Zeus
- Name : Zeus (Zeus)
- Role : god of the sky; ruler of Olympus
- Symbols : thunderbolt, eagle, oak.
As the ruler of the Olympian gods, Zeus wielded enormous power and almost absolute authority. He appears in Homer's Iliad in the role of imperious leader, a grandose father figure to a pantheon of bickering deities. And although he is often portrayed as an omniscient, omnipotent being, even the mighty Zeus could be tricked (or, to put it more gently, distracted). This is indeed the case in the Iliad, in that wonderful scene where he is seduced by his wife Hera and consequently led to ignore the events taking place on the battlefield of Troy.
There are certainly other instances where Zeus is deceived (the incident with Prometheus being but one more good example). These examples only demonstrate that although he was the god who ruled Olympus and its divine denizens, he was subject to the laws of Fate and was not in fact all-powerful. And just as the other deities had their own personal fobles, Zeus too had a weakness - he was passionately fond of female charms. Many stories about Zeus recount his insatiable lust and notorious wandering eye, an eye that fell upon goddess and mortal woman alike.
Some of the paramours of Zeus are:
- Alcmene | mother of Hercules
- Danae | mother of Perseus
- Europa | mother of Minos, Rhadamanthys, & Sarpedon
- Io | mother of Epaphus
- Leda | mother of Helen
- Leto | mother of Apollo and Artemis
- Maia | mother of Hermes
- Metis | mother of Athena
- Mnemosyne | mother of the Muses
- Semele | mother of Dionysos
In Roman mythology, Zeus was identified with the god Jupiter.