The Real Story of Zeus is DARKER Than You Think

this episode is brought to you by Nordstrom for 125 years Nordstrom has been part of your story the stylist who found the perfect outfit for your big interview the first pair of walking shoes for your one-year-old the tomato soup you shared with your sister at the cafe these are the moments that make Nordstrom Nordstrom big or small we're here for all of it celebrating 125 years with new moments still add discover it all in Nordstrom stores and at nordstrom.com for thousands of years he's been the terrifying all-powerful in ruthless king of the gods we even named the biggest planet in our solar system after him and we're still telling his story today in books and on podcasts and even on the big screen this is the story of Zeus he's one of the most enormous figures in all of human history a God who survived thousands of years across peoples and cultures and continents the star of the oldest poem in the world that we have the feared god of gods and of mortals the name of his temple is still celebrated all across the world every four years when the greatest athletes alive gather for the games that we named after it a figure so massive that he still reigns not from a mountain anymore but from somewhere even more powerful our cultural imagination but what makes him such a fascinating mystery who is this all-powerful king of the skies really where did he come from and why after all this time after the empires that worshiped him crumbled into dust are we still so obsessed with his story well today we're gonna walk through the entire tale from the child hidden away on a secret island to the cosmic war where he overthrew the Titans to the moment he's handed the most famous weapon in all of mythology the lightning bolt we're gonna unpack all of it and find out who this impossible god Zeus really is if you're interested in Greek mythology in Greek history well this is the episode for you so sit back relax and welcome to history camp what's up people and welcome back to history camp my name is Mark Gagnon and thank you for joining me in my tent where every single Wednesday we explore the most interesting fascinating controversial stories from all history from all time forever yes that is what I do here is I try to figure out everything that's ever happened I don't know if you're weird like me I just want to know what's going on right I hear a name like Napoleon or Genghis Khan or Attila the Hun and I'm like I kind of know about them but who were they really and why are they so important well today's episode is going to have a little bit of a different flavor because we are talking about a historical figure kind of I don't know if you're like me but I've been super obsessed with the Iliad and the Odyssey lately and throughout all of my readings and watchings of you know the film and the books and all that stuff I was like what's up with Zeus did people really worship him was he like God and how long did they worship him for and where did his whole story even come from like what is the essence of this character was it based on like a real king or was it just a thing was it something that was made up by priests like what is the actual Genesis of this religion and of course this God within the religion and why is he so important to us today well great news for you we're going through all that and it actually is going to probably contextualize a little bit of the Odyssey for you if you saw the movie or even if you saw our other episodes on it once you understand Zeus and like the whole backstory you're going to be like oh the Odyssey got way more interesting he's got to understand the audience that was originally listening to the Odyssey by some rhapsode or a Bard somewhere they knew who Zeus was they worshiped him so when they heard stories about Zeus they were like yep that's old Zeus that makes sense a lot of stuff that we lose contextually so don't worry we're going to break all that down but before we go any further I want to say thanks to you dude yeah I want to say thanks for tuning in because every time you click on an episode you like comment any of that good stuff you help the show grow you tell the algorithm like yo Mark and Christos are doing a pretty good job more people should watch this you keep the lights on the tent and you keep the fire burning here at the campsite now I can't go any further without giving a shout out to the Greek freak himself my personal Zeus my good pal Christos how are you my friend it's a very special episode sorry I don't know all the words okay I'm trying but a faristo for your help I forgive you thank you now today Christos you're gonna need to yap the day has come finally they caught the comments I don't care what they say all right we need Christos to help me with pronunciation because you speak Greek and I obviously don't a lot of people like Miles I don't know no Chris does no no no no of course Miles is better in every way but on this episode when we're talking about Zeus we need you we'll see so where do we start with Zeus okay this is a wild story with a wild history and uh goes deep into understanding Greek society and uh yeah all the stories that we have about Zeus are crazy but before we get into any of that I want to start by breaking down the significance of just his name because honestly the story of his name tells us a lot about who we're dealing with even before you read any of the stories right Zeus isn't just a Greek word in fact linguists have traced it all the way back to an ancestor language that is called proto-indo-european which seems like a mouthful you can see why the language kind of died out it's a lot now this language was spoken thousands of years before Greek even existed if you can imagine a time that there was no Greece I understand you no we were first now if such a thing was impossible where Greece wasn't a thing well this was the language that they spoke hey real quick most people who watch this channel aren't subscribed and when you subscribe you help the channel grow and you stay in the loop with every new drop religion camp history camp and camp Gagnon now let's get back to it now in this ancient language there was a word dieus and it meant something like bright shining daytime sky right it is the same exact root it is that root that travels forward through the centuries reshaping as it goes until it becomes Zeus for the Greeks and then even further down the line it'll become the name Jupiter for the Romans but we'll get into that later so the thread that traveled across history was the root of the name plus a very broad and important idea the god of the sky right deus deus or