Typhon , son of Gaia and Tartarus. Zeus with his thunderbolt was quickly victorious, and Typhon

7808-649: The Lydian , considered Zeus to have been born in Lydia , while the Alexandrian poet Callimachus (c. 310 – c. 240 BC), in his Hymn to Zeus , says that he was born in Arcadia . Diodorus Siculus (fl. 1st century BC) seems at one point to give Mount Ida as his birthplace, but later states he is born in Dicte , and the mythographer Apollodorus (first or second century AD) similarly says he

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7936-588: The Oceanid Clymene and produced Atlas , Menoetius , Prometheus , and Epimetheus . Zeus married seven wives. His first wife was the Oceanid Metis , whom he impregnated with Athena , then, on the advice of Gaia and Uranus, swallowed Metis so that no son of his by Metis would overthrow him, as had been foretold. Zeus' second wife was his aunt the Titan Themis , who bore the three Horae (Seasons): Eunomia (Order), Dikē (Justice), Eirene (Peace); and

8064-589: The Oceanid Perseis produced Circe , Aeetes , who became king of Colchis and married the Oceanid Idyia , producing Medea . The goddess Demeter joined with the mortal Iasion to produce Plutus . In addition to Semele, the goddess Harmonia and the mortal Cadmus also produced Ino , Agave , Autonoe and Polydorus . Eos (Dawn) with the mortal Tithonus , produced the hero Memnon , and Emathion , and with Cephalus , produced Phaethon . Medea with

8192-547: The Titan Mnemosyne , from whom came the nine Muses : Clio , Euterpe , Thalia , Melpomene , Terpsichore , Erato , Polymnia , Urania , and Calliope . His sixth wife was the Titan Leto , who gave birth to Apollo and Artemis . Zeus' seventh and final wife was his sister Hera , the mother by Zeus of Hebe , Ares , and Eileithyia . Zeus finally "gave birth" himself to Athena , from his head, which angered Hera so much that she produced, by herself, her own son Hephaestus , god of fire and blacksmiths. From Poseidon and

8320-452: The Titanomachy was set after the youngest Titan Cronus overthrew his own father, Uranus (Ουρανός, the sky and ruler of the cosmos), with the help of his mother, Gaia (Γαία, the earth). Uranus drew the enmity of Gaia when he imprisoned six of her children — the three Hecatonchires (giants with 50 heads and 100 arms) and the three Cyclopes (also giants, each with a single eye in the middle of its forehead) — within her womb. Gaia created

8448-439: The Titans and banishes them to Tartarus, his rule is challenged by the monster Typhon , a giant serpentine creature who battles Zeus for control of the cosmos. According to Hesiod, Typhon is the offspring of Gaia and Tartarus , described as having a hundred snaky fire-breathing heads. Hesiod says he "would have come to reign over mortals and immortals" had it not been for Zeus noticing the monster and dispatching with him quickly:

8576-467: The Titans are defeated and the Hundred-Handers made their guards. According to the Iliad , after the battle with the Titans, Zeus shares the world with his brothers, Poseidon and Hades, by drawing lots: Zeus receives the sky, Poseidon the sea, and Hades the underworld, with the earth and Olympus remaining common ground. Upon assuming his place as king of the cosmos, Zeus's rule is quickly challenged. The first of these challenges to his power comes from

8704-410: The Titans to drive Zeus from the kingdom and restore it to Cronus ( Saturn ). When they tried to mount heaven, Zeus with the help of Athena , Apollo , and Artemis , cast them headlong into Tartarus. On Atlas, who had been their leader, he put the vault of the sky; even now he is said to hold up the sky on his shoulders." The Iliad describes how following their victory, the three brothers divided

8832-406: The Titans, bore the Giants to Uranus. There comes to the gods a prophecy that the Giants cannot be defeated by the gods on their own, but can be defeated only with the help of a mortal; Gaia, upon hearing of this, seeks a special pharmakon (herb) that will prevent the Giants from being killed. Zeus, however, orders Eos (Dawn), Selene (Moon) and Helios (Sun) to stop shining, and harvests all of

