Zeus is the king of gods and men, lord of the sky, clouds, rain and thunderbolt. He upholds the order of the world, protects hospitality and oaths and punishes those who overstep their limits. To the Romans he was Jupiter, and the largest planet in the solar system bears his name.
Birth and rise to power
Zeus was the sixth child of the Titans Cronus and Rhea. To save him from his father, who swallowed his children, Rhea gave birth in secret in a cave on Crete and handed Cronus a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes. Once grown, Zeus freed his brothers and sisters and led the war against the Titans, the Titanomachy. After victory he divided the world with his brothers: the sky for himself, the sea for Poseidon, the underworld for Hades. See the origin of the world.
Wives, loves and children
Zeus's official wife is Hera, queen of the gods, but myth gives him a great many loves, with goddesses, nymphs and mortal women. To approach them he often changed shape: a bull to carry off Europa, a swan to seduce Leda, a shower of gold to reach Danaë, locked in a tower.
- Zeus
- with Hera: Ares, Hephaestus, Hebe, Eileithyia
- with Metis: Athena, born from his head
- with Leto: Apollo and Artemis
- with Maia: Hermes
- with Demeter: Persephone
- with Semele: Dionysus
- with Mnemosyne: the nine Muses
- with Alcmene: Heracles
- with Danaë: Perseus
- with Europa: Minos, Rhadamanthys, Sarpedon
- with Leda: Helen, Castor and Pollux
Main myths
- The birth of Athena: Zeus swallowed his first wife Metis, fearing she would bear a son stronger than him; soon afterwards, with a terrible headache, he asked Hephaestus to split his head with an axe, and out sprang Athena, fully grown and armed.
- Prometheus: Zeus punished the Titan who stole fire to give it to humans; see Prometheus and Pandora.
- The flood: in one myth Zeus sent a flood to punish wicked humanity, and only Deucalion and Pyrrha survived.
- Europa: as a white bull, Zeus carried off the Phoenician princess Europa to Crete; her name became the name of our continent.
Cult and places
Zeus's most important sanctuaries were Olympia, where the Games were held in his honour and where Phidias's great gold and ivory statue of him, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, stood, and Dodona, in Epirus, Greece's oldest oracle, where priests interpreted the rustling leaves of a sacred oak. In Athens you can see what remains of the great Olympieion, the temple of Olympian Zeus.
See also the twelve Olympians and Hera.