The Tales of Zeus, Poseidon and Hades

The Tale of Zeus

Zeus is the Olympian god of the sky and the thunder, the king of all other gods and men, and, consequently, the chief figure in Greek mythology. The son of Cronus and Rhea. Usually, Zeus is portrayed with a scepter in one hand and a thunderbolt in the other – both symbols of his authority. Considered the ruler of heavens and the governor of weather, Zeus was also associated with wisdom and awareness, with authority and destiny, with battles and power paradoxically, Zeus is both the youngest and the oldest son of Cronus and Rhea. Namely, soon after the Creation of the world, the then-ruler of the Gods Cronus – who had learned that one of his children would overthrow him – swallowed Zeus' three sisters and two brothers at birth: Demeter, Hera, Hestia, Hades, and Poseidon. Zeus would have been eaten himself if Rhea hadn't slipped Cronus a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes in his place, hiding her youngest child in a cave on the Cretan Mount Ida.

There, Zeus was raised by nymphs and met his first wife, Metis – or Wisdom. On her advice, he masked himself as an Olympian cupbearer and tricked his father into drinking poisoned wine. The wine made Cronus vomit so much that he ultimately disgorged Zeus' siblings – intact and ready for revenge. This, their second birth, made the youngest among them – Zeus – actually their oldest brother. Thus, they had no problem in acknowledging his authority. Led by him – and helped by the one-eyed Cyclopes and the hundred-handed Hecatoncheires (Zeus freed all of them from Cronus' imprisonment) – the siblings overthrew Cronus and the Titans during a decade-long war called the Titanomachy.

Zeus and his brothers drew lots to share the world between them. Poseidon got the sea, Hades the underworld, and Zeus the sky. Finally, Zeus was crowned to be the Ruler of all Gods and Men, referred to universally as Father.

However, Zeus didn't get off to a great start. His grandmother Gaia was angry at him for imprisoning the Titans, so she summoned her children, the Gigantes, to avenge her. Another war followed – the Gigantomachy – but the Olympians prevailed once again. This enraged Gaia even more, so she gave birth to Typhoeus, a giant fire-blowing serpentine monster, so mighty that even Zeus needed some help (from Hermes and Pan) to defeat him after a cataclysmic battle.

As a young ruler, Zeus was apparently too prideful and petulant. So, Hera, Poseidon and Apollo – and, maybe, everyone else but Hestia – decided to teach him a lesson. While he was sleeping, they stole his thunderbolt and bound him with hundred-knotted cords. Zeus was powerless, but the Nereid Thetis acted quickly and called Briareus, the Hecatoncheir, who used his hundred arms to untie him in a second.

Zeus brutally punished the three leaders of the rebellion (especially Hera), and they swore to never challenge him again.

Prometheus, however, did – first by stealing the divine fire and giving it to the mortals, and then by keeping away from Zeus the identity of a mortal woman whose future son was prophesized to become greater than his father.

Zeus chained Prometheus to a rock and tormented him for ages, but Prometheus stubbornly refused to reveal to him the secret. In the end, for reasons we don't know (because a large part of the play where this story is told is lost), the Titan did tell Zeus that the woman in question is Thetis, so the god stopped pursuing her and gave her to Peleus. The son born out of this marriage became a celebrated Greek hero - in fact, possibly the greatest among them all: Achilles.

According to Hesiod, Zeus had the very same problem with his first wife, Metis. Warned that their child may be a threat to him, Zeus decided to swallow his pregnant wife. Nevertheless, the child, fully grown and armored, was eventually born – but from the forehead of Zeus. It was none other than Athena, the goddess of wisdom herself.

Afterward, Zeus married Themis, who bore him the Horae and the Fates. His third wife was Eurynome, who brought the Charites to the world. His sister Demeter followed; she gave birth to Persephone. With his fifth wife, Mnemosyne, Zeus begot the Muses. After becoming Zeus' sixth wife, Leto became the mother of Apollo and Artemis.

Zeus' seventh and final wife was Hera. Knowing her sympathy for animals, he wooed her by transforming himself into a distressed little cuck. However, theirs would prove to be a bittersweet marriage, because Zeus, to say the least, was a promiscuous god. Bearing the shape of many different animals, he had numerous love affairs with many nymphs and mortals, which made Hera jealous.

The Tale of Poseidon

Poseidon is the violent and ill-tempered god of the sea. One of the Twelve Olympians, he was also feared as the provoker of earthquakes and worshipped as the creator of the horse. A hot-blooded deity, Poseidon had many disputes with both gods and men, most famously with Athena and Odysseus.

Oftentimes, he is depicted riding a four-horse chariot and wielding a trident over the waves. The trident is his most recognizable emblem, though his son, Triton, carries one as well. It is said that Poseidon struck a rock with his trident to create the very first horse, Skyphios. During the Gigantomachy, the god used the trident to break off a piece of the island Kos, under which he subsequently entombed the Giant Polybotes. This piece became today's island Nisyros.

Poseidon was the second son of Cronus and Rhea (after Hades) and their penultimate child (before Zeus). Like all of his siblings aside from Zeus, Poseidon was swallowed by Cronus at birth and, thanks to Zeus, afterward disgorged unharmed.

However, some say that Rhea managed to hide Poseidon from his father's rage as well – either in a flock of lambs in Arcadia or in Rhodes to be raised by Oceanus' daughter Capheira and the Telchines.