8960-617: The adamantine sickle, sliced off his genitals, casting them across the Mediterranean . After doing so, Cronus freed the imprisoned Hecatonchires and Cyclopes, by slicing open Gaia's womb and promptly imprisoned them in Tartarus . Cronus also quickly imprisoned Uranus deep below Tartarus. In doing this, he became the Ruler of the Titans. But Uranus cursed Cronus so that Cronus's own children would rebel against his rule, just as Cronus had rebelled against his own father. Uranus' blood that had spilled upon

9088-412: The better portions. He sacrificed a large ox , and divided it into two piles. In one pile he put all the meat and most of the fat, covering it with the ox's grotesque stomach, while in the other pile, he dressed up the bones with fat. Prometheus then invited Zeus to choose; Zeus chose the pile of bones. This set a precedent for sacrifices, where humans will keep the fat for themselves and burn the bones for

9216-449: The birth of Heracles, he ceased to beget humans altogether, and fathered no more children. The following is a list of Zeus's offspring, by various mothers. Beside each offspring, the earliest source to record the parentage is given, along with the century to which the source dates. When the gods met at Mecone to discuss which portions they will receive after a sacrifice, the titan Prometheus decided to trick Zeus so that humans receive

9344-485: The bones and hid them with a thin glistening layer of fat. Prometheus asked Zeus' opinion on which offering pile he found more desirable, hoping to trick the god into selecting the less desirable portion. Though Zeus saw through the trick, he chose the fat covered bones, and so it was established that ever after men would burn the bones as sacrifice to the gods, keeping the choice meat and fat for themselves. But in punishment for this trick, an angry Zeus decided to deny mankind

9472-428: The bridal clothing; she is so relieved that the couple are reconciled. According to a version from Plutarch, as recorded by Eusebius in his Praeparatio evangelica , when Hera is angry with her husband, she retreats instead to Cithaeron, and Zeus goes to the earth-born man Alalcomeneus, who suggests he pretend to marry someone else. With the help of Alalcomeneus, Zeus creates a wooden statue from an oak tree, dresses it as

9600-518: The brothers (Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades) were called to intervene. A somewhat different account of the Titanomachy appeared in a poem that is now lost. The poem was traditionally ascribed to Eumelus of Corinth , a semi-legendary bard of the Bacchiadae ruling family in archaic Corinth , who was treasured as the traditional composer of the Prosodion , the processional anthem of Messenian independence that

9728-409: The cave and beat their spears on their shields so that Cronus cannot hear the infant's crying. Diodorus Siculus provides a similar account, saying that, after giving birth, Rhea travels to Mount Ida and gives the newborn Zeus to the Kouretes, who then takes him to some nymphs (not named), who raised him on a mixture of honey and milk from the goat Amalthea. He also refers to the Kouretes "rais[ing]

9856-424: The city of Hermione , having come there from Crete. Callimachus, in a fragment from his Aetia , also apparently makes reference to the couple's union occurring at Naxos . Though no complete account of Zeus and Hera's wedding exists, various authors make reference to it. According to a scholiast on Apollonius of Rhodes ' Argonautica , Pherecydes states that when Zeus and Hera are being married, Gaia brings

9984-458: The classical "cloud-gatherer" ( Greek : Νεφεληγερέτα , Nephelēgereta ) also derives certain iconographic traits from the cultures of the ancient Near East , such as the scepter . The god's name in the nominative is Ζεύς ( Zeús ). It is inflected as follows: vocative : Ζεῦ ( Zeû ); accusative : Δία ( Día ); genitive : Διός ( Diós ); dative : Διί ( Dií ). Diogenes Laërtius quotes Pherecydes of Syros as spelling

10112-528: The cosmos from Uranus, wanted to ensure that he maintained control. Uranus and Gaia had prophesied to Cronus that one of Cronus' own children would overthrow him, so when Cronus married Rhea , he made sure to swallow each of the children she birthed: Hestia , Demeter , Hera , Hades , Poseidon , and Zeus (in that order), to Rhea's great sorrow. However, when Rhea was pregnant with Zeus, Rhea begged her parents Gaia and Uranus to help her save Zeus. So they sent Rhea to Lyctus on Crete to bear Zeus, and Gaia took

