Mythology Book

46 THE MANY AFFAIRS OF ZEUS

was betrothed to Amphitryon, the

son of a Theban general. Zeus

assumed his guise to approach

Alcmene while her fiancé was away

avenging the deaths of her brothers.

King Acrisius of Argos was

particularly anxious to keep his

only daughter Danaë chaste. He

had been warned by an oracle that

she was destined to bear a son who

would one day slay him. To avoid

this fate, he placed her in a cell so

that no one could come near her.

However, Zeus took the form of a

shower of gold to pour himself

through her prison skylight. The

child of the encounter, Perseus,

would later unwittingly cause her

father’s death.

Zeus as beast

Despite her name, Europa was

a child of Asia, a princess from

Phoenicia, a region covering parts

of Israel, Syria, and Lebanon.

Smitten by her charms, Zeus took

on the form of a fine, white bull and

mingled among her father’s cattle.

Picking flowers, Europa noticed the

new bull and was struck by its

beauty and its seeming gentleness.

When she drew near to pet it, the

bull lay down and she climbed onto

its back. Suddenly, the bull leapt

up and sped away across the fields

and over the sea while the terrified

girl clung on for dear life. The bull

only stopped when it reached the

island of Crete, where Zeus at last

revealed himself and bedded his

young victim. Zeus rewarded

Europa by making her Crete’s first

queen. In time, she gave birth to

Minos, the island’s first king.

Scholars think the story of Europa

may have originated in Crete,

where the cult of the bull also

produced the story of Theseus and

the Minotaur.

For his assault on Antiope, the

daughter of Asopos, a river god

from Attica in central Greece,

A fearful Europa rides the waves,

clinging to Zeus, who took the form

of a bull to abduct her. This powerful

image was painted in 1910 by the

Russian artist Valentin Serov.

Zeus took the shape of a satyr—a

half-man, half-goat who roamed

the wild woods. Usually associated

with the idea of lechery, satyrs were

often depicted with erections in

ancient art; Zeus had disguised his

identity, not his lust.

Hiding from Hera

In some stories, it was Zeus’s

quarry who had to take a different

shape. In the case of Io—the

daughter of the king of Argos, and

a priestess in the temple of Zeus’s

wife, Hera—Zeus transformed

himself into a cloud to make his

approach and conceal it from the

watchful Hera. Once he had raped

Io, he turned her into a beautiful

white heifer, to hide her from his

wife. Hera saw through the trick

and asked if she could have the

heifer as a gift. Zeus had no option

but to agree. Hera consigned Io to

the care of the hundred-eyed giant

Argus to watch over.

Maddened with frustration,

Zeus sent his son Hermes to slay

the all-seeing herdsman; the divine

messenger blinded Argus with a

Suddenly, the bull, possessed

of his desire, jumped up and

galloped off towards the sea.

Europa

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ANCIENT GREECE 47

touch from his kerykeion, or staff.

As the giant lay there dead, Hermes

collected up his hundred eyes and

set them in a peacock’s tail: the

bird was sacred to Hera from that

time on.

If Zeus thought the way was

now clear for him to pursue Io, he

was wrong. Hera sent a fly to attack

her. Buzzing about, and biting her

again and again, the insect put Io

to flight and chased her across the

Earth. Io was never to find rest.

The birth of Athena

Metis, Zeus’s cousin—and in some

accounts, his first wife—wrought

her own transformation in a bid to

shake off Zeus’s pursuit. Metis

assumed a series of different forms

to avoid him, but Zeus eventually

succeeded in catching her and

making her pregnant. Nevertheless,

Zeus was worried: Metis was

renowned for her sharp intellect

and wiliness, and an oracle had

told him that Metis was destined

to bear a child who matched her

strength and cunning. Zeus—a

usurper who had overthrown his

own father—was on his guard

against this child. Just before

Metis was due to give birth, Zeus

challenged her to a shape-shifting

match. She was vain enough to

agree. When Zeus told her that he

did not believe she could transform

herself into a tiny fly, she promptly

did—and was swallowed by a

triumphant Zeus.

It was a clever trick, but it did

not succeed. When Zeus developed

an unbearable headache, the Titan

god Prometheus swung an axe at

his head, splitting it wide open. Out

from the wound sprang Athena, the

goddess of war and wisdom, in a

full suit of armor. She became one

of the most important deities on

Olympus and the patron goddess of

the powerful city state of Athens.

Both transformed

In some stories, both predator and

prey underwent changes. Zeus

again disguised himself as an

eagle to pursue Asteria, the Titan

goddess of shooting stars. She

transformed herself into another

bird—the timid quail—in a

desperate bid to escape and finally

dove into the sea. There she

changed her shape again and

was preserved forever as an island,

later variously identified as Delos

or Sicily. It was on this island that

Asteria’s younger sister Leto was

to find sanctuary some years later,

after she, too, caught the lecherous

eye of Zeus. Here she gave birth to

twins: Apollo, the god of the sun

and of poetry, prophecy, and

healing; and the divine huntress

Artemis, goddess of the moon.

Mythology relates scores of

Zeus’s exploits, highlighting a

sexual appetite that apparently

drew little censure in ancient

Greece. Despite his countless acts

of rape, deception, and infidelity,

the king of the gods was not

seen as a villain. In his dialogue

Euthyphro, the ancient Greek

philosopher Plato declared, “Do not

men regard Zeus as the best and

most righteous of the gods?” ■

Athena springs from a gash in Zeus's

head, in a scene decorating an amphora

(ca.500 bce) from Attica, Greece.

Behind Zeus, Prometheus holds the axe

that made the wound.

Asteria in the form of

a quail flew across the sea,

with Zeus in pursuit.

Library

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