Zeus / Jupiter
King of the gods, god of sky and thunder
Zeus is the king of the gods and the ruler of Mount Olympus, the god of the sky, thunder, and lightning. He overthrew his father Cronus, freed his swallowed brothers and sisters, and ruled the world by law, hospitality, and the thunderbolt.
How they were born
Zeus was the sixth and youngest child of the Titans Cronus and Rhea. Cronus had swallowed his first five children at birth, fearing a prophecy that one of them would overthrow him, so when Zeus was born Rhea hid him in a cave on Mount Ida or Mount Dicte in Crete, giving Cronus a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes to swallow instead. There the baby was nursed by the goat Amalthea and the nymphs Adrasteia and Ida, while the Kouretes clashed their shields to hide his cries, until he grew strong enough to challenge his father.
The greatest stories
The Titanomachy
When Zeus was grown, he forced Cronus to disgorge the stone and then his five brothers and sisters, who chose Zeus as their leader. For ten years the young Olympians fought the Titans from Mount Olympus against Mount Othrys. Zeus freed the Cyclopes and the hundred-handed Hecatoncheires from Tartarus, and in gratitude the Cyclopes gave him the thunderbolt, the trident to Poseidon, and the helm of darkness to Hades. With these weapons and allies the Olympians won, and the defeated Titans were cast into Tartarus. The three brothers then drew lots for the world: Zeus won the sky, Poseidon the sea, and Hades the Underworld.
The Birth of Athena
Zeus's first wife was Metis, the goddess of wisdom, but a prophecy warned that her son would overthrow him, just as he had overthrown Cronus. So Zeus swallowed Metis whole while she was pregnant. Months later he was seized by a terrible headache, and Hephaestus split open his skull with an axe. Out sprang Athena, fully grown and fully armed, shouting a war cry. Zeus was so proud of his brilliant daughter that he made her his favourite child and gave her his aegis, the shield that bears the head of Medusa.
Zeus's Test: Baucis and Philemon
Zeus and Hermes once wandered the earth disguised as weary travellers, knocking on door after door to test human hospitality, the sacred duty Zeus himself protected. Every household turned them away until they reached a poor thatched hut, where the old couple Baucis and Philemon welcomed them, shared their meagre food, and even tried to kill their only goose for the guests. The gods revealed themselves and warned the couple to flee to the mountains, then flooded the inhospitable village and turned the couple's hut into a splendid temple, granting Baucis and Philemon's wish to serve it together and die at the same hour.
Zeus and the Monster Typhon
After the Titans fell, Gaia, angry at the treatment of her children, sent her last and most terrible child, Typhon, a hundred-headed monster whose eyes shot fire and whose voice was the roar of wild beasts. The gods fled to Egypt in terror, but Zeus stood his ground, fighting Typhon with thunderbolts and his curved sickle. Typhon tore out Zeus's sinews and hid them in a cave, but Hermes and Aegipan stole them back, and Zeus, restored, crushed the monster under Mount Etna in Sicily, where its struggles are still said to cause earthquakes and eruptions.
Phaethon and the Chariot of the Sun
Phaethon, the son of the sun god Helios, begged his father to let him drive the chariot of the sun across the sky for a single day. Helios warned him and swore an oath he could not break, so the boy took the reins, but the horses felt the light hand and bolted, plunging the sun too low and scorching the earth, drying rivers and burning whole lands. To save the world, Zeus struck Phaethon down with a thunderbolt, and the boy fell into the river Eridanus. His sisters, the Heliades, wept so long at his grave that the gods turned them into poplar trees, whose tears became amber.
Family & connections
Symbol, animal & weapon
Fun facts
- The colossal gold-and-ivory Statue of Zeus at Olympia, made by Phidias around 435 BC, was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and stood about 13 metres tall.
- Zeus's name comes from the ancient root dyeus, meaning "sky" or "daylight," which is also the root of the Latin word deus, meaning "god," and of his Roman name Jupiter, from Diespiter, "sky-father."
- The oak was sacred to Zeus, and at his oracle at Dodona in north-west Greece, priestesses interpreted the rustling of the sacred oak's leaves and the cooing of its doves to answer questions.
- The largest planet in our solar system is named Jupiter, after Zeus's Roman name, and its four largest moons are named after his lovers and companions: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.
Gallery — sculpture & art