10240-450: The cosmos. The world began with the spontaneous generation of four beings: first arose Chaos (Chasm); then came Gaia (Earth), "the ever-sure foundation of all"; "dim" Tartarus , in the depths of the Earth; and Eros (Desire) "fairest among the deathless gods". From Chaos came Erebus (Darkness) and Nyx (Night). And Nyx "from union in love" with Erebus produced Aether (Brightness) and Hemera (Day). From Gaia came Uranus (Sky),

10368-522: The earth gave rise to the Gigantes , Erinyes , and Meliae . From the mixture of blood and semen from his mutilated genitalia, Aphrodite arose from the sea where they landed in Cyprus. ...so soon as he had cut off the members with flint and cast them from the land into the surging sea, they were swept away over the main a long time: and a white foam spread around them from the immortal flesh, and in it there grew

10496-405: The earth, along with the Hundred-Handers, where Uranus had originally confined them) who then provide Zeus with his great weapon, the thunderbolt, which had been hidden by Gaia. A great war was begun, the Titanomachy , between the new gods, Zeus and his siblings, and the old gods, Cronus and the Titans, for control of the cosmos. In the tenth year of that war, following Gaia's counsel, Zeus released

10624-1068: The earth, came the Erinyes (Furies), the Giants , and the Meliai . Cronus threw the severed genitals into the sea, around which foam developed and transformed into the goddess Aphrodite . Meanwhile, Nyx (Night) alone produced children: Moros (Doom), Ker (Destiny), Thanatos (Death), Hypnos (Sleep), Oneiroi (Dreams), Momus (Blame), Oizys (Pain), Hesperides (Daughters of Night), Moirai (Fates), Keres (Destinies), Nemesis (Retribution), Apate (Deceit), Philotes (Love), Geras (Old Age), and Eris (Discord). And from Eris alone, came Ponos (Hardship), Lethe (Forgetfulness), Limos (Starvation), Algea (Pains), Hysminai (Battles), Makhai (Wars), Phonoi (Murders), Androktasiai (Manslaughters), Neikea (Quarrels), Pseudea (Lies), Logoi (Stories), Amphillogiai (Disputes), Dysnomia (Anarchy), Ate (Ruin), and Horkos (Oath). After Uranus's castration, Gaia mated with her son Pontus (Sea) producing

10752-479: The emotion of love as is the common misconception). Hesiod made an abstraction because his original chaos is something completely indefinite. By contrast, in the Orphic cosmogony the unaging Chronos produced Aether and Chaos and made a silvery egg in divine Aether. From it appeared the androgynous god Phanes , identified by the Orphics as Eros, who becomes the creator of the world. Some similar ideas appear in

10880-474: The end of the 13th century. An early example is found in Vaticanus gr. 1825 . This manuscript dates to about 1310 based on watermarks. There are about 64 known manuscripts that date from 1600 AD or earlier. The heritage of Greek mythology already embodied the desire to articulate reality as a whole, and this universalizing impulse was fundamental for the first projects of speculative theorizing. It appears that

11008-436: The gods on Mount Olympus . His name is cognate with the first syllable of his Roman equivalent Jupiter . Zeus is the child of Cronus and Rhea , the youngest of his siblings to be born, though sometimes reckoned the eldest as the others required disgorging from Cronus's stomach. In most traditions, he is married to Hera , by whom he is usually said to have fathered Ares , Eileithyia , Hebe , and Hephaestus . At

11136-424: The gods, organized as a narrative that tells how they came to be and how they established permanent control over the cosmos . It is the first known Greek mythical cosmogony . The initial state of the universe is chaos , a dark indefinite void considered a divine primordial condition from which everything else appeared. Theogonies are a part of Greek mythology which embodies the desire to articulate reality as

11264-453: The gods. Zeus, enraged at Prometheus's deception, prohibited the use of fire by humans. Prometheus, however, stole fire from Olympus in a fennel stalk and gave it to humans. This further enraged Zeus, who punished Prometheus by binding him to a cliff, where an eagle constantly ate Prometheus's liver, which regenerated every night. Prometheus was eventually freed from his misery by Heracles . Now Zeus, angry at humans, decides to give humanity

