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| Gods & Goddesses
Zeus/Jupiter
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Copyright (C) Thalia Took, Image used with permission |
Zeus/JupiterFather of Gods and MortalsPantheon: Olympian Element: Air Sphere of Influence: Weather and Fate Preferred colors: Yellow, Blue, Green Associated symbol: Fist of lightning bolts, Aegis Animals associated with: Eagle Best day to work with: Thursday Suitable offerings: Flame (candle, fire), Peppermint, Sage, Violets Associated Planet: Jupiter |
The Father of Gods and Mortals. Sometimes referred to as Cloud-Gatherer, Zeus is one of the six children of Cronus and Rhea. He led the other gods in revolt against their father. Zeus is controller of storms and weather, and of the fate of mankind. He is usally depicted as a strong, robust and mature man deep in thought. He holds a scepter in his left hand and a thunderbolt in his right. | |
Additional Information on Zeus from WikipediaInformation is unedited and uncheckedKrónios (descendant of Cronus), or simply (Greek language|Greek Ζευς) or Dias (Greek Δίας) ("divine king") is the leader of the gods and god of the sky and thunder in Greek mythology. ||Greek myth (Olympian) =Etymology= was originally the same god of Indo-European religion as the Rig-Veda|Vedic god Dyaus Pitar (cf. Jupiter (god)|Jupiter), and as Tyr (Ziu, Tiw, Tiwaz) in Germanic mythology|Germanic and Norse mythology. Tyr was however supplanted by Odin as the supreme god among the Germanic peoples. Ironically, the Germanic tribes did not identify / Jupiter with either Tyr or Odin, but with Thor. =The Worship of = ==Role and Titles== role in the Ancient Greece|Greek Olympic pantheon can not be overstated. He fathered many of the heroes and heroines (see list at bottom of article) and was featured in many of their stories. Though he wasSky Father| the god of the sky and thunder, he was also the most supreme culture|cultural artifact; in some senses, he was the embodiment of Greek religion|religious beliefs and the archetype|archetypal Greek deity. The various titles applied to emphasized different aspects of his wide-ranging authority: *Olympios emphasized s kingship over both the gods and the Panhellenic festival at Olympia. * A related title was Panhellenios, ( of all the Hellenes) to whom Aeacus famous temple on Aegina was dedicated. *As Xenios, was the patron of hospitality and guests, ready to avenge any wrong done to a stranger. *As Horkios, he was the keeper of oaths. Liars who were exposed were made to dedicate a sculpture|statue to , often at the sanctuary of Olympia, Greece|Olympia. *As Agoraios, watched over business at the agora, and punished dishonest traders. ==Panhellenic Cults of == 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 made not of stone, but of ash - from the accumulated remains of many centuries worth of animal victims immolated there. Outside of the major inter-polis sanctuaries, there were certain modes of worshipping 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 -cults that operated in markedly different ways. ==Some Local -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 ==== On Crete, 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 incubation|incubatory divination by kings and priests. The dramatic setting of Platos Laws is along the pilgrimage-route to one such site, emphasizing Cretan s ties with wise legislation and hidden knowledge. On Crete, was represented in art as a long-haired youth rather than a mature adult, and hymned as ho megas kouros "the great youth". With the Kouretes, a band of ecstatic armed dancers, he presided over the rigorous military-athletic training and secret rites of the Cretan paideia. ==== Lykaios in Arcadia==== Image:_and_eagle.gif|right|| Laconia|Laconian kylix of the 6th century BC, showing Lykaios with an eagle. 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 Lykaios in the backwoods of Arcadia, where the god takes on both lucent and lupine features. On the one hand, he presides over Mt. Lykaion ("the bright mountain") the tallest peak in Arcadia, and home to a precinct in which, allegedly, no shadows were ever cast (Pausanias (geographer)|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 make a sacrifice to Lykaios, and a single morsel of human entrails would be intermingled with the animals. Whoever at 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 ==== Although etymology indicates that was originally a sky god, many Greek cities honored es who lived underground. Athenians and Sicilians honored Meilichios ("kindly" or "honeyed") while other cities had 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 onto raised altars. In some cases, cities were not entirely sure whether the daimon to whom they sacrificed was a hero or an underground . Thus the shrine at Lebadaea in Boeotia might belong to the hero Trophonius or to Trephonius ("the nurturing"), depending on whether you believe Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias or Strabo. The