Zeus

**Zeus**, also called **Jove** or **Jupiter**, is the God of the Sky, Storms, and Lightning from Greco-Roman Mythology. As an Elder Olympian, he is King of Mount Olympus and the Greco-Roman Pantheon, and is one of the core members of the Council of Godheads.

## Overview

**Zeus** is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion, who rules as king of the gods of Mount Olympus. His name is cognate with the first element of his Roman equivalent Jupiter. His mythology and powers are similar, though not identical, to those of Indo-European deities such as Jupiter, Perkūnas, Perun, Indra, and Dyaus.

Zeus is the child of Cronus and Rhea, the youngest of his siblings to be born, though sometimes reckoned the eldest as the others required disgorging from Cronus's stomach. In most traditions, he is married to Hera, by whom he is usually said to have fathered Ares, Hebe, and Hephaestus. At the oracle of Dodona, his consort was said to be Dione, by whom the *Iliad* states that he fathered Aphrodite. Zeus was also infamous for his erotic escapades. These resulted in many divine and heroic offspring, including Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, Persephone, Dionysus, Perseus, Heracles, Helen of Troy, Minos, and the Muses.

He was respected as an allfather who was chief of the gods and assigned roles to the others: "Even the gods who are not his natural children address him as Father, and all the gods rise in his presence." He was equated with many foreign weather gods, permitting Pausanias to observe "That Zeus is king in heaven is a saying common to all men".

Zeus' 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 three poses: standing, striding forward with a thunderbolt leveled in his raised right hand, or seated in majesty.

## Appearance

Despite popular belief, Zeus' true form is and has always been that of a young man in his 20s, with tanned skin and a mischievous smirk always on his face. He has short blue hair and dark-blue eyes, which glow bright blue with electricity whenever he's excited. Apollo is said to be extremely similar to him in terms of appearance, albeit "more gold than blue, more melodramatic than boisterous".

However, to better blend in with the rest of the God-Kings and gain more respect from younger gods, he does take on an older form, in which he is an extremely muscular elderly man with grayish-black hair and striking electric-blue eyes.

## Personality

Zeus is, first and foremost, a proud and stern god, the direct result of his eons-long reign as the King of Mount Olympus, having to lead one of the most rambunctious and powerful mythological factions in the entirety of the supernatural world, all the while preventing petty internal squabbling from tearing his pantheon apart.

While during his younger years, he was astoundingly charming and gregarious, those long years of iron rulership have made him very stoic and prickly around his fellow gods. He does not tolerate slights of any sort directed toward himself or his family, and will personally punish anyone who insults the authority of the Olympian gods. While in public, especially within view of those he deems threatening, he will respond with crushing retaliations to any sort of insult or attack. When he is truly enraged by someone's impudence, he typically will employ a brief but painful show of force, only escalating into full attacks when absolutely necessary.

However, while in private, he is much more relaxed to his family members and would even allow japes or snide remarks from his relatives, especially ones he favors.

According to Dionysus, there is a reason why demigods such as Percy Jackson or Thalia Grace are able to trash-talk the gods without being smote at the spot. On rare occasions, he'd also retaliate these remarks with his own, much to everyone's shock.

Although he is known for his incredible cunning, he upholds his position as the [God of Laws] by always keeping his words. Still, he has remained sly since the days of his youth, being an infamous Trickster God, and when making deals with enemies, always does his best to leave loopholes for his side to exploit, though he does not usually do this with those he holds in high regard.

Given his status as a lawgiver who holds divine authority over [Order] and [Justice], he reacts extremely poorly to any implication of insult to his honor. He reacts just as badly as those who deceive him, though he does afford begrudging respect to those who effectively employ his own loophole strategy against him, even if such cases are extremely rare.

Despite his stern demeanor, he does have a soft side and his strict rulership of his family is only to ensure peace and order are upheld. He is a stern father on most occasions, with extremely high expectations for his children and frugal with his praises, and truly miserly with open displays of affection, typically showing the latter only in private settings.

While he loves his children deeply, he cannot show as much love as the other gods do, as he is the leader and must set an example. He is generally more favorable to his daughters than his sons, punishing them less severely for their misconduct than their brothers for the same crime. Athena and Artemis are known to be his favorites, and Ares and Apollo are his least-favorites, though the latter only lost his previously favorite position because of his failed rebellion.

However, he is the most tender and caring toward his mortal lovers, showering them with gifts and affection, a sharp contrast to most of his divine children, which causes many of them who witness their father's interactions to resent their demigod siblings.

Truthfully, his womanizing among mortals is a coping mechanism, a method to allow him to relax and destress from the rigors of rulership. He enjoys the thrill of chasing mortal women, and secretly takes great pleasure in the awe he inspires within his mortal children and lovers. However, given his tremendous pride, he would rather have it be believed that he simply chases them out of lust then let it be known that his ventures are a coping mechanism and a method for him to let loose.

## Trivia

* His name "Zeus" means "to shine" or "sky, heaven, or god".
	+ According to Plato, his name means "cause of life always to all things".
* His attributes are thunderbolt, eagle, bull, and the oaks.
* His favorite drink is appletini.
* He is the only Elder Olympian not to be born on Mount Othrys as Rhea delivered him in Psychro Cave at the base of Mount Dicte on Crete.
* According to Clovis, he likes tailored suits, reality television, and a 'Chinese food place on East Twenty-eighth Street'.
* According to him, mythology exaggerated the amount of lovers he took and children he had, as many gods who supposedly born from his affairs are only considered his children due to his title as Allfather of the Olympians.
* In the Bible, he is associated with Saint Barnabas.
* In Greek mythology, Helios was sometimes referred to as the "Eye of Zeus".
* In some myths, it's said that he has a total of seven wives. The first was Metis who bore Athena; The second was Themis who bore the Horai and/or the Moirai; The third was Eurynome who bore the Charites; the fourth was Demeter who bore Persephone; the fifth was Mnemosyne who bore the Muses; the sixth was Leto who bore Artemis and Apollo; and his seventh and last wife was Hera.
* The Olympic Games, originally founded in 776 BC, were a set of religious festivals in Ancient Greece held every four years in honor of him.
* During the Myceanaean era, he was considered less important than Poseidon due to the Mycenaean Greeks valuing importance in gods associated with the earth or the underworld than sky gods such as Zeus.
* An alternate name for Jupiter is ***Jove*** in translations of the "Iliad". This arises from the fact that although the nominative and vocative singular cases are *Iuppiter*, the rest take forms with the stem *Iov-*. For example, the genitive singular is *Iovis.*
* As Jupiter, he is referred to as *Optimus Maximus*, meaning "the best and the greatest" in Latin. The former is the superlative masculine singular form of *bonus* (good), and the latter is the superlative masculine singular of *magnus* (great, big).
* Jupiter, the largest planet of the Solar system, is named after his Roman name.
	+ Jupiter's moons, with the exception of Ganymede and Pasiphae, are all named after his ex-lovers such as Callisto, Europa, etc.