Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Zeus (/ zj uː s /, Ancient Greek: Ζεύς) [a] is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion and mythology, who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus.. 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.
19th century engraving of the Colossus of Rhodes. Ancient Greek literary sources claim that among the many deities worshipped by a typical Greek city-state (sing. polis, pl. poleis), one consistently held unique status as founding patron and protector of the polis, its citizens, governance and territories, as evidenced by the city's founding myth, and by high levels of investment in the deity ...
Chief among these were the gods and humans, though the Titans (who predated the Olympian gods) also frequently appeared in Greek myths. Lesser species included the half-man-half-horse centaurs , the nature-based nymphs (tree nymphs were dryads , sea nymphs were Nereids ) and the half-man, half-goat satyrs .
These epithets or titles applied to Zeus emphasized different aspects of his wide-ranging authority: . Zeus Aegiduchos or Aegiochos: Usually taken as Zeus as the bearer of the Aegis, the divine shield with the head of Medusa across it, [3] although others derive it from "goat" (αἴξ) and okhē (οχή) in reference to Zeus's nurse, the divine goat Amalthea.
This development had a direct effect on the sculptural decoration of temples, as many of the greatest extant works of ancient Greek sculpture once adorned temples, [14] and many of the largest recorded statues of the age, such as the lost chryselephantine statues of Zeus at the Temple of Zeus at Olympia and Athena at the Parthenon, Athens, both ...
Detail of a metope from the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, featuring Heracles and the Cretan bull (Archaeological Museum of Olympia, Greece). The sculptural decoration in imported Parian marble [9] featured carved metopes and triglyph friezes, topped by pediments filled with sculptures in the Severe style, now attributed to the "Olympia Master" and his studio.
Hesiod's Theogony, (c. 700 BC) which could be considered the "standard" creation myth of Greek mythology, [1] tells the story of the genesis of the gods. After invoking the Muses (II.1–116), Hesiod says the world began with the spontaneous generation of four beings: first arose Chaos (Chasm); then came Gaia (the Earth), "the ever-sure foundation of all"; "dim" Tartarus (the Underworld), in ...
Dodonian Zeus or Zeus of Dodonia may refer to either of two figures who were worshipped at Dodona, the oldest oracle of the ancient Greeks: Zeus Naos ("Zeus of the Naiads") Zeus Bouleus ("Zeus the Counselor") Dodona was an ancient oracle located in the region of Epirus in northwestern Greece (“Dodona”, Encyclopædia Britannica). The word ...