The Olympic Pantheon

[Ellinas]

Zeus - continue

Panhellenic cults of Zeus

The major center at which all Greeks converged to pay honor to their chief god was Olympia. The quadrennial festival there featured the famous Games. There was also an altar to Zeus made not of stone, but of ash - from the accumulated remains of many centuries' worth of animal victims immolated there.

Outside of the major inter-polis sanctuaries, there were certain modes of worshipping Zeus that were shared across the Greek world. Most of the above titles, for instance, could be found at any number of Greek temples from Asia Minor to Sicily. Certain modes of ritual were held in common as well: sacrificing a white animal over a raised altar, for instance.

On the other hand, certain cities had Zeus-cults that operated in markedly different ways.

Cretan Zeus

On Crete, Zeus was worshipped at a number of caves at Knossos, Ida and Palaikastro. The stories of Minos and Epimenides suggest that these caves were once used for incubatory divination by kings and priests. The dramatic setting of Plato's Laws is along the pilgrimage-route to one such site, emphasizing Cretan knowledge. On Crete, Zeus was represented in art as a long-haired youth rather than a mature adult, and hymned as ho megas kouros "the great youth". With the Kouretes, a band of ecstatic armed dancers, he presided over the rigorous military-athletic training and secret rites of the Cretan paideia.

The Hellenistic writer Euhemerus apparently proposed a theory that Zeus had actually been a great king of Crete and that posthumously his glory had slowly turned him into a deity. The works of Euhemerism have not survived, but Christian patristic writers took up the suggestion with enthusiasm.



Laconian kylix of the 6th century BC, showing Zeus Lykaios with an eagle.
Zeus Lykaios in Arcadia

The title Lykaios is morphologically connected to lyke "brightness", and yet it looks a lot like lykos "wolf". This semantic ambiguity is reflected in the strange cult of Zeus Lykaios in the backwoods of Arcadia, where the god takes on both lucent and lupine features. On the one hand, he presides over Mt Lykaion ("the bright mountain") the tallest peak in Arcadia, and home to a precinct in which, allegedly, no shadows were ever cast (Pausanias 8.38).

On the other hand, he is connected with Lycaon ("the wolf-man") whose ancient cannibalism was commemorated with bizarre, recurring rites. According to Plato (Republic 565d-e), a particular clan would gather on the mountain to make a sacrifice every eight years to Zeus Lykaios, and a single morsel of human entrails would be intermingled with the animal's. Whoever ate the human flesh was said to turn into a wolf, and could only regain human form if he did not eat again of human flesh until the next eight-year cycle had ended.

Subterranean Zeus

Although etymology indicates that Zeus was originally a sky god, many Greek cities honored Zeuses who lived underground. Athenians and Sicilians honored Zeus Meilichios ("kindly" or "honeyed") while other cities had Zeus Chthonios ("earthy"), Katachthonios ("under-the-earth) and Plousios ("wealth-bringing"). These deities might be represented indifferently as snakes or men in visual art. They also received offerings of black animal victims sacrificed into sunken pits, as did chthonic deities like Persephone and Demeter, and also the heroes at their tombs. Olympian gods, by contrast, usually received white victims sacrificed upon raised altars.

In some cases, cities were not entirely sure whether the daimon to whom they sacrificed was a hero or an underground Zeus. Thus the shrine at Lebadaea in Boeotia might belong to the hero Trophonius or to Zeus Trephonius ("the nurturing"), depending on whether you believe Pausanias or Strabo. The hero Amphiaraus was honored as Zeus Amphiaraus at Oropus outside of Thebes, and the Spartans even had a shrine to Zeus Agamemnon.

Oracles of Zeus

Although most oracle sites were usually dedicated to Apollo, the heroes, or various or goddesses like Themis, a few oracular sites were dedicated to Zeus.

The Oracle at Dodona

The cult of Zeus at Dodona in Epirus, where there is evidence of religious activity from the 2nd millennium BC onward, centered around a sacred oak. When the Odyssey was composed (circa 750 BC), divination was done there by barefoot priests called Selloi, who lay on the ground and observed the rustling of the leaves and branches (Od. 14.326-7). By the time Herodotus wrote about Dodona, female priestesses called peleiades ("doves") had replaced the male priests.

Zeus' wife at Dodona was not Hera, but the goddess Dione - whose name is a feminine form of "Zeus". Her status as a titaness suggests to some that she may have been a more powerful pre-Hellenic deity, and perhaps the original occupant of the oracle.

The Oracle at Siwa

The oracle of Ammon at the oasis of Siwa in Egypt did not lie within the bounds of the Greek world before Alexander's day, but it already loomed large in the Greek mind during the archaic era: Herodotus mentions consultations with Zeus Ammon in his account of the Persian War. Zeus Ammon was especially favored at Sparta, where a temple to him existed by the time of the Peloponnesian War (Pausanias 3.18).

Other oracles of Zeus - The chthonic Zeuses (or heroes) Trophonius and Amphiaraus were both said to give oracles at the cult-sites.

Zeus and foreign gods

Zeus was equivalent to the Roman god Jupiter (from Jovis Pater or "Father Jove") and associated in the syncretic classical imagination with various other deities, such as the Egyptian Ammon and the Etruscan Tinia. He (along with Dionysus) absorbed the role of the chief Phrygian god Sabazios in the syncretic deity known in Rome as Sabazius.

Zeus in Neopaganism

Far from the role Zeus held in Ancient Mythology, modern Neopagans typically view Zeus as a governing figurehead and little more. Most neopagans reject ancient myths about Zeus. Zeus has relatively few worshippers in modern neopaganism, and (unlike his roles in Mythology) is seen as a god of governance and authority.

Though many see Zeus as the King or Figurehead as ruler over the Olympians, they often consider him of lesser importance than the Gaia and other popular Titan gods who are not believed to be bound to Tartarus.

The power and influence of Zeus is thought to pale in importance to Hades and other gods more directly related to the afterlife. It is thought by many Neopagans, for example, that Hades holds far greater power than Zeus, and that his decisions and authority, particularly over the fate of mortals, often overshadows Zeus. Those sects that do include worship of Zeus often do so in passing, including him with other gods simply because of his relation in mythology.

There is little relevance between actual mythology and modern perceptions of Zeus by most Neopagans. It could be argued that, by and large, modern Neopagan perceptions of Zeus are New Age and not founded in any actual history or mythology. Worship of Zeus sometimes includes the burning of oils, or more often a passing utterance of him as an authority of Olympus or husband of Hera (a more popular deity in modern neopaganism).

Zeus was known as Jupiter in ancient Rome.

[Ellinas]

Minor gods and godesses of Greek mythology

[pankration]

What a fantastic resource you have put together! If any of our members are teachers of history or literature you HAVE to direct your students here. These postings summarize the pantheon beautifully. I commend you Ellinas for the time and work you put into this.

[Psaltis]

You are right. Ellinas put much too much time on this. I like it very much. Ellinas put more.