{ "id": "zeus", "type": "entity", "name": "Zeus", "summary": "King of the Greek gods and lord of the sky and thunder; youngest child of Cronus and Rhea, saved from being swallowed by a stone, victor of the Titanomachy, and father of Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Hermes and many others.", "locale": "en", "tags": [ "greek", "deities", "olympians", "sky-gods", "kings-of-the-gods" ], "relations": [ { "rel": "related", "target": "epithet" }, { "rel": "equivalent_of", "target": "amun" }, { "rel": "child_of", "target": "cronus" }, { "rel": "child_of", "target": "rhea" }, { "rel": "sibling_of", "target": "hera" }, { "rel": "sibling_of", "target": "poseidon" }, { "rel": "sibling_of", "target": "hades" }, { "rel": "sibling_of", "target": "demeter" }, { "rel": "sibling_of", "target": "hestia" }, { "rel": "consort_of", "target": "hera" }, { "rel": "parent_of", "target": "athena" }, { "rel": "parent_of", "target": "apollo" }, { "rel": "parent_of", "target": "artemis" }, { "rel": "parent_of", "target": "hermes" }, { "rel": "parent_of", "target": "ares" }, { "rel": "parent_of", "target": "persephone" }, { "rel": "parent_of", "target": "dionysus" }, { "rel": "parent_of", "target": "heracles" }, { "rel": "equivalent_of", "target": "jupiter" }, { "rel": "member_of", "target": "twelve-olympians" }, { "rel": "fought_in", "target": "titanomachy" }, { "rel": "attested_in", "target": "theogony" }, { "rel": "attested_in", "target": "iliad" } ], "questions": [ "Who is Zeus?", "Who are the parents of Zeus?", "How did Zeus become king of the gods?", "Where was Zeus born according to Hesiod?", "How did Zeus escape being swallowed by Cronus?", "Who were the wives of Zeus?", "How did Zeus divide the world with Poseidon and Hades?", "Who gave Zeus his thunderbolt?" ], "claims": [ { "id": "c1", "text": "Zeus is the youngest child of Cronus and Rhea: Hesiod lists Rhea's children as Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon and \"wise Zeus, father of gods and men\", and says Cronus swallowed each as it was born (Theog. 453–467).", "sources": [ "hesiod-theogony" ], "confidence": 0.95 }, { "id": "c2", "text": "Hesiod places the birth of Zeus in Crete: Rhea, sent by Earth and Sky to Lyctus, bore him there, and Earth hid the infant in a cave on Mount Aegeum while Cronus was handed a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes (Theog. 468–491).", "sources": [ "hesiod-theogony" ], "confidence": 0.93 }, { "id": "c3", "text": "Apollodorus tells the same episode with different details: Rhea gave birth in a cave of Dicte and entrusted the child to the Curetes and to the nymphs Adrastia and Ida (Apollod. 1.1.6). The two accounts agree on Crete and the stone and disagree on the cave and the nurses.", "sources": [ "apollodorus-library" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c4", "text": "Zeus's thunderbolt was a gift: after freeing the Cyclopes, \"sons of Heaven whom his father in his foolishness had bound\", they gave him \"thunder and the glowing thunderbolt and lightning\", in which he trusts to rule over mortals and immortals (Theog. 501–506; Apollod. 1.2.1).", "sources": [ "hesiod-theogony", "apollodorus-library" ], "confidence": 0.93 }, { "id": "c5", "text": "Zeus became king by acclamation after the war with the Titans: once the struggle for honours was settled, the gods \"pressed far-seeing Olympian Zeus to reign and to rule over them, by Earth's prompting\", and he divided their dignities among them (Theog. 881–885).", "sources": [ "hesiod-theogony" ], "confidence": 0.92 }, { "id": "c6", "text": "In the Iliad the world is divided by lot among three brothers: Zeus took the sky, Poseidon the sea and Hades the darkness below, with earth and Olympus common to all three (Il. 15.187–193, spoken by Poseidon). Hesiod says nothing of lots — for him the honours are distributed by Zeus after his acclamation.", "sources": [ "homer-iliad", "hesiod-theogony" ], "confidence": 0.92 }, { "id": "c7", "text": "Hesiod gives Zeus seven consorts in order: Metis (swallowed while pregnant with Athena), Themis, Eurynome, Demeter, Mnemosyne, Leto and, \"lastly\", Hera, mother of Hebe, Ares and Eileithyia (Theog. 