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ZEUS , the See also:Greek counterpart of the See also:Roman See also:god, See also:Jupiter (q.v.). In the recorded periods of Hellenic See also:history, Zeus was accepted as the See also:chief god of the See also:pantheon of the Greeks; and the religious progress of the See also:people from See also:lower to higher ideas can be well illustrated by the study of his See also:ritual and See also:personality. His name is formed from a See also:root div, meaning " See also:bright," which appears in other See also:Aryan See also:languages as a formative See also:part of divine names, such as the See also:Sanskrit Dydus, " See also:sky "; Latin Diovis, Jovis, Diespiter, divus; Old See also:English Tiw; Norse See also:Tyr. The conclusion that has been frequently See also:drawn from these facts, that all the Indo-Germanic See also:stocks before their dispersal worshipped a See also:personal High God, the Sky-See also:Father, has been now seen to be hazardous.' Nevertheless, it remains probable that Zeus had already been conceived as a personal and pre-eminent god by the ancestors of the leading Hellenic tribes before they entered the See also:peninsula which became their historic See also:home. In the first See also:place, his pre-See also:eminence is obviously pre-Homeric; for See also:Homer was no preacher or innovator in See also:religion, but gives us some at least of the See also:primary facts of the contemporary religious beliefs prevailing about woo inc.: and he attests for us the supremacy of Zeus as a belief which was unquestioned by the See also:average Hellene of the See also:time; and appreciating how slow was the See also:process of religious See also:change in the earlier See also:period, we shall believe that the god had won this position See also:long before the Homeric See also:age. In the next place, we cannot trace the origin of his See also:worship ' See, however, See also:Schrader, Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples (trans. See also:Jevons), 416-419. 976 back to any See also:special stock or particular locality; we cannot find a single community that did not possess his worship or that preserved any See also:legend that suggests a See also:late date for its introduction. Doubtless, it has very See also:ancient and See also:close associations with See also:Thessaly; for most of the leading tribes must have entered Hellas by this route, and remembered the See also:mountain See also:Olympus that dominates this region as the earliest home of his cult, and took with them to their most distant settlements the cult-See also:title 'OX nrws. Also, some of the prehistoric stocks in Thessaly, like the Achaean Aeacidae, may have regarded him as specially their ancestor. But to maintain therefore that he originated in Thessaly as the special deity of a single tribe, who were able to impose him upon the whole of Hellas, is against the analogies offered by the study of the special cults of Greek polytheism. But if we assume that he was the aboriginal Hellenic High God, we must be quite ready to admit that the See also:separate communities were always liable to cherish other divinities with a more ardent and closer devotion, whether divinities that they brought with them or divinities that they found powerfully established in the conquered lands, See also:Athena or See also:Hera, for instance, in See also:Attica or Argolis, or See also:Poseidon in the Minyan settlements. This in fact is a frequent See also:fate of a " High God " in polytheistic systems; he is vaguely praised and reverenced, but lower divine See also:powers are nearer to the people's love or fear.
The Cretan legend of his See also:birth and origin, which gave rise to the Cretan cult of Zeus Kpnraryevhs,r " Zeus See also:born in See also:Crete," may appear See also:evidence against the theory just set forth. But it is not likely that any birth-legend belongs to the earliest stratum of the Zeus-religion. The Aryan Hellenes found in many of the conquered lands the predominant cult of a See also:mother-goddess, to whom they gradually had to affiliate their own High God: and in Crete they found her cult associated with the figure of a male divinity who was believed to be born and to See also:die at certain periods; probably he was an See also:early See also:form of See also:Dionysus, but owing to his prominence in the See also:island the Hellenic settlers may have called him Zeus; and this would explain the markedly Dionysiac See also:character of the later Zeus-religion in Crete.
