ZETTLENRO'DA, a t. of the German empire, in the little principality of Reuss-Greiz, 10 in. w. of the town of Greiz, and 51 s.s.w. of Leipsic, stands on a high plateau, in a wooded hilly district. Zeulenroda has suffered severely at various times from conflagra tions, and is now regularly built, consisting of a handsome town and four suburbs. It has a spacious market-place with a beautiful court-house, two churches, a burgher and free school, and a hospital. Besides some bleach-works and a trade in cattle, there are manufactures of woolen goods, especially hosiery, the fineness of which is famous. Pop. '75 6,800.
ZEUS (Sanskrit, die, light, djaus, heaven, dews, god; Lat. Ju-piter and Diespiter, i.e., father Zeus; Aug.-Sax. Tie, whence Tuesday) was the greatest of the national deities of Greece. According to the most received mythology, he was the son of Cronos and Rhea, brother of Poseidon nod Hera, the latter of whom was also his wife. He expelled his father and the older dynasty of the Titans; assumed the sovereignty of the world, and suc cessfully resisted the attacks of the giants and the conspiracies of the gods. In the allot ment of the world, after the dethronement of the Titans, Zeus gained therule of heaven and air, Hades of the infernal regions, and Poseidon of the se-a; while the earth was left subject to the influence of all three, though Zeus was regarded as having the supremacy throughout all departments. Crete, Dodona, and Arcadia were the places where the worship of Zeus was most cultivated; and although originally the inhabitants of these places may not have looked upon themselves as worshipers of the same god, yet, iu process of time, all the local gods revered under the name of Zeus were at last merged in oue great Hellenic divinity; a process which was carried still further out when he was identified with the Jupiter of the Romans and the Ammon of Libya.
Besides the epithets of Zeus from the seats of his worship, he had many titles applied to him from his various powers and functions, moral and physical. He was the father and king of gods and men; the protector of kings, of law and order; the avenger of broken oaths and of other offenses; he watched over the state, the assembly, the family, over strangers and suppliants; his band wielded the lightnings and ,guided the stars; he ordained the changes of the seasons, and, in short, regulated the whole course of nature. All prophecy, too, was supposed to originate in him, and it was from him the prophetic god Phoebus received his oracular gift. He dispensed, as it pleased him, both weal and woe to mortals; but whether he could control the Fates themselves is a point about which the ancients disagreed, as men have done in all ages where the question of free-will and fate is concerned. Of the many epithets applied to Zeus, perhaps the best known is the Olympian, from that Olympus in Thessaly whose summit was believed to be his residence as well as that of the other gods. His most celebrated festival was
the Olympic, held at Olympia, in Ells, after the end of every fourth year.
Combined with such exalted conceptions of the majesty and power of Zeus, we find many stories current respecting his amours with mortals and immortals; he is represented as acting with caprice, anger, deceit. Probably, in many cases, an ancient Greek of average position and capacity did not view such matters with any very strong feeling of disapprobation. Others, again, as Xenophanes (q.v.), protested against the transference to the gods of human passions and failings; or, as Pinder, maintained that they would believe nothing of the gods that was discreditable to them; or, as Euripides, argued that such talcs were sufficient to disprove their divinity; or, as Euhemerus, held that the local worship of Zeus, like that of other deities, was owing to the fact that divine honors were paid to deified men at the place of their burial, and that of course it was no wonder to find human actions assigned to gods who had once been human. In modern times the various myths were at one time explained as symbolical of various celestial and ter restrial phenomena, such as the apparent motion of the sun, the alternation of day and night, the changes of the season s,and so forth. The most rational explanation is as follows: In early times. men thought and spoke of natural objects as if they were personal agents, employing names for them which were literally, not symbolically, significant. But from lapse of time, and the departure of various tribes from their original seats, iu many countries the meaning of these words became obscured, and though men still used them, their real significance was forgotten, and terms which originally had expressed some process of nature were conceived to narrate some incident in the history of a person. For example, the expression that the sun follows the dawn was misunderstood, and gave rise to the myth of Phccbus pursuing the nymph Daphne, because the word Daphne was no longer understood. Such misconceptions were then, by successive ages, elaborated into myths more or less fanciful and even revolting. In this respect Zeus has fared no better, or rather much worse, than the other deities. In the same way as the Greek war-god Ares is a personage much inferior to the Latin Mars, so the serious and unimagi native Roman's conception of his majestic Jupiter Optimus Maximus (the best, the greatest) was more elevated than that conceived of Zeus by the sensuous Greek. But this might be expected from the different character of the two peoples. Except in the grander attributes of omnipotence and fatherly care of the universe, we can trace little in common; for the Jupiter of the Latin poets, as portrayed in Virgil and Ovid, is drawn entirely from Greek sources, and is merely the Zeus of Greek mythology with an altered name.