Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/1334

Rh 1322 ZEUS. country, Scythia (Diod. iv. 44). Others relate that the Boreades delivered Phineus from the Harpies; for it had been foretold that the Harpies might be killed by sons of Boreas, but that the sons of Boreas must die, if they should not be able to overtake the Harpies (Apollod. i. 9. § 21). Others again state that the Boreadae perished in their pursuit of the Harpies (Apollod. iii. 1 5. § 2), or that Heracles killed them with his arrows near the island of Tenos (Hygin. Fab. 14; Senec. Med. 634). Different stories were related to account for the anger of Heracles against the Boreadae (Schol. ad Apollon. Rhod. i. 1 304; comp. Hygin. Fab. 273). Their tombs were said to be in Tenos, adomed with sepulchral stelae, one of which was moved whenever the wind blew from the north (Hj'gin. Fab. 14; Schol. ad Apollon. I. c). Calais is also mentioned as the founder of the Campanian town of Cales. (Sil. Ital. viii. 515.) [L. S.] ZKTHUS (Z^0os), a son of Zeus and Antiope, at Thebes, and a brother of Amphion. According to some (Horn. Od. xix. 523) he was married to Aedon, and according to others (Apollod. iii. 5. § 6) to Thebe. (Comp. Amphion.) [L. S.] ZEUS (Zeus), the greatest of the Olympian gods, and the father of gods and men, was a son of Cronos and Rhea, a brother of Poseidon, Hades (Pluto), Hestia, Demeter, Hera, and at the same time married to his sister Hera. When Zeus and his brothers distributed among themselves the go- vernment of the world by lot, Poseidon obtained the sea. Hades the lower world, and Zeus the heavens and the upper regions, but the earth be- came common to all (Horn. //. xv. 187, &c., i. 528, ii. Ill; Virg. Aen. iv. 372). Later mythologers enumerate three Zeus in their genealogies two Arcadian ones and one Cretan; and the fiist is said to be a son of Aether, the second of Coelus, and the third of Saturnus (Cic. de Nat. Deor. iii. 21). This accounts for the fact that some writers use the name of the king of heaven who sends dew, rain, snow, thunder, and lightning for heaven itself in its physical sense. (Horat. Carm. i. 1. 25; Virg. Georg. ii. 419.) According to the Homeric account Zeus, like the other Olympian gods, dwelt on Mount Olympus in Thessaly, which was believed to penetrate with its lofty summit into heaven itself {II. i. 221, &c., 354, 609, xxi. 438). He is called the father of gods and men (i. 514, v. 33; comp. Aeschyl. Sept 512), the most high and powerful among the im- mortals, whom all others obey {II. xix. 258, viii. 10, &c.). He is the highest ruler, who with his counsel manages every thing (i. 175, viii. 22), the founder of kingly power, of law and of order, whence Dice, Themis and Nemesis are his assist- ants (i. 238, ii. 205, ix. 99, xvi. 387; comp. Hes. Op. et D. 36; Callira. Hymn, in Jov. 79). For the same reason he protects the assembly of the people {a.yopaios)y the meetings of the council {fiovKcuos), and as he presides over the whole state, so also over every house and family {kpKelos., Od. xxii. 335; comp. Ov. lb. 285). He also watched over the sanctity of the oath (opKtos), the law of hospitality (|eVjo5), and protected sup- pliants (t/cecrtos, Od. ix. 270; comp. Paus. v. 24. § 2). He avenged those who were wronged, and punished those who had committed a crime, for he watched the doings and sufferings of all men (cVrfij/tos, Od. xiii. 213; comp. Apollon. Rhod. i. 1123). He was further the original source of ZEUS. all prophetic power, from whom all prophetic signs and sounds proceeded {iravojx<paloSj II. viii. 250; comp. Aeschyl. Eum. 19; Callim. Hymn, in Jov. 69). Every thing good as well as bad comes from Zeus, and according to his own choice he assigns their good or evil lot to mortals {Od. iv. 237, vi. 1 88, ix. 552, //. X. 71, xvii. 632, &c.), and fate itself was subordinate to him. He is armed with thun- der and lightning, and the shaking of his aegis produces storm and tempest {II. xvii. 593) : a num- ber of epithets of Zeus in the Homeric poems de- scribe him as the thunderer, the gatherer of clouds, and the like. He was married to Hera, by whom he had two sons. Ares and Hephaestus, and one daughter, Hebe (//. i. 585, v. 896, Od. xi. 604). Hera sometimes acts as an independent divinity, she is ambitious and rebels against her lord, but she is nevertheless inferior to him, and is punished for her opposition (//. xv. 17, &c., xix. 9.5, &c.); his amours with other goddesses or mortal women are not concealed from her, though they generally rouse her jealousy and revenge {II. xiv. 317). During the Trojan war, Zeus, at the request of Thetis, favoured the Trojans, until Agamemnon made good the wrong he had done to Achilles. Zeus, no doubt, was originally a god of a portion of nature, whence the oak with its eatable fruit and the fertile doves were sacred to him at Dodona and in Arcadia (hence also rain, storms, and the seasons were regarded as his work, and hence the Cretan stories of milk, honey, and cornucopia); but in the Homeric poems, this primitive character of a personitication of certain powers of nature is already effaced to some extent, and the god ap- pears as a political and national divinity, as the king and father of men, as the founder and pro- tector of all institutions hallowed by law, custom, or religion. Hesiod {Theog. 116, &c.) also calls Zeus the son of Cronos and Rhea*, and the brother of Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon. Cronos swallowed his children immediately after their birth, but when Rhea was near giving birth to Zeus, she applied to Uranus and Ge for advice as to how the child might be saved. Before the hour of birth came, Uranus and Ge sent Rhea to Lyctos in Crete, requesting her to bring up her child there. Rhea accordingly concealed her infant in a cave of Mount Aegaeon, and gave to Cronos a stone wrapped up in cloth, which he swallowed in the belief that it was his son. Othet traditions state that Zeus was born and brought up on Mount Dicte or Ida (also the Trojan Ida), Ithome in Messenia, Thebes in Boeotia, Aegion in Achaia, or Olenos in Aetolia. According to the common account, however, Zeus grew up in Crete. In the meantime Cronos by a cunning device of Ge or Metis was made to bring up the children he had swallowed, and first of all the stone, which was afterwards set up by Zeus at Delphi. The young god now delivered the Cyclopes from the bonds with which they had been fettered by Cro- nos, and they in their gratitude provided him with thunder and lightning. On the advice of Ge, Zeus also liberated the hundred-armed Gigantes, Briareos, Cottus, and Gyes, that they might assist him in his fight against tht Titans. (Apollod. i. 2. Zeus is also called a son of Ge. (AeschvL SuppL 901.)
 * As Rhea is sometimes identified with Ge,