Hey everyone, welcome to another installment of Mythology Explained. In today’s video-
we’re going to be covering almost certainly the best known deity in all of Greek mythology.
This deity is, of course, Zeus, the lighting-bolt-wielding, titan-destroying king of the gods. More specifically,
this video is going to take a look at Zeus as he pertains to the Greek creation myth.
More videos about Zeus that cover other aspects of his life are to come. But for now, let’s
get into it.
Zeus is the god of the sky and of thunder, and he ruled all of creation from his high
seat on Mount Olympus. Zeus’ parents were Rhea and Cronus, the king and queen of the
Titans. Cronus sired six children by Rhea. These six children were the first generation
of the olympian gods in Greek mythology. They are Demeter (the goddess of harvest and agriculture),
Hestia (the virgin goddess of the home, the family, and domesticity), Hera (the goddess
of childbirth, women, family and marriage), Hades (the god of death and ruler of the underworld),
Poseidon (the god of horses, earthquakes, storms, and the sea), and Zeus.
Zeus' story begins during a moment of great peril. Cronus learned of a foretelling that
prophesied his demise at the hands of his sons, much as his own father’s demise was
brought about by Cronus himself. To forestall the cycle of son supplanting father, Cronus
decided to devour his children to imprison them inside himself. As each child was consumed,
the situation became more and more unbearable for Rhea, who, eventually, beseeched Gaia
for Aid. Gaia was sympathetic to Rhea’s plight and agreed to offer her support. Rhea
bore Zeus in Crete without Cronus’ knowledge. With Zeus hidden, Rhea swaddled a stone in
an infant's cloth wrappings, offering the stone to Cronus, who was hasty in ingesting
his sixth child, failing to perform any sort of inspection. The notion that Rhea might
betray him to save any of her children did not cross his mind.
After Zeus narrowly avoided being eaten by his father, he had to be raised in secret
so that he would reach manhood without being discovered. Now, there are two versions of
events that detail Zeus’ journey to manhood. One says he was raised by a nymph named Amalthea.
In this version, Zeus is able to avoid being found by his father by being tied to a rope
and hung from a tree. The idea behind this is that Cronus, as king of the titans and
ruler of the cosmos, was the ruler of earth, sea, and sky; by dangling Zeus in such a way,
he was suspended at the intersection of Cronus’ three domains and, thus, invisible to his
father. The other version says that Zeus was raised by a goat - also named Amalthea - inside
of a cave called Dictaeon Antron. Nearby, a cohort of boisterous soldiers capered around
and banged their spears on their shields so that baby Zeus’ cries could not be heard,
keeping him secret and safe.
Once Zeus reached manhood, he confronted his father and forced him to regurgitate his siblings.
There are varying accounts of how this was achieved, ranging from Zeus slicing open Cronus’
stomach, to Zeus giving Cronus an emetic that caused him to purge. The brothers and sisters
of Zeus then emerged from Cronus in the reverse order from which they were ingested. With
his siblings freed, Zeus journeyed to Tartarus and slew the monster Campe, whom Cronus had
set as a guard to ensure no one ever escaped, and set free Cronus’ siblings, the cyclopes
and the hecatonchires. As a token of thanks for liberating them, the cyclopes gifted the
thunderbolts that Zeus would use to devastate his enemies. Together, the gods, the cyclopes,
and the Hecatonchires battered the Titans with an onslaught that eventually overcame
them.
Many of the bested titans were cast down into the depths of tartarus, but not all of them.
Atlas, for example, was punished by having to hold the sky up for all of eternity. Zeus,
in a magnanimous move, elected to share the world with his brothers by drawing lots to
see which domain would be ruled by which brother. The earth was left to Gaia and so was claimed
by none; however, the skies became Zeus’ province, the sea, poseidon’s, and the underworld,
Hades.
Gaia, understandably, didn’t love having her children trapped inside her of again.
In fact, it was a source of ire for her. After all, this was the third time that one of her
male descendants had done this: first Uranus, then Cronus, now Zeus. In an act of retribution,
Gaia, with tartarus, begot the monster Typhon. The ensuing battle was probably the most dire
challenge Zeus ever faced. Typhon was colossal in size, and the mass of his bulk was such
that his heads brushed the stars. Here is a description of his appearance given by Hesiod:
“Strength was with his hands in all that he did and the feet of the strong god were
untiring. From his shoulders grew a hundred heads of a snake, a fearful dragon, with dark,
flickering tongues, and from under the brows of his eyes in his marvellous heads flashed
fire, and fire burned from his heads as he glared.”
Typhon is known as the father of monsters, and many of the best known monsters in Greek
Mythology are his offspring. He and Zeus fought a cataclysmic battle to see who would reign
supreme. The battle was tireless, but Zeus was able to overcome his opponent with the
use of his lightning bolts. The defeat of Typhon is the punctuating event in the Greek
creation Myth, and This final victory crystallized Zeus’ position as the supreme ruler of the
universe, a position that more or less went unchallenged from this point on, except for
the war that was to come between the gods and the giants; but we’ll get to that in
another video.
That’s it for todays video
Until next time
Remember
“Often a whole community together suffers in consequence of a bad man who does wrong
and contrives evil”