The sovereign: Zeus

This blog post is all about envisaging Zeus. How do we perceive him? What does Zeus really evoke for you? How he is portrayed by the ancient Greeks, and how he is perceived by the other gods and goddesses. Firstly recalling on what we already know about him, which is pretty much general knowledge; he is king of the immortal gods and men, the god of sky and weather, law, order and fate. That was his regal position within the family of Greek gods and goddesses as Homer portrays it. For me personally it seems as though Zeus is not to be messed with, he is the almighty within the Greek realm of religion, and he is so powerful compared to anybody else it is almost intimidating. If I could say a final word about Zeus it would be that he is a force not to be reckoned with. 

For me Zeus evokes the image of a fearless ruler, a sovereign and at some points a tyrant. But I think we are able to sympathise with him in some respects; as it cannot be easy trying to keep the whole realm or family of the gods and goddesses in check at all times. As we know they have had copious amounts of quarrels with one another, and with each of them possessing certain powers it means they have their own individual way of plotting against each other, for example Poseidon could use his dominion of the sea. It is not just that the gods plan to hurt one another, it is not as simple as that, they can use each other’s loved ones, especially human beings and play harmful tricks on these defenceless individuals to plot revenge against each other. But there is also evidence to suggest that Zeus did keep the other gods and goddesses under control extremely well, as havoc and mayhem did not present itself at all times within the oikos of the immortal gods.   

The ancient Greeks obviously worship Zeus a great deal. You can tell what they think about him within their sacrifices, poems, paintings and statues.

This painting of The Statue of Zeus by M. Larrinaga, which was destroyed in a fire in Constantinople, shows exactly how you would have thought Zeus would have been portrayed by the ancient Greeks. Firstly the statue is gold, a very regal, rich and prominent colour, which subsequently mirrors his personality. Another factor being is that he is shown to have an idealistic physic of a man of that era, no coincidence there, but it seems obvious that the king of the gods would possess a desired appearance, to either be a role model or to show he is better than everyone else. An additional feature to portray that he ruled the Olympians is that he is sat upon a thrown, therefore to conclude these characteristics do genuinely confirm to us how the Greeks perceived Zeus.