The Rise of Zeus
Order and Dominance of the Cosmos
Zeus
Zeus is
masculine,
paternal
authority,
overwhelming
power, and
the morallycentered
ruling voice of
the universe.
Zeus, greatest and
best of the gods, I will
sing, Far-seeing ruler
who brings all things
to fulfillment And
holds wise discourse
with Themis, who sits
nearby leaning
toward him. Be
gracious, Far-seeing
one, son of Cronus,
noblest and greatest!
Homeric Hymn to Zeus
The central story of Hesiod’s Theogony is how Zeus came to
be the master of the Universe.
The Cosmos arose through the intermingling of three
powerful generative principles:
•Chaos
•Earth (Gaia)
•Eros (Attraction, Sex, Desire, Love)
Gaia gave birth to the Titans, may of whom are cosmic
principles:
•Helius (sun)
•Eos (dawn)
•Selene (moon)
•Oceanus (Ocean)
The sacred Marriage of Gaia
(Earth) and Uranus (Sky) is the
primary generative element of
the cosmos. Earth gives birth to
all things; Uranus is the father of
most of them.
As each of his children
was born, Uranus hid
them all in the depths of
Gaia and did not allow
them to emerge into the
light. And he delighted
in his wickedness.
But huge Earth in her
distress groaned within
and devised a crafty and
evil scheme . . .
Hesiod, Theogony
Cronus (Latin name: Saturn) takes the
sickle his mother gives him and castrates
his father Uranus.
From the blood that falls from the
severed genitals into the ocean,
Aphrodite is born.
So are the Furies.
Cronus: Forum Romanum
Aphrodite: VRoma
Cronus and his sister/wife, Rhea, become king
and queen of the Universe.
Some notes: Chronus means time in Greek
(similar but not the same word).
For the Romans, Saturn was the king of an
earlier blessed golden age.
“The Greeks did not suppress the
horrible and horrifying; they
selected from it and used it boldly
with profound insight and
sensitivity.” (M&L 46).
Cronus made the same mistake his
father did. He refused to let the
world go forward. As each of his
children was born, he swallowed it,
until finally Rhea hid the
youngest one, Zeus, and gave him
a rock instead.
What are the parallels between the
first and second generations?
Zeus was hidden away on Crete,
raised by nymphs, fed with honey
from bees and the milk of the
goat Amalthea.
Curetes (kouroi, young men)
clashed their shields to keep his
cries from being heard by Cronus.
Clear-voiced muse, sing a
hymn to the mother of all
gods and all mortals too.
The din of castanets and
drums, along with the
shrillness of flutes, are your
delight, and also the cry of
wolves, the roar of glaring
lions, and the resounding
forests.
Homeric Hymn to the Mother of Gods
This dancing and clashing
may be related to the
worship of Cybele, an
eastern mother-goddess
similar to Rhea.
Interesting that the patriarchal
father and king of the gods
should be allied with and helped
by these feminine, natural
powers early on in his life . . .
Zeus returned and forced his
father to cough up his siblings:
•Sisters Hestia, Demeter, and
Hera
•Brothers Hades and Poseidon
There followed a huge battle for
dominance between the gods
and Titans . . . the Titanomachy.
Titanomachy
The battle raged for 10 years, Titans vs. Zeus. With Zeus were
the gods, the Cyclopes and Hecatoncheires, and a few Titans:
among them Themis and Prometheus.
After the battle, Zeus cast lots with his
brothers to divide up the known universe.
Hades won the realm
of death.
Poseidon won the
oceans.
Zeus won kingship
of land and sky.
Zeus and his brothers cast
lots to determine who would
rule what – but fate clearly
makes sense, when Zeus,
who freed his brothers, wins
kingship over the world.
The Titans were bound and
imprisoned in Tartarus.
The idea of binding is important
for Zeus – the powers are still
there, but they are controlled and
subordinated.
The natural powers cannot and
should not be destroyed, but
Zeus can control or at least
manage them, in his ordered
universe.
The Titanic powers of Helius,
Selene, Eos, and Oceanus are
obviously still working today . . .
in service of order.
Zeus defeated (then apparently reintegrated) the Titans,
establishing order. But he then had to defeat the giants.
Gigantomachy
Gaia, for reasons unknown, gave birth to a race of
giants who attacked the gods.
Why did the helpful, supportive mother of all
suddenly produce a race of giants to attack Zeus?
Gaia
emerges
from the
earth as her
sons, the
giants, are
defeated by
the gods.
Even the Titans and
other primal concepts
(like Night, shown
here) fight on the side
of order against the
giants. She is slinging a
serpent-wound jar at a
Giant who is partserpent himself.
