Changes

Jump to: navigation, search

How did Zeus become king of the gods in Greek mythology

9 bytes removed, 02:35, 21 September 2021
m
There are many myths regarding how Zeus became the ruler of the world, and they are known as 'Succession Myths.' This article relates how he became ruler of Olympus and King of the gods and goddesses. There is no one version of how the ruler of Olympus became King of the Gods.
====Background to Who were the rise of Zeus==Titans?==The first ruler of the gods was Uranus, the personification of the sky. He was married to Gaia, the goddess of the earth. Uranus had twelve children with Gaia. The After a prophecy that his children would overthrow him, the original ruler of the world hid his children inside their mother (earth), after a prophecy that his children would overthrow him. Gaia hated him for this. The children of the sky and the earth were known in the ancient sources as the Titans. The youngest of these Titans was Cronus. He conspired with his mother to depose his father. Only he, among all the Titans, was brave enough to move against his father.<ref>Hesiod, Theogony, 113.</ref>
Gaia crafted a sickle for Cronus, and he sneaked upon his father and castrated him. Uranus was weakened, and Cronus was able to imprison his father in Tartarus, which is often mistakenly referred to as hell. Cronus imprisoned several monsters, the Hecatonchires , and the Cyclopes , with his father under the earth. He was regarded as the personification of time in the Classical sources. He, along with his sister Rhea, became the monarchs of the gods. His reign was considered to be a Golden Age when men did not require laws and where everything was shared equally.
[[File: Titan two.jpg|200px|thumb|left|A seventeenth-century painting of the Titans and the Olympians in battle]]
However, Cronus heard a prophecy that was made by his father Uranus and his mother Gaia He was told that he too would be deposed by his son. This prophecy naturally threatened Cronus, and he decided to remove all his children so that they could not threaten him. Now the King of the gods had six children with his queen, who was also his half-sister. Rhea bore him three daughters Demeter, Hestia and , Hera, and three sons Hades, Zeus, and Poseidon. Zeus, the future King of Olympus, was the youngest of the children.
Mindful of the prophecy Cronus came up with a strategy to make sure ensure that his children could never threaten or depose him. When they were born, he swallowed them all whole. When Rhea was pregnant with Zeus, he also intended to swallow him, so he would not be a threat.<ref>Hesiod, Theogony, 480</ref>
====The birth How did Zeus avoid the Fate of Zeus==his Siblings? ==
[[File: Titan three.jpg|200px|thumb|left|Mount Olympus]]
Naturally, Rhea was enraged by Cronus' plan to murder her child, so she came up with a plan. She sought the help of Gaia, who told her what to do. When she was about to give birth to Zeus, she secretly went to the island of Crete. Here she delivered the future King of the Olympians in a cave in Mount Ida. This was a well-known pilgrimage site in Ancient Greece and can still be visited to this day.
Now Cronus was aware that Zeus was born, and he demanded that the infant be handed over to him. Rhea and Gaia had devised a clever strategy. She found a huge stone and wrapped it in swaddling clothes and they present this to the Cronus and told him that this was the infant. Cronus swallowed the stone and was satisfied that Zeus was no longer a threat.
In reality, he grew up in Crete, according to a popular version of the myth by the 7th century BC poet Hesiod.<ref>Hesiod, Theogony, 480</ref> There is no agreement in the sources as to who raised the young God. In some sources, it was a nymph, and in others, it was his grandmother Gaia. Zeus grew up to be a mighty god in Crete.
====Who helped Zeus overthrow Cronus and the Olympians==? ==Zeus was desperate to overthrow his father, and he was guided by his grandmother Gaia. Cronus did not know that his youngest sone son with Rhea was still alive. In some myths, Zeus became the cupbearer of his father. His mother gave him a powerful potion, and Zeus was able to give it to his father, secretly. Well, the potion acted as an enema, and Cronus threw up his five children whom he had swallowed. Immediately they rallied to the cause of their younger brother.
From this time on, there was a war for control of the world.<ref>Hesiod, Theogony, 480-494</ref> On one side was Cronus and his brother and sisters, and they were known as the Titans. Zeus and his brothers and sister were known as the Olympians and opposed the Titans. The Olympians were at a disadvantage because the Titans outnumbered them.
However, Zeus was ever-resourceful and had the secret support of his mother and grandmother. Then he freed some of the monsters and the Cyclopes that had been imprisoned by Cronus many years before. The Cyclopes were grateful and, in return, forge forged thunderbolts for Zeus. They also made a trident for Poseidon and a helmet for Hades. The future King of Olympus also released the Hecatonchires.<ref>Graves, Robert, The Greek Myths (Hamondsworth, Penguin Books, 1960), p 136</ref> Soon, the Olympians were ready to take on the Titans, and this resulted in a war between the gods known as the Titanomachy. The best sources that we have for this myth are Hesiod, sadly several epics that were composed of the events were lost.