We can now consider the question how the god was imagined in the popular belief of the earliest and later periods. Homer is our earliest See also:literary See also:witness; and the portrait that he presents of Zeus is too well known to need See also:minute description. To appreciate it, we must distinguish the lower mythologic aspect of him, in which he appears as an amorous and capricious deity lacking often in dignity and real See also:power, and the higher religious aspect, in which he is conceived as the All-Father, the Father of Gods and men in a spiritual or moral sense, as a God omnipotent in See also:heaven and See also:earth, the See also:sea and the realms below, as a God of righteousness and See also:justice and See also:mercy, who regards the sanctity of the See also:oath and hears the See also:voice of the suppliant and sinner, and in whom the pious and the lowly See also:trust. In fact the later Greek religion did not advance much above the high-See also:water See also:mark of the Homeric, although the poets and philosophers deepened certain of its nobler traits. But Homer we now know to be a relatively late witness in this See also:matter. How much of his See also:sketch is really See also:primitive, and what can we learn or guess concerning the See also:millennium that preceded him? His God is pronouncedly individual and personal, and probably Zeus had reached this See also:stage of character at the See also:dawn of Hellenic history. Yet traces of a pre-deistic and animistic period survived here and there; for instance, in See also:Arcadia we find the See also:thunder itself called Zeus ('Zeus Kepavvos) in a Mantinean inscription,' and the See also: Yet the Arcadians, like the other Greeks, had probably long before Homer risen above this stage of thought; for Greek religion was so strongly
1 Corp. Inscr. Graec. 2551..
2 See also:Bull. Corr. See also:Hell., x878, p. 515. Pausan. iii. 22, I.conservative that it preserved See also:side by side the deposits of different ages of thought sundered perhaps by thousands of years. Again the Homeric Zeus is fully anthropomorphic; but in many domains of Greek religion we discover the traces of theriomorphism, when the deity was regarded as often incarnate in the form of an See also:animal or the animal might itself be worshipped in its own right. We seem to find it latent in the Arcadian worship of Zeus Avrcaios and the legend of See also: 1
Le
latter offers a cannibal-See also:meal to the disguised God, who turns him into a See also:wolf for his sins; and the later Arcadian ritual in See also:honour of this God betrays a hint of See also:lycanthropy; some one who partook of the See also:sacrifice or who swam across a certain See also:lake was supposed to be transformed into a wolf for a certain time.' See also:Robertson See also: 82; Pausan. viii. 2, § 3 and § 6. 5 See also:Article on " Sacrifice " in Ency. Brit., 9th ed. 6 Cf. See also:Porphyry, ii. 29, 30 (from See also:Theophrastus) and Pausan. i. 24, 4. ' Myth, Ritual and Religion, ii. 176. 8 See also:Herod. vii. 197. incarnating the God, may be well applied to the Athamantid sacrifice and to that of King Lycaon; for he derives his name from the divinity himself, and according to one version' he offers his own See also:child; and the Lycaonid legend presents one almost unique feature, which is only found elsewhere in legendary Dionysiac sacrifice, the human flesh is eaten, and the sacrifice is a cannibalistic-See also:sacrament, of which the old Mexican religion offers conspicuous example. Yet it is in this religion of Zeus that we see most clearly the achievement of progressive morality; Zeus himself punishes and abolishes the See also:savage practice; the story related by See also:Plutarch,'- how a kid was substituted miraculously for See also:Helen when she was led to the altar to be offered, is a remarkably close parallel to the biblical legend of See also:Abraham's sacrifice of See also:Isaac. We can now consider the special attributes of the anthropomorphic God. His character and power as a deity of the sky, who ruled the phenomena of the See also:air, so clearly expressed in Homer, explains the greater part of his cult and cult-titles. More personal than Ouranos and Helios—with whom he has only slight associations—he was worshipped and invoked as the deity of the bright See also:day ('Agdpros, AeuKaios, AvKaIos), who sends the See