Zeus, also known as the Father, the god of thunder, and the gatherer of clouds, was a supreme divinity in the Greek pantheon as well as the ruler of the Olympian gods. He administered justice generally, presided over the weather, and provided omens and signs. Zeus maintained order on Mount Olympus, where he presided over both the gods and humans. His parents, Rhea and Cronus, belonged to a society known as the Titans. Because he did not want any of his offspring to succeed him on the throne after his death, his father Cronus was a very avaricious and envious man. And so he decided to swallow any child that was born of him. When Rhea gave birth to Zeus, she managed to trick Cronus by giving him swaddling clothes to swallow. She then sent his son to Crete the island of Greek. Rhea also assigned ‘Curetes’ (a personal demon) which made unnecessary noises whenever Zeus cried (Zolotnikova 201). This prevented Cronus from hearing the sounds of his son.
In the Secret Island, Zeus was raised by the Nymphs who fed him milk from the goats and honey through her broken-off-horn. When Zeus was mature enough, he went back to his father’s place so as to battle him as well as the Titans with the aim of claiming the Kingdom of the World. Over centuries, Zeus has been featured in many stories which also come in different versions, but I will focus on Zeus who in the Greek version which was also known as Jupiter. Since the Greek God had not changed so much, it's sometimes better if his character was spoken.
Of all the gods Zeus was naturally the most awed and respected by both mortals and gods. To his family, he was always caring and fully protect them as he always intervened to make peace between them. He was also known, to be honest, fair, and wise, and the one who always strived to achieve justice, but he was also very fierce in punishing those that tried to escape laws and oaths. Zeus was an almost perfect icon in the Greek culture but yet he was still quite naïve in most of his many love affairs. This resulted in him being very unpredictable especially in regards to malevolence like murder, cannibalism, and kidnapping. Many of the time when Zeus was described, he was depicted as a grown man with a long curly hair and beard with a thunderbolt in his hand. Sometimes he was mentioned to have an eagle which was seen as his sacred animal. There were also times when he was described as a young man. Zeus has been the central figure in the east pediment of the Partenon, and without any doubt, the most majestic symbol of the god is his brown statue from Artmesium which was in 460 BCE. Zeus liked standing confidently with his feet wide apart ready to launch a thunderbolt.
Zeus’s Struggle for Power
Zeus was Cronus’s and Rhea’s last born child who was never swallowed by his father. According to Hesiod, Zeus was raised by his grandmother Gaea an ancient goddess who lived on the island of Crete or by the Nymphs as other versions claim. The Nymph Amaltheia who was at times referred to as a goat who suckled the young god among the Nymphs. After growing up, he became the savior of his brothers and sisters as he forced Cronus his father to vomit them back to existence (Roman 429). Long after this, he came to be recognized as a great leader and mighty warrior from a series of battles against the Titans which happened for ten years. This was referred to as Titanomachy.
For many years, the young gods were overwhelmed and defeated by the Titans who were led by Atlas. Zeus was wise enough and knew that they required help, and thus he aided the Hekatoncheires and Cyclopes to escape from Tartarus. With the assistance of the Hephaestus, the Cyclops was able to craft three great items that were given to three brothers as symbol and token of gratitude. Zeus acquired the most powerful weapon that ever existed; the magical Thunderbolt which he used to strike down many Titans and also caused havoc on their grounds. The joint effort with Hekatoncheires together with their new items were successful in defeating the Titans and finally having them imprisoned in Tartarus. On achieving this victory Zeus together with his brothers, Hades and Poseidon divided the cosmos among themselves of which Zeus received the realm of the sky and heavens under his control by drawing lots. It was at this time that he became the new ruler of the cosmos as well as the king of the Olympian gods.
