Zeus, King of the Greek Gods

Greetings, mythology fans! Let's begin our mythological musings with the King of the Greek Gods, Zeus himself.
The Greek god Zeus, or Jupiter or Jove to the Romans, was the last child of the Titans Cronus and Rhea. He was the twin of Hera, the goddess of marriage. Cronus (Saturn to the Romans) was afraid that his children (Demeter, Hades, Hestia, Poseidon, and Hera) would someday conquer him, so he ate them all (a neat and handy trick); Rhea, however, in turn tricked Cronus into swallowing a stone before he could swallow Zeus, thus saving him from the fate of spending eternity in his father's stomach (not a pleasant thought!).
The infant Zeus was whisked away by Rhea to the island of Crete to be raised by Amalthea, a magical goat whose horn gave Zeus all the food he could ever want to eat. One of Zeus's favorite toys was a golden ball with deep blue rings that left a track like a shooting star when he threw it, something which surely amused him greatly, being able to throw it from one end of the island to the other. When he had finally grown up, he went back to humbly serve his father Cronus, and promptly tricked him into swallowing wine that had an emetic poison in it, which caused him to throw up all of Zeus's brothers and sisters that he had swallowed: Demeter, Hades, Hestia, Poseidon, and Hera. This led to a huge war (imagine floating about in gastric juices for years and you can understand why the gods rebelled against the Titans) called the Titanomachy, or the war between the gods and the Titans. The gods won (more later on this most monstrous of battles). Zeus was installed as supreme ruler, but only because he drew the longest straw (imagine getting a job for an eternity by a silly game of straws) of the three drawn; Poseidon's lot fell to the seas of the world, and the unlucky Hades had to dwell within the dark of the Underworld.
The symbols of Zeus were the lightning bolts (which the Cyclopes, or great one-eyed giants, fashioned for him in their forge), the huge oak trees (the largest of trees in Greece, and also because they attract lightning), and the eagle, mightiest of birds (Zeus's eagle is still seen today on the back of the US dollar bill). The word "Zeus" represents the sound of a lightning bolt cutting and sizzling through the air, just as the word "Jupiter" mimics the sound of lightning striking the Earth.
Zeus could defeat any god, but he could not kill them, since they were immortal (Latin for "deathless"). He also possessed an elixir or magic potion that could heal someone if he were at death's door, but not if she or he had already passed into the real of Hades, the grasping god of the dead. As Lord of the Sky, he had a blue nimbus encircling his head, representing his power over all other gods.
Stay tune for my next post when I will discuss Hera, the goddess of marriage and disgruntled wife of Zeus!

Mythology Book Corner: this corner will be devoted to great books on mythology!  Let's start out with the wonderful Lightning Thief series by Rick Riordan.  The first book of which is The Lightning Thief, a fabulous read filled with modern day encounters of the Greek gods.  You might even encounter, well, Mr. Brunner!  Cheers!  

*Interesting fact*: the stone that Cronus swallowed ended up at Delphi, the omphalos or center of the Greek mythological world (where Apollo predicted the future through the seer Pythia)
*Interesting fact*: the horn of the magical goat Amalthea gave rise to our idea of the cornucopia, or horn of plenty.
*Interesting fact*: all three of Zeus's symbols are in some way related: lightning is the most powerful of the forces in the sky, just as the oak and the eagle are respectively the most powerful of the trees and the birds; lightning is also attracted to oak trees (it hits those trees more often than any other).
*Interesting fact*: The god Pan, king of the satyrs (half men, half goats), was once rumored to have died, despite the fact that he was immortal. Myths can be highly irrational!

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