11392-409: The herb himself, before having Athena summon Heracles . In the conflict, Porphyrion , one of the most powerful of the Giants, launches an attack upon Heracles and Hera; Zeus, however, causes Porphyrion to become lustful for Hera, and when he is just about to violate her, Zeus strikes him with his thunderbolt, before Heracles deals the fatal blow with an arrow. In the Theogony , after Zeus defeats

11520-459: The island of Samos beforehand; to conceal this act, she claimed that she had produced Hephaestus on her own. According to another scholiast on the Iliad , Callimachus , in his Aetia , says that Zeus lay with Hera for three hundred years on the island of Samos. According to a scholion on Theocritus ' Idylls , Zeus, one day seeing Hera walking apart from the other gods, becomes intent on having intercourse with her, and transforms himself into

11648-431: The jar and released all the evils, which made mankind miserable. Only hope remained inside the jar. When Zeus was atop Mount Olympus he was appalled by human sacrifice and other signs of human decadence. He decided to wipe out mankind and flooded the world with the help of his brother Poseidon . After the flood, only Deucalion and Pyrrha remained. This flood narrative is a common motif in mythology. The Iliad

11776-469: The lap of Leda , subsequently seducing her, while in Euripides's lost play Antiope , Zeus apparently took the form of a satyr to sleep with Antiope . Various authors speak of Zeus raping Callisto , one of the companions of Artemis , doing so in the form of Artemis herself according to Ovid (or, as mentioned by Apollodorus, in the form of Apollo ), and Pherecydes relates that Zeus sleeps with Alcmene ,

11904-455: The location of the marriage is in the land of the Knossians , nearby to the river Theren, while Lactantius attributes to Varro the statement that the couple are married on the island of Samos. There exist several stories in which Zeus, receiving advice, is able to reconcile with an angered Hera. According to Pausanias, Hera, angry with her husband, retreats to the island of Euboea, where she

12032-508: The monster a chance to wrap him in his coils, and rip out the sinews from his hands and feet. Disabled, Zeus is taken by Typhon to the Corycian Cave in Cilicia, where he is guarded by the "she-dragon" Delphyne . Hermes and Aegipan , however, steal back Zeus's sinews, and refit them, reviving him and allowing him to return to the battle, pursuing Typhon, who flees to Mount Nysa; there, Typhon

12160-557: The mortal Jason , produced Medius , the Nereid Psamathe with the mortal Aeacus , produced the hero Phocus , the Nereid Thetis , with Peleus produced the great warrior Achilles , and the goddess Aphrodite with the mortal Anchises produced the Trojan hero Aeneas . With the hero Odysseus , Circe would give birth to Agrius , Latinus , and Telegonus , and Atlas' daughter Calypso would also bear Odysseus two sons, Nausithoos and Nausinous . The Theogony , after listing

12288-454: The much shorter Homeric Hymn to the Muses make it clear that the Theogony developed out of a tradition of hymnic preludes with which an ancient Greek rhapsode would begin his performance at poetic competitions. It is necessary to see the Theogony not as the definitive source of Greek mythology, but rather as a snapshot of a dynamic tradition that happened to crystallize when Hesiod formulated

12416-400: The myth of Zeus. In Hesiod 's Theogony (c. 730 – 700 BC), Cronus , after castrating his father Uranus , becomes the supreme ruler of the cosmos, and weds his sister Rhea , by whom he begets three daughters and three sons: Hestia , Demeter , Hera , Hades , Poseidon , and lastly, "wise" Zeus, the youngest of the six. He swallows each child as soon as they are born, having received

12544-586: The myths he knew—and to remember that the traditions have continued evolving since that time. The written form of the Theogony was established in the 6th century BC. Even some conservative editors have concluded that the Typhon episode (820–68) is an interpolation. Hesiod was probably influenced by some Near-Eastern traditions, such as the Babylonian Dynasty of Dunnum , which were mixed with local traditions, but they are more likely to be lingering traces from