886–923).", "sources": [ "hesiod-theogony" ], "confidence": 0.93 }, { "id": "c8", "text": "Athena was born from Zeus himself: \"Zeus himself gave birth from his own head to bright-eyed Tritogeneia\", after swallowing Metis on the advice of Earth and Sky so that no child of hers would replace him (Theog. 886–900, 924–926).", "sources": [ "hesiod-theogony" ], "confidence": 0.94 }, { "id": "c9", "text": "The short Homeric Hymn to Zeus calls him \"chiefest among the gods and greatest, all-seeing, the lord of all, the fulfiller\", who confides in Themis — the ordering, oath-keeping side of the god rather than the thunderer (HH23 1–4).", "sources": [ "homeric-hymns" ], "confidence": 0.9 } ], "takeaways": [ "Youngest of six children of Cronus and Rhea; the stone-for-baby trick is Hesiod's, the cave of Dicte and the Curetes are Apollodorus's.", "King not by birthright but by acclamation after the Titanomachy (Hesiod); the three-way lot with Poseidon and Hades is Homer's version, not Hesiod's.", "The thunderbolt is a gift from the freed Cyclopes, not an innate power.", "Seven consorts in Hesiod's order, Hera last; Athena born from his head after he swallowed Metis." ], "faqs": [ { "q": "Who are the parents of Zeus?", "claim": "c1" }, { "q": "Where was Zeus born according to Hesiod?", "claim": "c2" }, { "q": "Who gave Zeus his thunderbolt?", "claim": "c4" }, { "q": "How did Zeus divide the world with Poseidon and Hades?", "claim": "c6" }, { "q": "Who were the wives of Zeus?", "claim": "c7" } ], "evidence_tier": "primary", "evidence": { "level": "theoretical", "source_types": [ "paper" ] }, "moat_flag": false, "winning_edge": "Encyclopaedias give one blended biography of Zeus. This object separates what Hesiod says from what Homer and Apollodorus say, with the line numbers, so an agent can answer \"according to whom?\" — the question that decides whether a mythology answer is right.", "confidence": 0.92, "last_verified": "2026-09-03", "media": [], "x": { "myth": { "pantheon": "greek", "kind": "deity", "group": "olympian", "domains": [ "sky", "thunder", "kingship", "justice", "oaths", "hospitality" ], "symbols": [ "thunderbolt", "eagle", "oak", "aegis", "sceptre" ], "wikidata": "Q34201" } }, "canonical_url": "https://mythosdata.dev/k/zeus", "api_url": "https://mythosdata.dev/api/k/zeus.json", "jsonld": { "@context": "https://schema.org", "name": "Zeus", "description": "King of the Greek gods and lord of the sky and thunder; youngest child of Cronus and Rhea, saved from being swallowed by a stone, victor of the Titanomachy, and father of Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Hermes and many others.", "url": "https://mythosdata.dev/k/zeus", "license": "https://spdx.org/licenses/CC-BY-4.0.html", "dateModified": "2026-09-03", "citation": [ { "@type": "CreativeWork", "name": "Hesiod, Theogony — tr. Hugh G. Evelyn-White (Loeb, 1914), Perseus TEI edition", "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit/blob/master/data/tlg0020/tlg001/tlg0020.tlg001.perseus-eng2.xml" }, { "@type": "CreativeWork", "name": "The Homeric Hymns — tr. Hugh G. Evelyn-White (Loeb, 1914), Perseus TEI edition", "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit/blob/master/data/tlg0013/" }, { "@type": "CreativeWork", "name": "Apollodorus, The Library (Bibliotheca) — tr. Sir James George Frazer (Loeb, 1921), Perseus TEI edition", "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit/blob/master/data/tlg0548/tlg001/tlg0548.tlg001.perseus-eng2.xml" }, { "@type": "CreativeWork", "name": "Homer, Iliad — tr. A. T. Murray (Loeb, 1924), Perseus TEI edition", "url": "https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-greekLit/blob/master/data/tlg0012/tlg001/tlg0012.tlg001.perseus-eng3.xml" } ], "@type": "Article", "headline": "Zeus" } }