also:rain, the See also:wind and See also:dew ("O0pws, Naios, 'Tirws, Ovpwr, Euavep.os, 'IKµaios), and such a primitive adjective as &i7rer>7s, applied to things " that fall from heaven," attests the primeval significance of the name of Zeus. But the thunder was his most striking manifestation, and no doubt he was primevally a thunder-God, Kepanvws, Kepavvq0o11os, :Aorpa7raios. These cult-titles had originally the force of magic invocation, and much of his ritual was See also:weather-magic: the priest of Zeus Almalos, in time of drought, was wont to ascend See also:Mount Lycaeum and See also:dip an See also:oak-bough in a sacred See also:fountain, and by this sympathetic means produce mist .° A god of this character would naturally be worshipped on the mountain-tops, and that these were very frequently consecrated to him is shown by the large number of appellatives derived from the names of mountains.' But probably in his earliest Hellenic period the power of Zeus in the natural world was not limited to the sky. A deity who sent the fertilizing rains would come to be regarded as a god of vegetation, who descended into the earth and whose power worked in the See also:life that See also:wells forth from the earth in plant and See also:tree. Also the close special association of the See also:European Thunder-God and the oak-tree has recently been exposed.' Homer calls the God of the lower world Zebs KarayOovws,° and the title of Zeus XOovros which was known to See also:Hesiod, occurred in the worship of See also:Corinth ;7 and there is See also:reason to believe that Eubouleus of See also:Eleusis and Trophonius of Lebadeia are faded forms of the nether Zeus; in the Phrygian religion of Zeus, which no doubt contains primitive Aryan elements, we find the Thunder-God associated also with the nether powers.' A glimpse into a very old stratum of Hellenic religion is afforded us by the records of See also:Dodona. A Dodonean See also:liturgy has been preserved which, though framed in the form of an invocation and a See also:dogma, has the force of a spell-See also:prayer--" Zeus was and is and will be, oh See also:great Zeus: earth gives forth fruits, therefore See also:call on Mother Earth." e Zeus the Sky-God is seen here allied to the Earth-Goddess, of whom his feminine See also:counter-part, See also:Dione, may have been the personal form. And it is at Dodona that his association with the oak is of the closest. His See also:prophet-priests the Selloi " with unwashed feet, couching on the ground," 10 lived about the sacred oak, which may be regarded11 as the primeval See also:shrine of the Aryan God, and interpreted its oracular voice, which spoke in the rustling of its leaves or the cooing of its doves. See also:Achilles hails the Dodonean God as HeXaoyuci, either in the sense of " Thessalian " or ' Clemens, Protrept. p. 31 P. 2 Parallela, 35. Pausan. viii. 38, 3. Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, i. 154; ref. 66-89. ' See See also:Chadwick in Anthropological Journ., moo, on " The Oak and the Thunder-God." 8 Il. ix. 457. 7 See also:Works and Days, 456; Pausan. ii. 2, 8. 8 Journ. Hellen. See also:Stud. iii. 124; v. 257. ° Pausan. x. 12,10. 10 See also:Horn. Il. xvi. 233. 11 Chadwick, op. cit.977 " primitive ";12 and Zeus, we may believe, long remained:- at Dodona such as he was when the Hellenic tribes first brought him down from the Balkans, a high God supreme in heaven and in earth. We may also believe that in the earliest stages of worship he had already acquired a moral and a social character. The Homeric view of him as the All-Father is a high spiritual concept, but one of which many savage religions of our own time are capable. The See also:family, the tribe, the See also:city, the simpler and more complex organisms of the Hellenic polity, were specially under his care and direction. In spite of the popular stories of his amours and infidelities, he is the See also:patron-God of the mono-gamic See also:marriage, and his See also:union with Hera remained the divine type of human wedlock. " Reverence Zeus, the Father-God": " all fathers are sacred to Zeus, the Father-God, and all See also:brothers to Zeus the God of the family ": these phrases of See also:Aristophanes and See also:Epictetus" See also:express the ideas that engendered his titles II arpuios, Fals Xros, TeXeios, 'Oµbyvros. In the See also:Eumenides of See also:Aeschylus" the