12672-665: The name Ζάς . The earliest attested forms of the name are the Mycenaean Greek 𐀇𐀸 , di-we (dative) and 𐀇𐀺 , di-wo (genitive), written in the Linear B syllabic script. Zeus is the Greek continuation of * Di̯ēus , the name of the Proto-Indo-European god of the daytime sky, also called * Dyeus ph 2 tēr ("Sky Father"). The god is known under this name in the Rigveda ( Vedic Sanskrit Dyaus/Dyaus Pita ), Latin (compare Jupiter , from Iuppiter , deriving from

12800-405: The newborn Zeus to raise, hiding him deep in a cave beneath Mount Aigaion. Meanwhile, Rhea gave Cronus a huge stone wrapped in baby's clothes which he swallowed thinking that it was another of Rhea's children. Zeus, now grown, forced Cronus (using some unspecified trickery of Gaia) to disgorge his other five children. Zeus then released his uncles the Cyclopes (apparently still imprisoned beneath

12928-450: The newborn child over to Gaia for her to raise, and Gaia takes him to a cave on Mount Aegaeon (Aegeum). Rhea then gives to Cronus, in the place of a child, a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes, which he promptly swallows, unaware that it is not his son. While Hesiod gives Lyctus as Zeus's birthplace, he is the only source to do so, and other authors give different locations. The poet Eumelos of Corinth (8th century BC), according to John

13056-484: The offspring of the Titan Iapetus and the Oceanid Clymene , as Atlas , Menoitios , Prometheus , and Epimetheus , and telling briefly what happened to each, tells the story of Prometheus. When the gods and men met at Mekone to decide how sacrifices should be distributed, Prometheus sought to trick Zeus. Slaughtering an ox, he took the valuable fat and meat, and covered it with the ox's stomach. Prometheus then took

13184-400: The order of being was first imaginatively visualized before it was abstractly thought. Hesiod, impressed by necessity governing the ordering of things, discloses a definite pattern in the genesis and appearance of the gods. These ideas made something like cosmological speculation possible. The earliest rhetoric of reflection all centers about two interrelated things: the experience of wonder as

13312-455: The primordial abyss from which sprang the first living creatures, including the giant Ymir whose body eventually became the world, whose blood became the seas, and so on; another version describes the origin of the world as a result of the fiery and cold parts of Hel colliding. Zeus Zeus ( / zj uː s / , Ancient Greek : Ζεύς ) is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion and mythology , who rules as king of

13440-424: The request of Apollo's mother, Leto , Zeus instead ordered Apollo to serve as a slave to King Admetus of Pherae for a year. According to Diodorus Siculus , Zeus killed Asclepius because of complains from Hades, who was worried that the number of people in the underworld was diminishing because of Asclepius's resurrections. The winged horse Pegasus carried the thunderbolts of Zeus. Zeus took pity on Ixion ,

13568-483: The son born of Thetis would be mightier than his father, Thetis was married off to the mortal Peleus . Zeus was afraid that his grandson Asclepius would teach resurrection to humans, so he killed Asclepius with his thunderbolt. This angered Asclepius's father, Apollo , who in turn killed the Cyclopes who had fashioned the thunderbolts of Zeus. Angered at this, Zeus would have imprisoned Apollo in Tartarus. However, at

13696-497: The threat, in the form of the potential mother, and so the "cycle of displacement" is brought to an end. In addition, the myth can be seen as an allegory for Zeus gaining the wisdom of Metis for himself by swallowing her. In Hesiod's account, Zeus's second wife is Themis , one of the Titan daughters of Uranus and Gaia, with whom he has the Horae , listed as Eunomia , Dike and Eirene , and

13824-406: The three Moirai (Fates): Clotho (Spinner), Lachesis (Allotter), and Atropos (Unbending). Zeus then married his third wife, another Oceanid, Eurynome , who bore the three Charites (Graces): Aglaea (Splendor), whom Hephaestus married, Euphrosyne (Joy), and Thalia (Good Cheer). Zeus' fourth wife was his sister, Demeter , who bore Persephone . The fifth wife of Zeus was another aunt,

