Essay on The King Of Gods

Submitted By holdenjoebob
Words: 818
Pages: 4

The King of Gods, Zeus

Zeus is the god of the sky and thunder and the king of the Olympians on Mount Olympus. The roman name of Zeus is Jupiter, and Zeus and Jupiter became pretty much the same god but in different cultures.
Zeus is one of the six children of Cronus and Rhea, and the youngest of his siblings. In most traditions he is married to Hera, but also Dione according to the Iliad, he is the father of Aphrodite with Dione. He is known for his affairs. These resulted in many godly and heroic offspring, including Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, Persephone, Dionysus, Perseus, Heracles, Helen of Troy, Minos, and the Muses with Hera, he is said to have fathered Ares, Hebe and Hephaestus. In Greek Religion, "Even the gods who are not his natural children address him as Father, and all the gods rise in his presence." For the Greeks, he was the King of the Gods, who oversaw the universe. "That Zeus is king in heaven is a saying common to all men". Zeus assigns the various gods their roles. In the Homeric songs he is referred to as the chieftain of the gods.
His symbols are the thunderbolt, eagle, bull, and oak. In addition to his Indo-European inheritance, the classical "cloud-gatherer" also derives certain iconographic traits from the cultures of the Ancient Near East, such as the scepter. Zeus is frequently depicted by Greek artists in one of two poses: standing, striding forward, with a thunderbolt leveled in his raised right hand, or seated in majesty.
Cronus had several children with Rhea, Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon, but swallowed them all as soon as they were born, since he had learned from Gaia and Uranus that he was destined to be overthrown by his son as he had previously overthrown Uranus, his own father, an oracle that Rhea heard and wished to ignore. Zeus was the last child to be born.
When Zeus was about to be born, Rhea sought Gaia 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 Zeus in Crete, and to save him from being swallowed she handed Cronus a rock wrapped in large clothes, which he then quickly swallowed. Rhea hid Zeus in a cave on Mount Ida in Crete. There are many versions of the story:
# He was then raised by Gaia.
# He was raised by a goat named Amalthea, while a company of Kouretes or soldiers, or smaller gods— danced, yelled and clashed their spears against their shields so that Cronus would not hear the baby's cry. According to some versions of this story he was hidden by Amalthea in a cave called Dictaeon Andron in Lasithi plateau.
# 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, Zeus placed her among the stars.
# He was raised by Melissa, who nursed him with goat's-milk and honey.
# He was raised by a