Poseidon had a very violent character, Impulsive and hot-blooded, he couldn't put up with Zeus' arrogant behavior as a ruler. So, he teamed up with Hera and Athena to teach him a lesson. However, with the help of Thetis and Briareus, Zeus overpowered his challengers.

As punishment, he sent Poseidon and Apollo to serve the Trojan king Laomedon, for whom they built the vast, beautiful walls surrounding Troy. However, when the time came, Laomedon refused to pay them. As a result, Poseidon – even against the advice of Zeus – fought on the Greek side during the Trojan war, sending a sea monster named Cetus to torment the Trojans.

Even so, the narcissist that he was, Poseidon destroyed the fortifications built by the Greeks, firmly believing that his walls are the only buildings of the type worthy to remain. And, mad at him for blinding his son Polyphemus, he had a decade-long feud with one of the greatest Greek heroes, Odysseus.

The god of the sea was also greedy – especially when it came to earthly kingdoms. Once, he even wanted to obtain Athens from Athena, claiming that the city would have much more benefit from him than her. To prove this, he struck his trident into a rock, creating a seawater stream which welled up in the Temple of Erechtheion on the north side of the Acropolis. Athena, in turn, planted an olive tree. Cecrops, the first king of Athens, decided that Athena's gift was more useful since it gave fruit, wood, and oil. Athena kept Athens, and ever since then, the olive branch is a universal symbol of peace.

To trick Demeter who turned into a mare to reject his advances, the god transformed himself into a stallion. Afterward, Demeter gave birth to the nymph Despoena and the talking horse Arion. With Amymone, Poseidon fathered Nauplius; with Aethra ­– the divine hero Theseus. The list goes on and includes hundreds of consorts and at least as many children.

Amphitrite, a Nereid, was Poseidon's faithful wife throughout. She didn't want it at the beginning, though. In fact, she fled to the Atlas Mountains to escape the god of the sea. However, Poseidon sent Delphinus to win her. Honey-tongued Delphinus did the job in flying colors. As a favor, Poseidon set his image among the star: the constellation Dolphin.

The Tale of Hades

Hades is the Ancient Greek god of the Underworld, the place where human souls go after death. In time, his name became synonymous with his realm. It has to be said unsurprisingly – since he barely left it. Appropriately, the most significant myth related to Hades concerns one of the very few times he did – to abduct Demeter's daughter, Persephone.

As the ruler of the dead, Hades was a grim and ghastly figure, inspiring awe and terror in everybody. Consequently, he was rarely depicted in art. When he was, he was most commonly portrayed with a beard, and a solemn, mournful look. He frequently wears a helmet, named the Helm of Darkness or the Cap of Invisibility. Cerberus, the three-headed dog which guarded the entrance to the Underworld, is usually beside him. Every so often he carries a scepter or holds the key to his kingdom. At a later stage, he became associated with his weapon of choice, the bident, a two-pronged fork modeled after Poseidon's trident. Hades was the fourth child of the Titans Cronus and Rhea (after Hestia, Demeter, and Hera), both the oldest and the youngest male sibling. In other words, he was the first of the three brothers (Hades, Poseidon, Zeus) to be born and swallowed by his father, but the last one to be regurgitated.

After being rescued by Zeus from the belly of Cronus, Hades joins him in the Titanomachy. Eventually, the decade-long war ends with a victory for the Olympians. Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus cast lots to decide who of the brothers will rule which domain. Hades gets the underworld.

Since Hades was a fearsome deity who rarely left his kingdom, there are very few myths about him in Ancient Greek sources.

By far the most important myth is Hades' abduction of Persephone, Demeter's daughter. That was one of the few times Hades traveled above ground. The reason, naturally, was love: he fell for Persephone. However, Persephone didn't want to give in easily, so Hades devised an ingenious ploy. As Persephone was gathering flowers with her maidens at the Nysian plain, he caused an indescribably beautiful flower to suddenly bloom before her. When Persephone reached out to pluck it, the ground under her opened and Hades appeared before her, all dreadful and majestic in his four-horse golden chariot and took her with him to the Underworld.

Demeter, the goddess of fertility, was so distressed at the absence of her daughter, that she started fasting and wandering aimlessly. Finally, after nine days, Hecate told her what happened. After the All-Seeing Helios confirmed the event, Demeter left Olympus as an act of protest against the injustice done to her.

With her gone, the earth was as barren and infertile as a desert. One year passed, and the gods started worrying that the famine would wipe out humanity. So Zeus sent all the gods, one by one, to beg Demeter to come back, promising her all kinds of gifts and functions. She wanted none; the only thing she wanted was to see her daughter once again.

So, Zeus had no choice but to send Hermes to Hades with the request that he return Persephone to Demeter. He complied, but only after making Persephone eat one pomegranate seed before leaving. This ensured that she would remain bound to his kingdom eternally.

Now, both sides had no choice but to accept Zeus' compromise: Persephone would spend two-thirds of the year with her mother, but one-third of it with Hades. And this is the part of the year which corresponds with the winter months: they say that Demeter retreats from Olympus to her temple at Eleusis to grieve the absence of Persephone.

It's possible that Hades and Persephone didn't have any children. However, some say that Zagreus may have been their son. Macaria is also claimed to have been Hades' daughter – but no mother is mentioned.