13952-593: The three Moirai : Clotho , Lachesis and Atropos . A fragment from Pindar calls Themis Zeus's first wife, and states that she is brought by the Moirai (in this version not her daughters) up to Olympus, where she becomes the bride of Zeus and bears him the Horae. According to Hesiod, Zeus next marries the Oceanid Eurynome , with whom he has the three Charites , namely Aglaea , Euphrosyne and Thalia . Zeus's fourth wife

14080-402: The three thousand river gods (including Nilus [Nile], Alpheus , and Scamander ) and three thousand Oceanid nymphs (including Doris , Electra, Callirhoe , Styx , Clymene , Metis , Eurynome , Perseis , and Idyia ). From Hyperion and Theia came Helios (Sun), Selene (Moon), and Eos (Dawn), and from Crius and Eurybia came Astraios , Pallas , and Perses . From Eos and Astraios came

14208-478: The three-headed Geryon . Next comes the half-nymph half-snake Echidna (her mother is unclear, probably Ceto, or possibly Callirhoe). The last offspring of Ceto and Phorcys was a serpent (unnamed in the Theogony , later called Ladon , by Apollonius of Rhodes ) who guards the golden apples. Gaia also mated with Tartarus to produce Typhon , whom Echidna married, producing several monstrous descendants. Their first three offspring were Orthus , Cerberus , and

14336-560: The transition from Chaos to Apeiron : "The upper limit of earth borders on air. The lower limit of earth reaches down to the unlimited (i.e the Apeiron)." John Milton , a Calvinist , viewed the Theogony as inspired by Satan . Milton's view, as articulated in Paradise Lost , was that once Satan was cast out from heaven, he became the muse that inspired Hesiod. What Hesiod wrote, therefore,

14464-471: The two Harpies : Aello and Ocypete . Gaia and Pontus' third and fourth children, Phorcys and Ceto , married each other and produced the two Graiae : Pemphredo and Enyo , and the three Gorgons : Stheno , Euryale , and Medusa . Poseidon mated with Medusa and two offspring, the winged horse Pegasus and the warrior Chrysaor , were born when the hero Perseus cut off Medusa's head. Chrysaor married Callirhoe , another Oceanid, and they produced

14592-511: The two of them meet in a cataclysmic battle, before Zeus defeats him easily with his thunderbolt, and the creature is hurled down to Tartarus. Epimenides presents a different version, in which Typhon makes his way into Zeus's palace while he is sleeping, only for Zeus to wake and kill the monster with a thunderbolt. Aeschylus and Pindar give somewhat similar accounts to Hesiod, in that Zeus overcomes Typhon with relative ease, defeating him with his thunderbolt. Apollodorus, in contrast, provides

14720-401: The use of fire. But Prometheus stole fire inside a fennel stalk, and gave it to humanity. Zeus then ordered the creation of the first woman Pandora as a new punishment for mankind. And Prometheus was chained to a cliff, where an eagle fed on his ever-regenerating liver every day, until eventually Zeus' son Heracles came to free him. The earliest existing manuscripts of the Theogony date from

14848-475: The visible signs of kingship. It is not that this gesture is meant to make Hesiod a king. Rather, the point is that the authority of kingship now belongs to the poetic voice, the voice that is declaiming the Theogony . Although it is often used as a sourcebook for Greek mythology , the Theogony is both more and less than that. In formal terms it is a hymn invoking Zeus and the Muses: parallel passages between it and

14976-428: The water also Chaos. In the language of the archaic period (8th – 6th century BC), arche (or archai ) designates the source, origin, or root of things that exist. If a thing is to be well established or founded, its arche or static point must be secure, and the most secure foundations are those provided by the gods: the indestructible, immutable, and eternal ordering of things. In ancient Greek philosophy , arche

15104-526: The wife of Amphitryon , in the form of her own husband. Several accounts state that Zeus approached the Argive princess Danae in the form of a shower of gold, and according to Ovid he abducts Aegina in the form of a flame. In accounts of Zeus's affairs, Hera is often depicted as a jealous wife, with there being various stories of her persecuting either the women with whom Zeus sleeps, or their children by him. Several authors relate that Zeus sleeps with Io ,

