ZEUS. Zeus is represented as the greatest of the Greek gods. According to a Cretan legend, his mother Rhea gave birth to him in a cave of the island, and the goat Amalthea suckled him. His sister and consort was Hera. the queen of the gods. As the god of the sky and its phenomena, thunder and lightning, wind and rain, he was worshipped on high mountains, especially on the Thessalian Mount Olympus. On Mount Lye:ens in Arcadia he was worshipped with human sacrifice as the Lyctean Zeus. In the Troad the summit of Mount Ida was sacred to him. In the representation of Homer, he is the beneficent father of men, as well as the wise ruler of Nature, " the father of gods and men " (Homer). " He gives to all things a good beginning and a good end : he is the saviour in all distress: to Zeus the saviour (Gr. sOter) it was customary to drink the third cup at a meal, and in Athens to sacrifice on the last day of the year. From him comes everything good, noble,
and strong, and also bodily vigour and valour, which were exhibited in his honour, particularly at the Olympian and Nemean games. . . From him, as ruler of the world, proceed those universal laws which regulate the course of all things, and he knows and sees everything. the future as well as the past. Hence all revelation comes iu the first instance from him" (Seyffert). Zeus was re garded also as the protector of house, home, and hearth. His favourite children were Athene and Apollo. In Roman mythology the corresponding god to Zeus is Jupiter. It should be noted that the transformation of Zeus into the omnipotent and omniscient ruler of the world and father of men was a gradual process. See O. Seyffert, Diet.; Brockhans; and cp. J. M. Robertson, P.C.