See also:Erinyes are reproached in that by aiding Clytemnestra, who slew her See also:husband, " they are dishonouring and bringing to naught the pledges of Zeus and Hera, the marriage-goddess "; and these were the divinities to whom sacrifice was offered before the See also:wedding,15 and it may be that some See also:kind of mimetic See also:representation of the " See also:Holy Marriage," the 'Iepos yd,rws, of Zeus and Hera formed a part of the See also:Attic nuptial ceremonies.1' The " Holy Marriage " was celebrated in many parts of Greece, and certain details of the ritual suggest that it was of great antiquity: here and there it may have had the significance of vegetation-magic,", like the marriage of the See also:Lord and See also:Lady of May; but generally it seems to have been only regarded as a divine counterpart to the human ceremony. Society may have at one time been matrilinear in the communities that become the historic Hellenes; but of this there is no trace in the worship of Zeus and Hera is
In fact, the whole of the family morality in Hellas centred in Zeus, whose altar in the courtyard was the See also:bond of the kinsmen; and sins against the family, such as unnatural See also:vice and the exposure of See also:children, are sometimes spoken of as offences against the High God.1s
He was also the tutelary deity of the larger organization of the phratria; and the altar of Zeus'Iparpros was the See also:meeting-point of the plarateres, when they were assembled to consider the See also:legitimacy of the new applicants for See also:admission into their circle 20
His religion also came to assist the development of certain legal ideas, for instance, the rights of private or family See also:property in See also:land; he guarded the allotments as Zeus Klsdpros,21 and the Greek commandment " See also:thou shalt not remove thy See also:neighbour's landmark " was maintained by Zeus "Opws, the god of boundaries, a more personal power than the Latin Jupiter See also:Terminus.22
His highest See also:political functions were summed up in the title HoXt€bc, a cult-name of legendary antiquity in Athens, and frequent in the Hellenic world °°
His See also:consort in his political life was not Hera, but his daughter Athena Polias. He sat in her See also:judgment See also:court HaXXaSly where cases of involuntary See also:homicide were tried.24 With her he shared the See also:chapel in the See also:Council-See also: 14 213-214. 1' Schol. Aristooh. Thesm. 973. 18 See also:Photius, S.V. 'Iepos'yaµos. 17 See Frazer's See also:Golden Bough, and ed. i. 226-227. 18 The attempts to discover the traces of matrilinear society in Greek religion may be regarded as mainly unsuccessful: vide A. B. See also:Cook, Class. Rev. 1906 (See also:October, See also:November), " Who was the wife of Zeus?" 1A Dio. Chrys. Or. 7 (Dind. i. 139). Demosth. Contra Macartatum, 107 8, i. 21 Pausan. viii. 53, 9. 22 See also:Plato's See also:Laws, 842 E. 23 Vide Farnell, op. cit. i. 159; ref. 107-109. 24 Corp. Inscr. Attic. iii. 71 and 273. Greece.' The political See also:assembly and the See also:law-court were conse- See also:account, a See also:pupil of Damophilus of See also:Himera in See also:Sicily, the other crated to ZeJr 'Ayopaios,'' and being the eternal source of justice statement being that he was a pupil of Neseus of See also:Thasos. After-he might be invoked as AtKal&ovvos " The Just." 3 As the god wards he appears to have resided in See also:Ephesus. His known who brought the people under one See also:government he might be works are worshipped as 1IavSrlµos;2 as the deity of the whole of Hellas, 'EXXavws,5 a title that belonged originally to See also:Aegina and to the prehistoric tribe of the Aeacidae, and had once the narrower application to the " Thessalian Hellenes," but acquired the See also:Pan-Hellenic sense, in fact See also:expanded into the form IIaveXAi7v1os, perhaps about the time of the See also:Persian See also:wars, when thanks-giving for the victory took the form of dedications and sacrifice to " Zeus the Liberator "—'EXEvOiptos 6 Finally, in the formulae adopted for the public oath, where many deities were invoked, the name of Zeus was the masterword. There is reason for thinking that this political character of Zeus belongs to the earliest period of his religion, and it remained as long as that religion lasted. Yet in one respect Apollo was more dominant