Zeus is the king of the Olympian gods and the ruler of the sky. After overthrowing his father Cronus — who had swallowed each of his children at birth — Zeus drew lots with his brothers Poseidon and Hades to divide the cosmos, taking the heavens for himself.
He rules from Mount Olympus wielding the thunderbolt, forged for him by the Cyclopes, and enforces oaths, hospitality, and the order of things. Yet the myths remember him as much for his appetites as his authority: his countless affairs with goddesses and mortals produced many of the heroes and gods of Greek myth, and Hera’s jealous retribution drives entire story cycles.
Hesiod opens the Works and Days with him, and what he puts first is not justice but sheer reversibility — power that can go either way on a whim. The demand for justice comes second, addressed to that same power:
ῥέα μὲν γὰρ βριάει, ῥέα δὲ βριάοντα χαλέπτει, ῥεῖα δ᾽ ἀρίζηλον μινύθει καὶ ἄδηλον ἀέξει, ῥεῖα δέ τ᾽ ἰθύνει σκολιὸν καὶ ἀγήνορα κάρφει Ζεὺς ὑψιβρεμέτης, ὃς ὑπέρτατα δώματα ναίει. κλῦθι ἰδὼν ἀίων τε, δίκῃ δ᾽ ἴθυνε θέμιστας
“For easily he makes strong, and easily he brings the strong man low; easily he humbles the proud and raises the obscure, and easily he straightens the crooked and blasts the proud, — Zeus who thunders aloft and has his dwelling most high. Attend thou with eye and ear, and make judgements straight with righteousness.” — Hesiod, Works and Days 5–10, tr. H. G. Evelyn-White
His cult centered on Olympia, where the great games were held in his honor, and on the oracle of Dodona, where priests read his will in the rustling of oak leaves.
