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Zeus

（Ζεύς). The supreme god in the Greek mythology; according
to the common legend, the eldest son of Cronus and Rhea, hence called Cronides. According to a myth indigenous to Crete, he was the youngest son, and Rhea,
in dread of Cronus, who had swallowed all his previous children, bore him secretly in a cave
of the island, where he was suckled by the goat Amalthea (q.v.), while the Curetes (q.v.)
drowned the cries of the child by the clash of their weapons; but Rhea outwitted Cronus by
giving him a stone to swallow instead. When he was grown up, Zeus married Metis (q.v.), who, by means of a charm, compelled Cronus to disgorge the
children he had swallowed. When, with the help of his brothers and sisters, Poseidon, Hades,
Hestia, Demeter, and Heré, he had overthrown Cronus and the Titans, the world was
divided into three parts, Zeus obtaining heaven,

Zeus of Otricoli. (Vatican.)

Poseidon the sea, and Hades the lower world; the earth and Olympus being appointed
for the common possession of all the three. But the king of the gods is Zeus, whose power, as
Homer says, is greater than that of all the other gods together.

Next to him, but in a subordinate position, stands, as queen of the gods, his sister and
consort Heré, the mother of Ares, Hephaestus, and Hebé, who was regarded
as preëminently his rightful wife. Not incompatible with this, however, was the idea
that the marriage with Heré was the earliest of a series of marriages with
other goddesses—first, according to Hesiod, with Metis, whom he swallowed, in order
to bring forth Athené from his own head; then with Themis, the mother of the Hours
and the Fates; afterwards with Eurynomé, the mother of the Graces; Demeter, the
mother of Persephoné; Mnemosyné, the mother of the Muses; and Leto, the
mother of Apollo and Artemis. The fact that still later, in Dodona, Dioné, the
mother of Aphrodité, was also honoured as the wife of Zeus shows the origin of the
legend. Originally different wives of Zeus were recognized in the different local cults. When
the legend of the marriage with Heré had become the predominant one, an attempt was
made to harmonize the different versions of the story by the supposition of successive
marriages. In the same way the loves of Zeus with half-divine, half-mortal women, of whom
Alcmené, the mother of Heracles, was said to be the last, were originally rural
legends, which derived the descent of indigenous divinities, like Hermes and Dionysus, or of
heroes and noble families, from the highest god; and not until they had become the common
property of the whole Greek people, which was practically the case as early as the time of
Homer, could the love affairs of the greatest of the gods become the theme of those mythical
stories which are so repugnant to modern taste.

The very name of Zeus (Skt. dyaus, “the bright
sky”) identifies him as the god of the sky and its phenomena. As such he was
everywhere worshipped on the highest mountains, on whose summits he was considered to be
enthroned. Of all places the Thessalian mountain Olympus (q.v.), even in the earliest ages, met with the most general recognition as the
abode of Zeus and of the gods who were associated with him. From Zeus come all changes in the
sky or the winds; he is the gatherer of the clouds, which dispense the fertilizing rain, while
he is also the thunderer, and the hurler of the irresistible lightning. As by the shaking of
his aegis (q.v.) he causes sudden storm and tempest to
break forth, so he calms the elements again, brightens the sky, and sends forth favouring
winds. The changes of the seasons also proceed from him as the father of the Hours.

As the supreme lord of heaven, he was worshipped under the name of Olympian Zeus in many
parts of Greece, but especially in Olympia, where the Olympian Games (q.v.) were celebrated in his honour. The cult of Zeus at the
ancient seat of the oracle at Dodona recognized his character as dispenser of the fertilizing
dew. Among the numerous mountaincults in the Peloponnesus, the oldest and most original was
that of the Lycaean Zeus, on Mount Lycaeus in Arcadia, where human beings were actually
sacrificed to him in propitiation. (See Lycaea.) In
Attica, again, many festivals refer to the god as a personification of the powers of nature.
Various rites of purification and expiation were observed in his honour as the god of wrath
(Μαιμάκτης), in the month Maemacterion (Nov. -Dec.), at the
beginning of the winter storms; while towards the end of winter he was worshipped as the
gracious god (Μειλίχιος) at the festival of the Diasia (q.v.). Among the islands, Rhodes and Crete were
the principal seats of the

Interior of the Temple of Zeus in Olympia. (Restoration by Bühlmann.)

worship of the sky-god; not only his birth but also his death was there celebrated,
and even his grave was shown, in accordance with the widely spread notion that the annual
death of Nature in winter was the death of the god. In Asia, the summit of Mount Ida in the
Troad was especially and beyond all other places sacred to Zeus.