15232-605: The winds: Zephyrus , Boreas and Notos , Eosphoros (Dawn-bringer, i.e. Venus , the Morning Star), and the Stars. From Pallas and the Oceanid Styx came Zelus (Envy), Nike (Victory), Kratos (Power), and Bia (Force). From Coeus and Phoebe came Leto and Asteria , who married Perses, producing Hekate , and from Cronus and his older sister, Rhea, came Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus. The Titan Iapetos married

15360-492: The world amongst themselves: Zeus was given domain over the sky and the air and was recognized as ruler (also known as the Sky Father). Poseidon was given the sea and all the waters, whereas Hades was given the Underworld, the realm of the dead. Each of the other gods were allotted duties according to the nature and proclivities of each. The earth was left common to all to do as they pleased, even to run counter to one another, unless

15488-547: The world from further harm. In a satirical work, Dialogues of the Gods by Lucian , Zeus berates Helios for allowing such thing to happen; he returns the damaged chariot to him and warns him that if he dares do that again, he will strike him with one of this thunderbolts. Zeus played a dominant role, presiding over the Greek Olympian pantheon. He fathered many of the heroes and was featured in many of their local cults . Though

15616-552: Was a corruption of the "actual" events that happened in the cosmological struggle of Satan against God. In particular, Milton asserted that the triumph of Zeus (i.e., the supreme deity) through guile, negotiation and alliances, was a corruption of God's omnipotence which did not require any ally. Milton's view echoes the views of early Christian patristic writers. Justin Martyr and Athenagoras of Athens , for example, asserted that heathen mythologies in general are demonic distortions of

15744-411: Was also called Zen, because the humans believed that he was the cause of life (zen). While Lactantius wrote that he was called Zeus and Zen, not because he is the giver of life, but because he was the first who lived of the children of Cronus . Zeus was called by numerous alternative names or surnames, known as epithets . Some epithets are the surviving names of local gods who were consolidated into

15872-449: Was also imprisoned in Tartarus. Zeus, by Gaia's advice, was elected king of the gods, and he distributed various honors among the gods. Zeus then married his first wife Metis , but when he learned that Metis was fated to produce a son which might overthrow his rule, by the advice of Gaia and Uranus, Zeus swallowed Metis (while still pregnant with Athena ). And so Zeus managed to end the cycle of succession and secure his eternal rule over

16000-512: Was born in a cave in Dicte. While the Theogony says nothing of Zeus's upbringing other than that he grew up swiftly, other sources provide more detailed accounts. According to Apollodorus, Rhea, after giving birth to Zeus in a cave in Dicte, gives him to the nymphs Adrasteia and Ida , daughters of Melisseus , to nurse. They feed him on the milk of the she-goat Amalthea , while the Kouretes guard

16128-549: Was divided into two books. The battle of Olympians and Titans was preceded by some sort of theogony, or genealogy of the Primeval Gods, in which, the Byzantine writer John the Lydian remarked, the author of Titanomachy placed the birth of Zeus, not in Crete , but in Lydia , which should signify on Mount Sipylus . Theogony The Theogony ( Ancient Greek : Θεογονία , Theogonía , i.e. "the genealogy or birth of

16256-474: Was performed on Delos . Even in Antiquity, many authors cited Titanomachia without an author's name. The name of Eumelos was attached to the poem as the only name available. From the very patchy evidence, it seems that "Eumelos"' account of the Titanomachy differed from the surviving account of Hesiod's Theogony at salient points. It was written in the late seventh-century BC at the earliest. The Titanomachy

16384-402: Was raised, and Zeus, unable to resolve the situation, seeks the advice of Cithaeron, ruler of Plataea , supposedly the most intelligent man on earth. Cithaeron instructs him to fashion a wooden statue and dress it as a bride, and then pretend that he is marrying one "Plataea", a daughter of Asopus . When Hera hears of this, she immediately rushes there, only to discover the ruse upon ripping away

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