1 zeus

Zeus was the king of the Greek gods who lived on Mount Olympus. He was the god of the sky and thunder. His symbols include the lightning bolt, the eagle, the bull, and the oak tree. He was married to the goddess Hera.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 ,He was respected as an all father who was chief of the gods and assigned the others to their roles: "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"

ZEUS INFANCY

Varying versions of the story exist:

1. According to Hyginus (Fabulae, ) Zeus was raised by a nymph named Amalthea. Since Saturn (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.

2. According to Pseudo-Apollodorus (Bibliotheca, ) Zeus was raised by a goat named Amalthea in a cave called Dictaeon Antron (Psychro Cave). A a company of soldiers called

Kouretes danced, shouted and clashed their spears against their shields so that Cronus would not hear the baby's cry.

King of the gods

After reaching manhood, Zeus forced Cronus to disgorge first the stone (which was set down at Pytho under the glens of Parnassus to be a sign to mortal men, the Omphalos ) then his siblings in reverse order of swallowing. In some versions, Metis gave Cronus an

emetic to force him to disgorge the babies, or Zeus cut Cronus's stomach open. Then Zeus released the brothers of Cronus, the Hecatonchires and the

Cyclopes, from their dungeon in

Tartarus, killing their guard, Campe.

As a token of their appreciation, the Cyclopes gave him thunder and the thunderbolt, or lightning , which had previously been hidden by Gaia. Together, Zeus, his brothers and sisters, Hecatonchires and Cyclopes overthrew Cronus and the other Titans, in the combat called the Titanomachy . The defeated Titans were then cast into a shadowy underworld region known as Tartarus. Atlas , one of the titans who fought against Zeus, was punished by having to hold up the sky.After the battle with the Titans, Zeus shared the world with his elder brothers,

Poseidon and Hades , by drawing lots: Zeus got the sky and air, Poseidon the waters, and Hades the world of the dead (the underworld). The ancient Earth,

Gaia , could not be claimed; she was left to all three, each according to their capabilities, which explains why Poseidon was the "earth-shaker" (the god of earthquakes) and Hades claimed the humans who died (see also

Penthus).

Gaia resented the way Zeus had treated the Titans, because they were her children. Soon after taking the throne as king of the gods, Zeus had to fight some of Gaia's other children, the

monsters Typhon and Echidna . He vanquished Typhon and trapped him under Mount Etna , but left Echidna and her children alive.