====Battle of the Gods==How did Zeus defeat Cronos? ==
Zeus began the war with his father, who was portrayed as increasingly old and feeble. The future ruler of Olympus was able to persuade two of the Titans, Prometheus, and his mother to join him and his sisters and brothers. Zeus had a definite battle plan.<ref> Homer, Odyssey. 3.374</ref>
However, he was far from secure, and he still struggled for control. These struggles took before humans lived on earth, according to poets such as Homer and Hesiod. It should be noted that the Titan Prometheus made humans and not Zeus, who was not a creator god.<ref>Burkert, Walter Greek Religion, (Harvard, Harvard University Press, 2000, section III)</ref>
====The Titans revenge==team up with Hera to Depose Zeus==However, Zeus, like many other rulers, had made many enemies. In particular, he offended his wife, the fiery, and unforgiven unforgiving Hera. The King of Olympus was a philanderer, and he had many affairs and children with his mistresses. Naturally, this enraged Hera, who was not a pleasant character in Greek mythology.<ref>Hansen, Randall, and William F. Hansen. Handbook of classical mythology (London, Abc-clio, 2004), p. 167</ref> She was greatly angered when Zeus made one of his illegitimate children, the ruler of Egypt. Hera was enraged, and, in her fury, she made a pact with the defeated Titans. She plotted with them to drive Zeus out of Olympus and to restore Cronus as ruler of the divine. The Titans, once again under the leadership of Atlas, decided to assassinate the rule of Olympus as he was out hunting.
However, Zeus, who was known for his prophetic capabilities, saw that he was the danger and retreated to Olympus. The Titans were emboldened by the support of Hera and they decided to attack Zeus and his family on Olympus. The Olympians were once again badly outnumbered and rallied to their fortress, Olympus.
This was, at least in some of the myths as the final victory of Zeus. He and his two brothers divided the world between them. Zeus was made the Lord of the earth and the sky. Poseidon was bestowed with control of the seas and all the waters. Hades was given the underworld and the realm of the dead. All the other gods were given particular powers following their nature. The earth was not the preserve of any one god and it was a common or neutral ground. However, Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades reserved the right to intervene on earth if they were summoned. It was also at this time that Zeus made Olympus the home of the gods.<ref>Hesiod, Theogony, 480</ref>
====Why Zeus and fight Typhoon==? ==
In some myths, the final defeat of the Titans was the end of Zeus ascent to the position of absolute ruler of the world. However, he was to face one more challenge in the form of a huge monster. Typhoon was the son of Hades and Gaia, the goddess of the earth. She was deeply angered by Zeus and his treatment of the Titans, who were her children, after all. She decided to turn her monstrous son Typhoon against him, according to the didactic poet Hesiod in his Theogony.<ref>Hesiod, Theogony, 490</ref>
He is often seen as the personification of the volcanic forces in Greek mythology. Typhoon who was a serpent-like monster, who had countless heads which that could spit poison challenged Zeus for the rule of the world. Hesiod describes the world and the heavens being shaken by the battle between the two. Zeus is portrayed as throwing his thunder and lightning bolts at the huge serpent and Typhoon spat poison and shot flames at the ruler of Olympus.
In one account the other gods were so afraid of Typhoon that they transformed themselves into animals to hide from his wrath. However, all the myths agree that Zeus overcame the creature known as the enemy of the gods. In most of the sources, the King of the Gods cast the huge serpentine monster into Tartarus with his other enemies. However, other stories state that Zeus entombed him under Mount Vesuvius and that the flames that occasionally shot from the volcano are from Typhoon.<ref>Graves, p. 113</ref>
====Conclusion====Zeus became King of the Gods and the absolute ruler of the world by brute force and strategy. He was very cunning and used his ability to see what the future held to become the foremost Olympian. The Succession Myths demonstrate that Zeus was the monarch of the heavens and the earth because he was the most powerful. The Greeks like Like other peoples, such as the Babylonians , the Greeks conceived of their gods as powerful entities and not spiritual beings. They respected them because of their power and goodness. Zeus in  In the series of 'Succession Myths' , Zeus was ruthless when it came to the seize of power. However, he arguably did not have any choice. He rose to power, by waging a war against the older gods, the Titans , and defending it against them and the monster Typhoon. These myths are similar to other myths around the worldworldwide, which focus on the rise to supremacy of a ruler-god.{{Mediawiki:AmNative}}
====Further Reading====

Navigation menu