in the political life; for Apollo possessed the more powerful See also:oracle of See also:Delphi. Zeus spoke directly to his people at Dodona only,' and with authority only in ancient times; for owing to See also:historical circumstances and the disadvantage of its position, Dodona paled before Delphi. It remains to consider briefly certain moral aspects of his cult. The morality attaching to the oath, so deeply rooted in the See also:conscience of primitive peoples, was expressed in the cult of Zeus "OpK1os, the God who punished See also:perjury.8 The whole history of Greek legal and moral conceptions attaching to the See also:guilt of homicide can be studied in relation to the cult-appellatives of Zeus. The Greek consciousness of the See also:sin of murder, only dimly awakened in the Homeric period, and only sensitive at first when a kinsman or a suppliant was slain, gradually expands till the sanctity of all human life becomes recognized by the higher morality of the people: and the names of Zevr Me1XLXws, the dread deity of the See also:ghost-world whom the sinner must make " placable," of Zevr 'IK&rws and IIpoarpoiraios, to whom the conscience-striken outcast may turn for mercy and See also:pardon, See also:play a guiding-part in this momentous See also:evolution .9 Even this See also:summary reveals the deep indebtedness of early Greek See also:civilization to this cult, which engendered ideas of importance for the higher religious thought of the See also:race, and which might have See also:developed into a monotheistic religion, had a prophet-philosopher arisen powerful enough to combat the polytheistic proclivities of Hellas. Yet the figure of Zeus had almost faded from the religious world of Hellas some time before the end of paganism; and See also:Lucian makes him complain that even the See also:Egyptian See also:Anubis is more popular than he, and that men think they have done the outworn God sufficient honour if they sacrifice to him once in five years at See also:Olympia. The history of religions supplies us with many examples of the High God losing his hold on the people's consciousness and love. In the See also:case of this cult the cause may well have been a certain coldness, a lack of See also:enthusiasm and mystic ardour, in the service. These stimulants were offered rather by See also:Demeter and Dionysus, later by See also:Cybele, See also:Isis and See also:Mithras. ZEU%IS, a Greek painter, who flourished about 420-390 B.C., and described himself as a native of See also:Heraclea, meaning probably the See also:town on the See also:Black Sea. He was, according to one ' See also:Antiphon vi. p. 789; Pausan. i. 3, 5: cf. Corp. Inscr. Attic iii. 683. 2 Farnell, op. cit. vol. i. p. 162. 3 Amer. Journ. Archaeol., 1905, p. 302. ' C. I. A. 3, 7. See also:Head, Hist. Num. p. 569. ' Herod. ix. 7, 4; Pind. Hem. v. 15 (Schol.). See also:Simonides, Frag. 140 (See also:Bergk), Strab. 412. 7 There was a See also:minor oracle of Zeus at Olympia. See ORACLE. ° Pausan. v. 24, 9. Farnell, op. cit. vol. i. pp. 64-69. r. Zeus surrounded by Deities. 8. Alcmena, possibly another 2. See also:Eros crowned with See also:Roses. name for 7. 3. See also:Marsyas See also:bound. 9. See also:Helena at Croton. 4. Pan. 10. See also:Penelope. 5. Centaur family. I I. See also:Menelaus. 6. See also:Boreas or See also:Triton. I2. See also:Athlete. 7. See also:Infant Heracles strangling the 13. An old Woman. serpents in presence of his '4. Boy with grapes. parents, Alcmena and Am- 15. Grapes. phitryon. 16. Monochromes. In ancient records we are 17. Plastic works in See also:clay. the told that Zeuxis, following initiative of See also:Apollodorus, had introduced into the See also:art of See also:painting a method of representing his figures in light and See also:shadow, as opposed to the older method of outline, with large See also:flat masses of See also:colour for draperies, and other details, such as had been practised by See also:Polygnotus and others of the great See also:fresco painters. The new method led to smaller compositions, and often to pictures consisting of only a single figure, on which it was more easy for the painter to demonstrate the combined effect of the various means by which he obtained perfect roundness of form. The effect would appear strongly realistic, as compared with the older method, and to this was probably due the origin of such