hero Amphiaraus was honored as Amphiaraus at Oropus outside of Thebes, Greece|Thebes, and the Spartans even had a shrine to Agamemnon. ==Oracles of == Although oracles more usually came from Apollo, the heroes and various goddess|goddesses like Themis, a few oracular sites were dedicated to . ====The Oracle at Dodona==== The cult of 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 750s BC|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 (Od. 14.326-7). By the time Herodotus wrote about Dodona, female priestesses called peleiades ("doves") had replaced the male priests. s wife at Dodona was not Hera, but the goddess Dione - whose name is a feminine form of "". Her status as a Titan (mythology)|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 Libya did not lie within the bounds of the Greek world before Alexander the Great|Alexanders day, but it already loomed large in the Greek mind during the archaic era: Herodotus mentions consultations with Ammon in his account of the Persian War. Ammon was especially favored at Sparta, where a temple to him existed by the time of the Peloponnesian War (Pausanias 3.18). ====Other Oracles of ==== The chthonic es (or heroes) Trophonius and Amphiaraus were both said to give oracles at their cult-sites. == and Foreign Gods== was equivalent to the Roman mythology|Roman god Jupiter (god)| Jupiter (from Jovis Pater or "Father Jove") and associated in the syncretic classical imagination with various other deities, such as the Egyptian mythology|Egyptian Ammon, Etruscan mythology|Etruscan Tinia. He (along with Dionysus) absorbed the role of the chief Phrygia|Phrygian god Sabazios in the syncretic deity known in Rome as Sabazius. = in Myth= == Early Career == === Birth === Cronus reproduction|sired several children by Rhea (mythology)|Rhea: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, but swallowed them all as soon as they were born, since he had learned from Gaia (mythology)| Gaia and Uranus (god)|Uranus that he was destined to be overcome by his own son as he had overthrown his own father. But when was about childbirth|to be born, Rhea sought Uranus and Earth 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 in Crete, handing Cronus a Rock (geology)|stone wrapped in swaddling clothes which he promptly swallowed. === Childhood === Then Rhea hid in a cave on Mount Ida in Crete. According to varying versions of the story: # He was then raised by Gaia (mythology)|Gaia. # He was raised by a goat named Amalthea (mythology)|Amalthea, while a company of Kouretes, soldiers, or smaller gods danced, shouted and clapped their hands to make noise so that Cronus would not hear the babys cry. # He was raised by a nymph named Adamanthea. Since Cronus ruled over the Earth, the heavens and the sea, she hid him by dangling him on a rope from a tree so he was suspended between earth, sea and sky and thus, invisible to his father. # He was raised by a nymph named Cynosura. In gratitude, placed her among the stars after her death. # He was raised by Melissa, who lactation|nursed him with goat-milk === becomes king of the gods === After reaching manhood, forced Cronus to vomit|disgorge the other children in reverse order of swallowing: first the stone, which was set down at Pytho under the glens of Parnassus to be a sign to mortal men, then the rest. In some versions, Metis (mythology)|Metis gave Cronus an emetic to force him to disgorge the babies, or cut Cronus stomach open. Then released the brothers of Cronus, the Gigantes, the Hecatonchires and the Cyclopes, from their dungeon in Tartarus; he killed their guard, Campe. As gratitude, the Cyclopes gave him thunder and the thunderbolt and lightning, which had previously been hidden by Gaia. Together, and his brothers and sisters, along with the Gigantes, Hecatonchires and Cyclopes Titanomachy|overthrew Cronus and the other Titans. After the battle with the Titans, shared the world with his elder brothers, Poseidon and Hades by drawing lots: got the land, Poseidon the sea and Hades the world of the shadows (the ghost|dead). (See also: Penthus) Soon after taking the throne as king of the gods, fought the monsters Typhon and Echidna (mythology)|Echidna, defeating them. He left them and their children alive as challenges for future heroes. === The Joys of Married Life === was brother and husband of Hera. Their son was Hephaistos. is famous for his many extramarital affairs with various goddesses - notably Demeter, Latona, Dione (mythology)|Dione and Maia -- and mortal women -- notably Semele, Io (mythology)|Io, Europa (mythology)|Europa and Leda (mythology)|Leda (for more details, see "Affairs" below). His wife, Hera, was very jealous and consistently tried to harm mistresses and their children by him. For a time, a nymph named Echo (mythology)|Echo had the job of distracting Hera from his affairs by incessantly talking. When Hera discovered the deception, she cursed Echo to only speak the words of others (hence our modern word "echo"). == Seductions == A less squeamish age