Zeus

Zeus, the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek mythology, is the king of the gods on Mount Olympus. Born to Cronus and Rhea, he is the youngest of his siblings and is often considered the eldest. Zeus is usually married to Hera, who is said to have fathered Ares, Eileithyia, Hebe, and Hephaestus. At the oracle of Dodona, his consort is Dione, who is said to have fathered Aphrodite. Zeus' first wife was Metis, by whom he had Athena. Zeus was infamous for his erotic escapades, which resulted in many divine and heroic offspring. He was respected as a sky father and was equated with many foreign weather gods. Zeus' symbols include the thunderbolt, eagle, bull, and oak. His classical "cloud-gatherer" (Nephelēgereta) derives iconographic traits from the cultures of the ancient Near East, such as the scepter.
== Birth ==
In Hesiod's Theogony (c. 730 – 700 BC), Cronus, after castrating his father Uranus, becomes the supreme ruler of the world, and weds his sister Rhea, by whom he begets three daughters and three sons: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and lastly, "wise" Zeus, the youngest of the six. He swallows each child as soon as they are born, having received a prophecy from his parents, Gaia and Uranus, that one of his own children is destined to one day overthrow him as he overthrew his father. This causes Rhea "unceasing grief", and upon becoming pregnant with her sixth child, Zeus, she approaches her parents, Gaia and Uranus, seeking a plan to save her child and bring retribution to Cronus. Following her parents' instructions, she travels to Lyctus in Crete, where she gives birth to Zeus, handing the newborn child over to Gaia for her to raise, and Gaia takes him to a cave on Mount Aegaeon. Rhea then gives to Cronus, in the place of a child, a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes, which he promptly swallows, unaware that it is not his son.
While Hesiod gives Lyctus as Zeus's birthplace, he is the only source to do so, and other authors give different locations. The poet Eumelos of Corinth (8th century BC), according to John the Lydian, considered Zeus to have been born in Lydia, while the Alexandrian poet Callimachus (c. 310 – c. 240 BC), in his Hymn to Zeus, says that he was born in Arcadia. Diodorus Siculus (fl. 1st century BC) seems at one point to give Mount Ida as his birthplace, but later states he is born in Dicte, and the mythographer Apollodorus (first or second century AD) similarly says he was born in a cave in Dicte.
Category:Religion
Category:God
Category:Greek Pantheon