Zeus
Prehistory
Zeus is the continuation of *Dyeus, the supreme god in Indo-European religion, also continued as Vedic Dyaus Pitar (cf. Jupiter), and as Tyr (Ziu, Tiw, *Tiwaz) in Germanic and Norse mythology. Tyr was however supplanted by Odin as the supreme god among the Germanic tribes and they did not identify Zeus/Jupiter with either Tyr or Odin, but with Thor. Zeus is the only deity in the Olympic pantheon whose names has such a transparent Indo-European etymology, the "Sky Father" (Burkert 1985, p 321).
In addition to his Indo-European inheritance, the classical Zeus also derives certain iconographic traits from the cultures of the ancient Near East, such as the scepter. Zeus is envisaged by Greek artists especially in two poses: standing, striding forward a thunderbolt levelled in his raised right hand and seated in majesty.
Role and epithets
Zeus played a dominant role, presiding over the Greek Olympic pantheon . He fathered many of the heroes and heroines (see list at bottom of article) and was featured in many of their stories. Though the Homeric "cloud gatherer" was the god of the sky and thunder like his Near Eastern cognates, he was also the most supreme cultural artifact; in some senses, he was the embodiment of Greek religious beliefs and the archetypal Greek deity.
The epithets or titles applied to Zeus emphasized different aspects of his wide-ranging authority:
Olympios emphasized Zeus's kingship over both the gods and the Panhellenic festival at Olympia.
A related title was Panhellenios, ('Zeus of all the Hellenes') to whom Aeacus' famous temple on Aegina was dedicated.
As Xenios, Zeus was the patron of hospitality and guests, ready to avenge any wrong done to a stranger.
As Horkios, he was the keeper of oaths. Liars who were exposed were made to dedicate a statue to Zeus, often at the sanctuary of Olympia.
As Agoraios, Zeus watched over business at the agora, and punished dishonest traders. 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 archaic 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.
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 Mount 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 a local Zeus, 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 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 (Odyssey 14.326-7). By the time Herodotus wrote about Dodona, female priestesses called peleiades ("doves") had replaced the male priests.
Zeus' consort 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 the Western Desert of 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 (see interpretatio graeca) 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.
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