Attempts of dethroning Zeus
During his rule, attempts were made on two accounts to overthrow him. The first account was of Giants who tried to overthrow the rule of Zeus by throwing flaming oak trees and rocks in the sky, and this happened after previous battles and disagreements. Zeus sought help from the oracle among gods of which he was advised to ask for help from a mortal hand if they were to defeat the giants. The mortal hand that assisted the gods to destroy theses gigantic enemies was Heracles. With a joint effort that involved the guidance of Athena and the help from Zeus’s thunderbolt, Heracles was able to defeat the two most powerful giants known as Alkyoneus and Porphyrion. The gods themselves slew those that remained. The second account to dethrone Zeus was by Typhoeus who was a monstrous immortal storm-giant (Zolotnikova 255).
Typhoeus was born as retribution by Gaea for Zeus imprisoning her children in Tartarus. He was the strongest of all and also so huge that his head was said to brush the stars. His hands were so large with hundreds of heads of serpents attached to them; one could reach the west while the other one reached the east. But even with all the might, he possessed, his size, and appearance, Zeus was still able to defeat him in a great battle that was said to shake the earth and boil the waters. Zeus jumped from Olympus, and with his thunderbolt, he struck the head of the giant making him lose consciousness and crashed to the ground beneath him. The fall was so fierce that the earth melted from his flesh of blazing fire and heated wind. After winning against the giant Zeus cast him to Tartarus where he was reunited with his relatives.
The Love Affairs of Zeus
For all his life, Zeus was known for having many love affairs. His first love was the goddess of wisdom and foresight called Metis who he consorted with at a very young age making her pregnant with Athena. Because of the prophecy that he would lose his kingdom to his first born child, he swallowed Metis in a bid to stop Athena from being born. This still did not prevent the birth of Athena because once she was an adult, she jumped out of his head dressed in armor. He also had a sexual relationship with his Themis who gave birth to Horae and Moirae (Roman, 227). His relationship with Mnemosyne bore nine Muses in nine nights. He had twins with Titaness Leto who were called Artemis and Apollo. His relationship with mortal woman Alcmene bore him Heracles as Danae gave birth to Perseus. He also had a love affair with his sister Demeter who gave birth to Persephone as well as his sister and wife Hera who gave birth to Hebe, Ares, Hephaestus, Eris, and Eileithyia. Semele was also a mortal woman who gave birth to Dionysus while Titaness Maia who gave him Hermes. Zeus had other many love affairs that did not seem to have any boundaries when it regarded women.
The Great Flood
It is said that Zeus ended the Bronze Age with the Great Flood. He argued that his decision to do that was that the people of bronze were more warlike and found joy in the works of destructive Ares. But the main reason for his actions was disrespect for gods and fellow human beings. This was, as a result, the Lycaon a king of Arcadia who sacrificed a boy to Zeus. The sacrifices were forbidden in the new Olympian order. Zeus was so angered that he struck lightning at his house turning Lycaon into a wolf. He believed in doing this, an example would have been made for others to see but to his shock, he later disguised as a beggar and was in attendance of the hall of the fifty sons of Lycaon. A meal of sheep livers, hearts, and guts was prepared, and it also included the stewed organs of their brother Nyctimus (Stevenson 180). These cannibal offerings shocked and angered Zeus that he cursed humanity and cast a great flood over the world that would destroy all leaving creatures resulting in them starting from the beginning. Prometheus being aware of what was happening he warned his son Deucalion who prepared a deluge for himself. Together with Pyrrha his brother Epimetheus’s daughter, they hid at a secure location, and it is believed only them survived the cataclysmic event.
The Trojan War
From the very beginning, Zeus was involved in the Trojan War from the time when he passed the decision to the prince of Troy called Paris. He was tasked with making the decision between Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite who were the fairest of goddesses as well as the golden apple. When the hostility became out of hand between the two sides and no sign of going back it is believed that Zeus started to orchestrate the involvement of immortals in the war (Richardson 670). Zeus ordered the stop of any participation in any battle after Aphrodite and Ares got wounded. But Hera, on the other hand, was eager to help husband that she deceived him in making love to her to exhaustion so that he would fall asleep to intervene without him knowing. Zeus woke up in the middle of the battle and had the realization of the fact that his wife had deceived him. In his revenge, he ordered that Apollo should go and revive Hector in Troy to back up the defenses of Trojan. With Zeus Aegis, it was possible to push the Greeks back to their ships. When Zeus was contented with the punishment that he was giving he commanded the assembling of all the gods on Mount Olympus. He then asked them to choose sides and continue with the battle whenever they pleased.