Night vs. a giant
Giants represent
ancient, primal chaos –
the old times, before
order and law.
Boo, Giants!
Gigantomachy is an important theme in Greek sacred art,
often appearing on temple sculptures. Here is a version c.
525 BCE from a small building in Apollo’s sanctuary of
Delphi.
The figure in the chariot is probably Cybele
(parallel to Rhea), and Herakles is with her.
In this later version, from an altar in Asia Minor c. 180 BCE,
Zeus is defeating three giants single-handed.
Why do the giants have serpent legs? Why do
they sometimes not?
But are Zeus’s struggles
over? Noooooo . . .
Typhoeus (a.k.a. Typhon), another
chaos monster, rises to attack him.
From the shoulders
of this frightening
dragon a hundred
snake-heads grew;
fire blazed from all
their eyes. In all the
terrible heads voices
emitted all kinds of
amazing sounds; for
at one time he spoke
so that the gods
understood, at
another his cries
were those of a
proud bull bellowing
in his invincible
might.
Zeus defeated Typhoeus
with his thunderbolt.
The thunderbolt, made by the
Cyclopes, was also the decisive
weapon in the battle with the
Titans.
It shows Zeus as a sky god, and
emphasizes his uncontestable
power.
The natural world is firmly
integrated into these spiritually
meaningful stories about the
establishment of cosmic order.
Another multi-level story:
Level one: Zeus and the gods kick butt!
Level two: we know the material history of the world – where we
came from, what the elemental powers are like in the historical
sense we can understand.
Level three: we have a social model for how we are supposed to
work: a family and our allies, led by a strong paternal authority
whose power and decisions cannot be contested.
Level four: perhaps this reflects a de-ized view of real historical
events, explaining the influx of Indo-European peoples c. 2000
BCE
Level five: aren’t we anxious about chaos? Isn’t it nice to know
that those chaotic monsters were defeated?
What other levels might there be in this
story?
Mesopotamian Influences?
Mesopotamia was
the first area in the
world to develop
agriculture,
metalworking, and
“complex culture”
(i.e. urban and
hierarchical). The
Greeks clearly
learned from their
technology; did
they adapt their
myths and other
beliefs as well?
The Babylonian creation myth, the Enuma Elish, features a
battle between the new generation of gods, led by the warrior
god Marduk, against the old generation, led by the earthdragon mother of gods, Tiamat. There are elements in
common with the Titanomachy and with the battles against
the giants and Typhoeus.
“Dragon of
Marduk”,
Detroit
The Hittite poem
“Kingship in Heaven”
describes a multigenerational battle for
command much like
the Uranus/ Cronus/
Zeus battle, but even
(to us) stranger . . .
The storm god,
eventually the ruler in
heaven, finally emerged
through Kumarbi’s penis
to rule the universe.
Anush the eagle [the old god] flew
into the sky, but Kumarbi [the
young one] grabbed his feet and
pulled him down from the sky.
Kumarbi bit off his genitals. His
sperm went into Kumarbi’s
stomach. He swallowed Anush’s
sperm and he was happy and he
laughted. [But] Anush said:
You should not rejoice! I have
placed a burden in your middle.
First, I have made you pregnant
with the storm god . . . You will
perish, hitting your head on the
mountain Tashshu!
Hittite “Kingship in Heaven”
The Rise(?) of Humans
The Place of Mortals in the New Cosmos
Prometheus
In the Biblical Creation story,
God created humans as his
crowning achievement.
In Greek myth, Zeus may
not have created humans at
all.
In many versions, that task
was left to Prometheus, a
figure who was often in
conflict with Zeus, but
favored humans for reasons
unknown.
Ovid gives two possibilities
Then man was born; either the
creator of the universe,
originator of a better world,
fashioned him from divine seed,
or earth retained seeds from its
kindred sky and was mixed with
rain water by Prometheus and
fashioned by him into the
likeness of the gods who
control all. Thus earth that was
crude and without shape was
transformed . . .
How important are humans in the grand scheme
of things?
How much do the gods care about humans?
Hesiod describes human life as sordid and depressing, getting
worse and worse through five ages:
•Gold: everything was carefree and easy . . .
•Silver: childish, without mature happiness, slighting the gods.
•Bronze: warlike, cruel, self-destructive.
•Heroic age: Like our world, but superior, filled with courageous
heroes descended from the gods.
•Iron: the grim, wearying age we live in now.
Sacrifice at Mekone
He defied the gods to help
humans, tricking Zeus to establish
a sacred ritual of sacrifice which
favored humans and made them
forever separate from gods.
