![]() ![]() ( See LYCAeA.) In Attica, again, many festivals refer to the god as a personification of the powers of nature. Among the numerous mountain-cults in the Peloponnesus, the oldest and most original was that of the Lycaean Zeus, on Mount Lycaeus in Arcadia, where human beings were actually sacrificed to him in propitiation. The cult of Zeus at the ancient seat of the oracle at Dodona recognised his character as dispenser of the fertilizing dew. As the supreme lord of heaven, he was worshipped under the name of Olympian Zeus in many parts of Greece, but especially in Olympia, where the Olympian games ( q.v.) were celebrated in his honour. The changes of the seasons also proceed from him as the father of the Hours. As by the shaking of his oegis ( q.v.) he causes sudden storm and tempest to break forth, so he calms the elements again, brightens the sky, and sends forth favouring winds. From Zeus come all changes in the sky or the winds he is the gatherer of the clouds, which dispense the fertilizing rain, while he is also the thunderer, and the hurler of the irresiptible lightning. Of all places the Thessalian mountain Olympus ( q.v., 1), even in the earliest eges, met with the most general recognition as the abode of Zeus and of the gods who were associated with him. As such he was everywhere worshipped on the highest mountains, on whose summits he was considered to be enthroned. The very name of Zeus (Sanskrit, dyaus, the bright sky) identifies him as the god of the sky and its phenomena. In the same way the loves of Zeus with half-divine, half-mortal women, of whom Alemene, the mother of Heracles, was said to be the last, were originally rural legends, which derived the descent of indigenous divinities, like Hermes and Dionysus, or of heroes and noble families, from the highest god and not until they had become the common property of the whole Greek people, which was practically the case as early as the time of Homer, could the love affairs of the greatest of the gods become the theme of those mythical stories which are so repugnant to modern taste. When the legend of the marriage with Hera had become the predominant one, an attempt was made to harmonize the different versions of the story by the supposition of successive marriages. Originally different wives of Zeus were recognised in the different local cults. ![]() ![]() The fact that still later, in Dodona, Dione, the mother of Aphrodite, was also honoured as the wife of Zeus, shows the origin of the legend. Not incompatible with this however was the idea that the marriage with Hera was the earliest of a series of marriages with other goddesses: first, according to Hosiod, with Metis, whom he swallowed, in order to bring forth Athene from his own head then with Themis, the mother of the Hours and the Fates afterwards with Eurynome, the mother of the Graces Demeter, the mother of Persephone Mnemoysene, the mother of the Muses and Leto, the mother of Apollo and Artemis. Next to him, but in a subordinate position, stands, as queen of the gods, his sister and consort Hera, the mother of Ares, Hephaestus, and Hebe, who was regarded as pre-eminently his rightful wife. But the king of the gods is Zeus, whose power, as Homer says, is greater than that of all the other gods together. When with the help of his brothers and sisters, Poseidon, Hades, Hestia, Demeter, and Hera, he had over-thrown Cronus and the Titans, the world was divided into three parts, Zeus obtaining heaven, Poseidon the sea, and Hades the lower world the earth and Olympus being Appointed for the common possession of all the three. When he was grown up, Zeus married Metis ( q.v.), who, by means of a charm, compelled Cronus to disgorge the children he had swallowed. According to a myth indigenous to Crete, he was the youngest son, and Rhea in dread of Cronus who had swallowed all is previous children, bore him secretly in a cave of the island, where he was suckled by the goat Amalthea ( q.v.), while the Curetes ( q.v.) drowned the cries of the child by the clash of their weapons but Rhea outwitted Cronus by giving him a stone to swallow instead. The greatest god in the Greek mythology according to the common legend the eldest son of Cronus (Kronos) and Rhea, hence called Cronides. Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 ![]()
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