As he presides over the gods and the whole of nature, so also is he the ruler of men, who
all stand in need of his help, and to whom, according to Homer, he weighs out their destinies
on golden scales, and distributes good and evil out of the two jars which stand in his palace,
filled the one with good and the other with evil gifts. But his natural attributes are
goodness and love; hence Homer calls him “the father of gods and men.” He
gives to all things a good beginning and a good end: he is the saviour in all distress. To
Zeus the Saviour (Σωτήρ) it was customary to drink the third
cup at a meal, and in Athens to sacrifice on the last day of the year. From him comes
everything good, noble, and strong, and also bodily vigour and valour, which were exhibited in
his honour, particularly at the Olympian and Nemean Games. He is also the giver of victory;
indeed, the goddess of victory (see Niké),
and her brothers and sister, Force, Might, and Strife (Βία, Κράτος,
Ζῆλος), are his constant companions. From him, as ruler of the world, proceed
those universal laws which regulate the course of all things, and he knows and sees
everything, the future as well as the past. Hence all revelation comes in the first instance
from him. At times he himself announces to mortals his hidden counsels by manifold signs,
thunder and lightning and other portents in the sky; by birds, especially the eagle, which was
sacred to him; by prophetic voices (see Mantiké) and special oracles. (See Ammon; Dodona; Oracula.) At times he makes use of other deities for this purpose,
chiefly of his son Apollo, through whose mouth he speaks at Delphi in particular. Thus the
course of the world is ordained by him; he is the author and preserver of all order in the
life of men. In conjunction with Themis, Diké, and Nemesis, he watches over justice
and truth, the foundations of human society; in particular he is the special god who guards
the sanctity of the oath; he is also the avenger of perjury, the keeper of boundaries and of
property, the defender of the laws of hospitality and the rights of the suppliant. But
nevertheless to him who has offended against the laws of human life, Zeus, as the supreme god
of atonement, offers the power of expiating his guilt by rites of purification. As he presides
over the family and community of the gods, so also he is the chief patron of the family and of
all communal life. In the former relation he was especially worshipped in all branches of the
family as protector of house and home (Ἑρκεῖος), and
defender of the domestic hearth (Ἐφέστιος): in the latter,
as the shield of the State, e. g. in Athens at the Diipolia (q.v.); as director of the popular assembly and of the council; as the god of
covenants; as the source of kingship, whose symbol, the sceptre, was traced back to him. From
him also proceed both national and personal freedom; hence a sanctuary was dedicated at Athens
by freedmen to Zeus the Liberator (Ἐλευθέριος); and after
the battle of Plataea a thanksgiving festival, Eleutheria (q.v.), was instituted by the allied Greeks, which was still celebrated by
the Plataeans in Roman times, and attended by deputies from the other States.

Zeus is to the Greeks—as Iupiter (q.v.),
who in his principal characteristics exactly corresponds to him, is to the
Romans—the essence of all divine power. No deity received such widespread worship;
all the others were, in the popular belief, subordinated to him at a greater or less distance.
The active operations of most of the gods appear only as an outcome of his being, particularly
those of his children, among whom the nearest to him are Athené and Apollo, his
favourites, who often seem to be joined with their father in the highest union.

The eagle and the oak were sacred to Zeus; the eagle, together with the sceptre and the
lightning, is also one of his customary attributes. The most famous statue of Zeus in
antiquity was that executed by Phidias in gold and ivory for the temple at Olympia. It
represented the enthroned Olympian god with a divine expression of the highest dignity, and at
the same time with the benevolent mildness of the deity who graciously listens to prayer. The
figure of the seated god was about forty feet high; and since the base was as high as twelve
feet, the statue almost touched with its crown the roof of the temple, so as to call forth in
the spectator the feeling that no earthly dwelling would be adequate for such a divinity. The
bearded head was ornamented with a wreath of olive leaves, the victor's prize at Olympia. The
upper part of the body, made of ivory, was naked, the lower part was wrapped in a golden
mantle falling from the hips to the feet, which, adorned with golden sandals, rested on a
footstool. Beside this lay golden lions. The right hand bore the goddess of victory, the left
the sceptre, surmounted by an eagle. Like the base, and the whole space around, the seat of
the throne was decorated with various works of art. It was supported by figures of the goddess
of victory; and on the back of the throne, which rose above the head of the god, were
represented the hovering forms of the Hours and the Graces. This statue was the model for most
of the later representatives of Zeus. Among those that are extant the well-known bust of Zeus
found at Otricoli (Ocriculum in Umbria), and now in the Vatican Museum, is supposed to be an
imitation of the great work of Phidias. In the most direct relation to the latter stand the
figures of Zeus on the coins of Elis (see Elis, p.
587). Among the standing statues of Zeus the most famous was the bronze colossus, forty cubits
(or sixty feet) high, by Lysippus at Tarentum. See Colossus. On the general relation of Zeus to the mythological system of the Greeks,
see Preller, Griechische Mythologie (last ed. rev. by Robert, Berlin,
1887); and Welcker, Griechische Götterlehre
(1857-63).