stories as the contest in which Zeuxis painted a bunch of grapes so like reality that birds flew towards it, while See also:Parrhasius painted a See also:curtain which even Zeuxis mistook for real. It is perhaps a variation of this story when we are told (Pliny) that Zeuxis also painted a boy holding grapes towards which birds flew, the artist remarking that if the boy had been as well painted as the grapes the birds would have kept at a distance. But, if the method of Zeuxis led him to real roundness of form, to natural colouring, and to pictures consisting of single figures or nearly so, it was likely to See also:lead him also to See also:search for striking attitudes or motives, which by the obviousness of their meaning should emulate the See also:plain intelligibility of the larger compositions of older times. Lucian, in his Zeuxis, speaks of him as carrying this search to a novel and See also:strange degree, as illustrated in the See also:group of a See also:female Centaur with her See also:young. When the picture was exhibited, the spectators admired its novelty and overlooked the skill of the painter, to the vexation of Zeuxis. The pictures of Heracles strangling the serpents to the astonishment of his father and mother (7), Penelope (1o), and Menelaus Weeping (II) are quoted as instances in which strong motives naturally presented themselves to him. But, in spite of the tendency towards See also:realism inherent in the new method of Zeuxis, he is said to have retained the ideality which had characterized his predecessors. Of all his known works it would be expected that this quality would have appeared best in his famous picture of Helena, for this reason, that we cannot conceive any striking or effective incident for him in her career. In addition to this, however, See also:Quintilian states (Inst. Oral. xii. to, 4) that in respect of robustness of types Zeuxis had followed Homer, while there is the fact that he had inscribed two verses of the Iliad (iii 156 seq.) under his figure of Helena. As See also:models for the picture he was allowed the presence of five of the most beautiful maidens of Croton at his own See also:request, in order that he might be able to " See also:transfer the truth of life to a See also:mute See also:image." See also:Cicero (De Invent. ii. r, 1) assumed that Zeuxis had found distributed among these five the various elements that went to make up a figure of ideal beauty. It should not, however, be understood that the painter had made up his figure by the process of combining the See also:good points of various models, but rather that he found among those models the points that answered to the ideal Helena in his own mind, and that he merely required the models to See also:guide and correct himself by during the process of transferring his ideal to form and colour. This picture also is said to have been exhibited publicly, with the result that Zeuxis made much profit out of it. By this and other means, we are told, he became so See also:rich as rather to give away his pictures than to sell them. He presented his Alcmena to the Agrigentines, his Pan to King See also:Archelaus of See also:Macedonia, whose See also:palace he is also said to have decorated with paintings. According to Pliny (N.H. See also:xxxv. 62), he made an ostentatious display of his See also:wealth at Olympia in having his name See also:woven in letters of See also:gold on his See also:dress. Under his picture of an athlete (ic) he wrote that " It is easier to revile than to See also:rival " (il4W.d)vErai. TLS p. XXov 3 µcµrlverac). A contemporary, Isocrates (De Permut. 2), remarks that no one would say that Zeuxis and Parrhasius had the same profession as those persons who paint pinakia, or tablets of terra-See also:cotta. We possess many examples of the See also:vase-painting of the period circa 400 B.C., and it is noticeable on them that there is great freedom and facility in See also:drawing the human form, besides great carelessness. In the See also:absence of fresco paintings of that date we have only these vases to fall back upon. Yet, with their limited resources of colour and See also:perspective, they in a measure show the See also:influence of Zeuxis, while, as would be expected, they retain perhaps more of the simplicity of older times. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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