Zeus the Punisher
He was also known as the great punisher as those who committed acts of impiety or did wrong often got punished severely by him. Some of his punishments include the imprisonment of the Titans in Tartarus for committing acts of impiety against Zeus, the building of the great walls of Troy by Apollo and Poseidon of which it proved to be beneficial during the Trojan War. Mythologies of the war claim that Zeus got involved so as to curb the rising population of humanity. The selection of Paris as the judge in the famous beauty contest that was between Aphrodite, Athena, and Hera and the winning of Helen as his reward for selecting Aphrodite was also seen as a more human cause for the Trojan War by Zeus. Some of the victims of the vengeance included Prometheus a Titan who had his liver eaten by an eagle as a sign of punishment for stealing fire from the gods and giving it to the mortals. Sisyphus received punishment for his trickery that he would roll a huge stone up forever a hill in the underworld (Roman 520).
Asclepius on, the other hand, was killed by a thunderbolt from Zeus because his medicine and capability to raise the dead were threatening the balance of power between gods and men. Pandora was punished because she received the gift of fire; she became the first woman to be sent into the world as punishment. Pandora was to become the source all the misfortunes of humanity which she carried with her in a box. Hera tricked Phineus into blinding his two sons, and in turn, Zeus also blinded him and always sent Harpies to continuously unleash harassment on him. Zeus also banished Ixion to Hades to be forever bound to a wheel that was rotating because of his declaration of love for Hera (Stevenson 241). Salmoneus believed that he was a god and such pretend to be Zeus whereby he threw flaming torches as lightning bolts and rode his chariot to make noise that sounded like thunder. Zeus immediately stopped his antics by hitting him with a real lightning bolt that killed him instantly. The list is still big, but the message is clear that Zeus hated wrongdoing and lack of respect for which he severely punished those who committed them.
Zeus, the Peacemaker
Although Zeus was known to unleash terrible punishment on those who wronged he was also known to be a negotiator of which he was famously known for reconciling Apollo and Hermes when they fought over the first lyre. He also resolved the conflict that was between Apollo and Hercules over the tripod from Delphi (Richardson 668). Zeus was also able to convince Hades to part with Persephone for part of each year leading to the end of the drought that her mother Demeter had put on the human race as a protest of being held in the Underworld as captive. The mere mortals saw Zeus as being at least fair-minded. Where Zeus sat at his feet were jars of fate, one jar was full of bad things, and the other was full of good things of which both of them he dispensed with justice. The time of a mortal’s death was as well carefully weighed in the golden scales of Zeus.
Conclusion
Zeus had a cheerful personality as a god who loved to laugh out loud, but he was also regarded as prudent, fair, merciful, just, and wise yet he was still unpredictable nobody would guess his decisions that he would make. He also had a personality that was easily angered, and this could be destructive as he at times hurled lightning bolts and caused violent storms that resulted in havoc on earth. Zeus also easily fell in love which resulted in many affairs with various women but he was very protective of his wife Hera and whoever tried to fall in love with her received severe punishment. He is also regarded to have founded certain races like the Magnesians and Macedonians. Zeus also took into consideration the well-being of the mortals as he was a benevolent god. Even the poor found a powerful advocate in Zeus as he was wise and merciful.
Work Cited
Roman, Monica. Encyclopedia of Greek and Roman Mythology. 128-980 Vol. 3. N.p.: Infobase Publishing, 2010. Print.
Richardson, Donald. Greek mythology for everyone: legends of the gods and heroes. Vol. 4. New York: Avenel, 2014. Print. 457-878.
Tom Stevenson. The Statue of Zeus at Olympia: New Approaches. Vol. 2. N.p.: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, n.d. Print. 144-650
Zolotnikova. Zeus in Early Greek mythology and religion. From prehistoric times to the Early Archaic period. 223-340 ed. Vol. 2. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 2013. Print.