called these the "Rapes" of , for these were not love affairs but mythic events that in case after case record the localized cult of a water or wood nymph that has been supplanted by the conquering Olympian patrilineal order, effecting a cultural, social and religious revolution, or at the least a radical reform of ancient beliefs and reinterpreted readings for long-established cult practices. It is notable that none of these liaisons involve any of the Olympian goddesses. may father upon the nymph the eponymous progenitor of a race of kings which may survive into heroic times or archaic history. In many cases "jealous" Hera, the goddess who represents conservative religious traditions, wreaks vengeance on the faithless "turncoat" who succumbs to the new order (see Io (mythology)|Io, etc.). Whenever the seduced female is human, the inquisitive reader soon finds that her mother was a nymph or demi-goddess. Heterosexual: Callisto (mythology)|Callisto, Alcmene, Aegina (mythology)| Aegina, Taygete, Elara (mythology)|Elara, Asteria, Danae, Io (mythology)|Io, Lamia Homosexual: Ganymede (mythology)|Ganymede ==Consorts and Children== # Deific Mother ## Aegina ### Aeacus ## Ananke (mythology)|Ananke ### Adrasteia ### Moirae #### Atropos #### Clotho #### Lachesis ## Demeter ### Dionysus ### Persephone ## Dione (mythology)|Dione ### Aphrodite ## Eos ### Ersa ## Eris ### Ate ### Litae ## Hera ### Ares ### Eileithyia ### Hephaestus ### Hebe (mythology)|Hebe ## Leto ### Apollo ### Artemis ## Maia ### Hermes ## Metis (mythology)|Metis ### Athena ## Mnemosyne ### Muses (Original three) #### Aoide #### Melete #### Mneme ### Muses (Later nine) #### Calliope #### Clio #### Erato #### Euterpe (mythology)|Euterpe #### Melpomene #### Polyhymnia #### Terpsichore #### Thalia #### Urania ## Selene ### Nemean Lion ### Pandia ## Thalassa ### Aphrodite ## Themis ### Astraea ### Dike (goddess)|Dike ### Horae #### First Generation ##### Auxo ##### Carpo ##### Thallo #### Second Generation ##### Dike (goddess)|Dike ##### Eirene ##### Eunomia ### Moirae #### Atropos #### Clotho #### Lachesis # Mortal/Nymph/Other Mother ## Aegina (mythology) ### Aeacus ## Alcmene ### Heracles ## Antiope ### Amphion ### Zethus ## Callisto the Greek myth|Callisto ### Arcas ## Carme (mythology)|Carme ### Britomartis ## Danae ### Perseus (mythology)|Perseus ## Elara (mythology)|Elara ### Tityas ## Electra ### Dardanus ### Harmonia ### Iasion ## Europa (mythology)|Europa ### Minos ### Rhadamanthys ### Sarpedon ## Eurynome ### Charites #### Aglaea #### Euphrosyne #### Thalia ## Himalia ### Cronius ## Iodame ### Thebe (mythology)|Thebe ## Io (mythology)|Io ### Epaphus ## Lamia ### ??? ## Laodamia ### Sarpedon ## Leda (mythology)|Leda ### Castor and Polydeuces|Polydeuces ### Helen ## Maera ### Locrus ## Niobe ### Argos ### Pelasgus ## Olympias ### Alexander the Great ## Plouto ### Tantalus ## Podarge ### Balius ### Xanthus ## Pyrrha ### Hellen ## Semele ### Dionysus ## Taygete ### Lacedaemon ## Thalia ### Palici # Male lovers ## Ganymede (mythology)|Ganymede # Unknown Mother ## Nemesis (mythology)|Nemesis ## Tyche ==A Miscellany== *Though was often petty and malicious, he also had a righteous streak, perhaps best exemplified in his aid on behalf of Atreus and his murder of Capaneus for unbridled arrogance. * turned Pandareus to stone for stealing a bronze dog from one of his temples on Crete. * killed Salmoneus with a thunderbolt for attempting to equal him, riding around on a bronze chariot and loudly imitating thunder. *As a child, had had a friend named Celmis. Many years later, Rhea became offended by the antics of Celmis and asked to turn him into a lump of steel or diamond. obliged. * turned Periphas into an eagle after his death, as a reward for being righteous and just. *At the marriage of and Hera, a nymph named Chelone was disrespectful (or refused to attend). condemned her to eternal silence. *When Memnon died, felt pity for his mother, Eos, the dawn-goddess, and granted him immortality. * made the decision to marriage|marry Aphrodite off to Hephaestus in order to prevent violence over her between the many gods who lusted after the goddess of beauty. *, with Hera, turned King Haemus and Queen Rhodope into mountains (Mt. Balkan|Balkan and Mt. Despoto|Despoto, respectively) for their vanity. * exchanged a caduceus for the first flute with Hermes. * turned Atalanta and Hippomenes (or Melanion) into lions because they had sex in one of his temples. * blinded Tiresias but also gave him the gift of prophecy. =References= *Cook, A.B. : A Study in Ancient Religion (3 volumes). New York, Bibilo & Tannen: 1964. =External links= *http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/ Carlos Paradas Greek Mythology Link *http://www.haidukpress.com The myths of and Ganymede; and and Tantalus *http://www.theoi.com/Cult/Cult.html *http://www.theoi.com/Erotes/Loves.html This text is made available under the GNU Free Documentation License Agreement. The full text of this article is available for download here. (Zeus) | |