Atlas and
Prometheus,
c. 550 BCE
Hesiod tells this story, set
in times when gods and
humans still met face to
face.
He opens it with a scene of
torture: The Titan Iapetus
had four sons. Zeus flung
one into Tartarus.
Another, Atlas, has to
hold up the world. A
third, Prometheus, lies
chained to a rock, with an
eagle eating his liver out.
What did he do to deserve
this terrible punishment?
Blood
sacrifice
was one
of the
most
powerful
rituals of
the
ancient
Greeks.
Meat was a luxury, so large animals, like sheep, cows, pigs and
goats, were usually slaughtered in honor of the gods.
In family or state festivals, chosen animals would be prepared, led
to an altar in procession, then ceremonially killed in front of
festival participants. A small portion of meat was burned on the
altar, for the gods. Humans shared the rest.
If the animals were slaughtered in honor of
the gods, why did humans get the bulk of
the meat?
The Mekone story explains
this practice.
Prometheus deceived Zeus . . .
Or was he deceived?
Either way, conflicts escalated.
Zeus hid fire. Prometheus
stole it back.
So Zeus planned the ultimate
revenge . . .
Pandora
Hesiod, a real misogynist,
points to this as the beginning
of human troubles.
What is the “moral” of the
Pandora story? What is its
etiological function?
Previously the human
race used to live
completely free from
evils and hard work and
painful diseases. But the
woman removed the
great cover of the jar
with her hands and
scattered the evils within
and for mortals devised
sorrowful troubles.
Hope alone remained
within there under the
edge of the jar . . .
Hesiod, Works and Days
Pandora may be a
more profound
figure though.
Her name means
“All gifts” –
because all the
gods gave her
gifts? or because
she brings all
things, good and
evil, to humans?
As in the Adam and Eve story, a woman brings evil to
humans. But perhaps, as Joseph Campbell suggests,
women, representing life processes, real birth, & real
death, represent the real world, not “paradise.”
Sources: Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound
Aeschylus was the first great Athenian playwright, writing
about 450 BCE.
Prometheus Bound was part of a trilogy of plays,
produced for the festival of Dionysus in Athens.
Athenian drama
explored issues
significant to the
polis – it made
you feel “pity
and terror,” but
it also made you
think.
Theater at Delphi, ANU
Prometheus Bound emphasizes Zeus’s arbitrary, dictatorial
cruelty. But only this one play of the trilogy survives.
Would the rest have changed the picture?
While Prometheus lies bound to the rock, surrounded by his
nieces the Oceanids, he encounters various characters and
converses with them.
Among them is Io, a young girl turned into a cow because of
Zeus, whose descendant Herakles will free Prometheus.
Prometheus reveals how much he gave to humans: fire, yes,
but many other technologies – carpentry, farming, metal
working, ship building – he is a culture hero.
Prometheus is a culture hero, and a trickster – a
figure known for his helpful but disruptive and
deceitful actions. These two roles are often
combined in world mythologies.
Mesopotamian Influences?
The Flood: In many mythologies of the Mediterranean, a
huge flood destroys most of humankind. In the Near East,
this is a major theme: Noah in the Bible, Utnapishtim in the
Gilgamesh epic, and Athrahasis in other Mesopotamian myth,
are all survivors of floods the gods sent to punish human
beings. There is also an Egyptian flood story.
In the Bible, God punished humans for impiety. In other
Mesopotamian stories, the gods punish humans for either
impiety, or making too much noise!
Scholars argue over whether the flood was a real event, or a
mythologization of the smaller but still devastating floods
that affected the area.
•The flood was not a major myth
for the Greeks. Ovid (later,
influenced by many sources) tells
it at most length.
•Impiety is an issue, as seen in the
story of Zeus and Lycaon. This is
a very old motif: the seemingly
powerless stranger who turns out
to be a god (or witch or fairy or
king)
•Deucalion (son of Prometheus)
and Pyrrha (daughter of
Epimetheus) repopulate the world.
Local legends: In Arcadia,
there was a ritual held to
Lycaon every nine years,
in which the young man
chosen to play the leading
role was transformed into
a wolf. If he went for nine
years without killing a
human, he would regain
his human form. If not,
he was a wolf forever.
finis
Group discussion
There are a lot of hostile encounters between Zeus and
human beings – go over the main ones discussed in
chapter 4, and if you know of others, bring them in.
What does it mean that there are so many points of
conflict? What are relationships like in general
between humans and gods in Greek culture, from what
you have seen? If you are aware of other traditions,
compare human/divine relationships there as well.