ZEUSThe divine couple
Although Hera was famously jealous, her worshippers
stressed the importance of marriage, and some artists
portrayed her and Zeus as a tender, loving couple.The three Graces
The three Graces accompanied Aphrodite and Eros.
They brought people happiness, especially in love,
and their breath helped plants flourish.
ZEUS AND HERA
Zeus took his sister, Hera, the goddess of marriage, as his wife.
Hera had been ignored when the great gods Zeus, Poseidon, and
Hades divided up the cosmos between them, so marrying Zeus
and ruling the sky as his consort gave her the power she had
been denied. Most of the stories about Hera recount the jealousy
she felt at her husband’s afairs and the vendettas she launched
against her rivals. When Io was transformed into a cow, Hera
sent a fly to sting her perpetually and drive her mad. When the
goddess Leto was expecting Zeus’s children, Hera banned her
from giving birth on the mainland or on any island. She tricked
Semele into demanding that Zeus appear to her in all his glory.
When he agreed reluctantly, Semele was burned to ashes by his
powerful thunderbolt. Hera also persecuted the ofspring of
Zeus’s afairs, including Dionysus and the hero Heracles, whom
she drove insane – as a result of which he killed his own wife
and children in a fit of madness. However, the effects on
Hera’s victims were rarely permanent.THE MUSES
The daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne were the Muses,
who presided over the arts and were associated with Apollo
in his role as the god of the arts. There were originally said
to be many Muses, who together inspired poetry and other
arts, but later writers named nine, giving each a specific art.
The nine Muses were Calliope (Muse of poetic inspiration),
Clio (history), Erato (lyric poetry), Euterpe (instrumental
music), Melpomene (tragedy), Polyhymnia (harmony),
Terpsichore (dance and choral song), Thalia (comedy), and
Urania (scholarship or astronomy). The Muses were said
to dwell on mountains, where their singing and dancing
charmed and inspired all those who encountered them.The Muses with ApolloTHE CHILDREN
OF ZEUS
Zeus had dozens of children by
his various partners, and some
of these ofspring had prominent
parts in other Greek myths – either
as immortals who ruled diferent aspects of the cosmos,
or as heroes whose exploits became famous among mortals.
Zeus and his wife, Hera, were the parents of deities such
as Ares (the god of war) and Hebe (the handmaiden of the
gods). Hermes was the product of his union with Maia, and
his afair with Metis resulted in the birth of Athena.
With Leto, Zeus fathered the twin deities Apollo and
Artemis, while with Eurynome he produced the three
Graces. His liaison with the Titaness named Mnemosyne
(memory) produced the Muses, and his afair with Ananke
produced the Fates. Among his mortal loves, Europa was
the mother of Sarpedon (a hero of the Trojan War), Minos
(the King of Crete), and Rhadamanthus (who became a
judge of the dead). Danaë gave birth to the hero Perseus,
while Alcmene was the mother of the famed Heracles.^19