Zeus has how many sons

The Lydian King, Tantalus, was a son of Zeus who was favored by the gods, but he wanted to test their knowledge and power. He invited the gods to a dinner party and served them a dish made from his own son, Pelops. They put Pelops together again giving him an ivory shoulder to replace the one that had been eaten and Tantalus was punished in the Underworld by having to stand up to his chin in a lake that would recede any time he moved to take a drink and overhead was a tree with delicious, ripe fruit that would move away from him when he tried to reach up and grab one.

This myth is the origin of the word tantalize. Zeus was the sky god of the Mycenaean Greek-speaking peoples who migrated to the Greek peninsula sometime around BC. Zeus may have been conflated with a pre-Greek Minoan fertility god on the island of Crete. This would help to explain the story of Zeus being brought to Crete as a baby and living on Crete for a year in a cave [see Origins ].

The Minoans seem to have sometimes worshipped this god in the form of a bull, and that might explain why Zeus sometimes takes that form. In Book 16 of the Iliad , for example, Zeus first favors Patroclus as he kills many Trojans and their allies including Sarpedon, another one of his sons by Europa but he also makes sure that Patroclus is, in turn, killed by Hector. Despite his love for Troy, however, Zeus knew that as long as the Trojans made certain decisions, Troy would eventually fall this is clear, for example, at Iliad 4.

At one point Iliad 8. Rejoice, blessed Leto, for you bare glorious children…. Hermes, the son of the nymph Maia , was born in secret. Zeus had managed to keep his visits to Maia a secret from both his wife and the court of gods so no one knew when she gave birth to his son.

Hermes was a born trickster. On the first night of his life he crept from his crib while his mother slept and stole the prized cattle of Apollo on a whim. The older son of Zeus was only able to track the thief because of his prophetic gifts, and even Maia could not believe that her newborn child was capable of such mischief.

Apollo took the baby to Olympus to be judged by their father, but the proceedings did not go as he might have planned. Despite his knack for making trouble, Hermes was welcomed by the Olympians as one of their own. And in spite of their rocky start, Hermes and Apollo became friends as well.

The gift of the newly-invented lyre smoothed over any anger Apollo felt over the theft of his cattle and established the elder brother as the god of music and poetry.

While Maia kept her pregnancy a secret from Hera, Semele was not so lucky. Hera tricked the human girl into seeing Zeus in all his divine glory, resulting in her immediate death. Zeus sewed the unborn child into his own leg, cutting Dionysus out when it was time for his birth.

He was the god of wine, feasting, and merriment. Hera tried again to destroy him, cursing him with madness as she had done to Heracles. Dionysus roamed the world, spreading his gift of wine to all the people he encountered. Dionysus was eventually cured of his temporary insanity, although madness was forever part of his infamous revels. Among the mortals and semi-divine sons of Zeus, however, several still left their mark on the Greek world. Sometimes this lineage was a matter of local legend, but often it was an established and widely-held belief throughout the region.

An incomplete list of the royal sons of Zeus is still an impressive overview of Greece and the Mediterranean. Virtually every land in the region could trace its ruling heritage back to the king of the gods. Added grandsons and further generations would tie virtually every city-state and foreign land known to the Greeks back to the king of Olympus.

There was a good reason so many cities and nations claimed to have been founded by sons and grandsons of Zeus. Zeus was the king of the gods, the highest authority in the cosmos. When a king claimed his family tree went back not just to a god, but to the king of Olympus, it strengthened his claim to power.

The divine blood running through him, even if watered down after many generations, gave him a greater right to rule than someone from a purely mortal background. The same held true for entire cities and countries. Of course, in many cases it is obvious that supposed descent from Zeus was an invention of later eras and not a long-held belief. Newer colonies, for example, would sometimes claim ancient divine origins in an attempt at establishing greater authority and legitimacy.

One of the most famous examples of this was the Roman hero Aeneas. In an effort to establish their ancient origins and link to the Greek past, the early Romans borrowed the figure of Aeneas from the Iliad and created a mythology in which the son of Venus Aphrodite traveled west to found Rome.

The creation of the myth of Aeneas gave the Romans a claim to a heritage that included three major deities in the Greco-Roman pantheon and the legendary king of Troy. The idea of claiming a god, particularly Zeus, as the ancestor of kings helped to establish monarchies based on divine authority as well as mortal lineage.

The surviving Greek sources often provide incomplete or contradictory information about many aspects of Greek mythology, including the parentage of many figures. The Greek myths were written down over a period of nearly a thousand years, with oral traditions dating back long before even the earliest written records. In addition, local variations of the legends led to further discrepancies between the stories that were handed down. As a result, there is no complete or definitive list of the children of any of the Greek gods, including Zeus.

Many of the figures that were regarded as his children by one writer were given a different father in another source. With the exception of the most well-known gods and heroes, nearly every minor deity and mortal ruler that was called a son of Zeus in one source was given a contradictory background in another.

Leda was a human woman who was married to King Tyndareus. In the most common version of her myth, Zeus came to her in the form of a swan. Leda laid several eggs from which her children were born. Having both a mortal husband and a divine lover, it was assumed that half her children belonged to Tyndareus and half to Zeus. Paul Getty Museum. This is a statue of the God, Zeus.

The statue depicts Zeus sitting on his throne. He was the God of the sky, rain and lighting. This is a statue of the Goddess, Hera. Hera was one of Zeus's sisters. She was the Goddess of marriage. This is a statue of Poseidon's head. Poseidon was one of Zeus's brothers. He was the God of the sea. Hestia in a Mythical Landscape , c.

This is a painting of Hestia. Hestia was one of Zeus's sisters.