however you pronounce it that is the big blue skies and Zeus is the god of that but everything else like the personality the myths the wars the drama that we're about to explain in detail all of that got built by Greek storytellers after the fact over the course of like centuries in a specifically Greek world which is why it's like a little too simple to be like oh Zeus was copied from like an older pre-greek God or something like that that's just not what the evidence shows but and this is cool we can actually see the ancient version of Zeus pop up in historical records like centuries before famous poets like even Homer would write about him he even shows up in the oldest form of Greek that we can read it's called linear B and it's used by the mycenaean civilization all the way back in the Bronze Age and these records are basically like ancient accounting to be honest it's like pretty boring I was looking at it and it's like an inventory list and like debts and how much olive oil needs to get shipped to this town and how many sheep some guy had but scattered across those tablets is a name Daiwi which is the name of Zeus and it's one of the most important names in Greek mythology which is one of the iterations of Zeus so even all the way back then in the accounting records Zeus is there and he's already a part of civilization and already getting offerings more than 3 000 years ago but here's the thing that the tablets don't show there's no backstory or lore or Thunderbolts or any of that stuff right it's just like okay one sheep goes to the no Dawi and you know that's it now how does Zeus make the leap from being a vague God in the sky that gets a sheep from some farmer to the beating heart of an entire religion a whole Pantheon and of course several books and movies well it happens slowly as these scattered Greek-speaking communities would grow and trade and would tell stories to one another about one another their local gods started merging and sharpening into these shared figures and of course Zeus the sky daddy himself rose to the top of the pile and so by the time that the great poets were you know writing and sharing stories he wasn't a distant name he was the God that the Greeks would pray to and they would pray for rain over their crops and protection over their cities they prayed to him for a ton of different things I mean he's he's the god daddy he's the one so they swore their most sacred oaths in his name like if you were doing a thing you'd be like hey swear on Zeus and you'd be like all right fine I won't lie like they would pour out wine to him before meals like they built altars to him and their Thrones they gathered by the thousands at his temple to sacrifice in his honor which is kind of funny because even to this day we still pour one out for our homies but all the way back then they were like all right a glass for you a glass for you and one for old Zeus dog kind of cool humans don't really change that much now we're going to talk about all the stuff about like the technical side of worshiping him but what's interesting is that that is the Zeus that they worshiped like in the ancient religion is like you know the Zeus of you know crops and fertility and stuff like that but the Zeus of stories like the one with war and Thrones and like family dramas that's a whole other beast so where does that Zeus come from well we're going to talk about him first we will definitely get another episode on how the ancient Greeks got their whole Pantheon and all the gods and goddesses Athena and all that stuff but for now we're going to stay focused on just Zeus and real quick just to give a little context on the Greek religion and their gods and all that stuff because without the framework Zeus is basically impossible to follow so for starters there was no single official book that told them how or what to believe like Christians have the Bible Muslims have the Quran like the ancient Greek world didn't really have that I mean they did technically have the Bible in a way but that's neither here nor there there was no central authority deciding which version of a myth was like the correct one there was no like central Pope that was telling everyone like oh the Zeus did that that's actually not true the Greek religion a living sprawling thing and it was different in different cities and told by different poets and across different centuries, all of them overlapping and even sometimes contradicting each other about the same gods. And so when we say the myth of Zeus, what we really mean is like a bunch of different accounts that don't always agree. But there are two sources who write about Zeus that tower over all the rest. And those are the ones that have been used over and over to really paint this picture for us across history. And the first is a poet named Hesiod. He wrote around 700 BC and his poem is called Theogony, which basically means like the birth of the gods. And that's exactly what it is. The poem is about a cosmic family tree that starts at the very beginning of literally everything and works its way all the way down to Zeus taking the throne. So if you want to learn the origin story and the war and like the book of Genesis of Zeus, if you will, you're going to want Hesiod. Now, the second source, is none other than Homer, the guy who wrote the Iliad, the Odyssey, even if it was a real guy or a collection of people, no one really knows. But assuming it's a real guy, and if you saw the full episode on the Iliad or the Odyssey, you already know kind of like the world he was writing and what he was writing about. But here is the fascinating part. Both Hesiod and Homer wrote Zeus in different ways. Hesiod gives Zeus like the vibe of like a young revolutionary, like he's fighting to build the universe and all that stuff. But Homer gives Zeus like an adage, like he's running a world that already exists. It's there. He's spending his days like breaking up fights and grieving over war and that kind of stuff. So one poet will tell you how Zeus rose to power. And then the other one shows you how brutal it was to keep that power. And remember that for later, because we're going to come back to that. But for now, let's go all the way back before Zeus, the Titans, anything, and we'll go to the very beginning. And this is, of course, according to Hesiod, all that there was in the world was chaos. If you hear the word chaos, you're probably thinking like noise or stuff flying everywhere. But the Greek meaning of chaos was actually the opposite. It just meant that things were quiet and empty, which is hilarious. That the Greeks were like, oh man, chaos, peace and quiet. That's the most Greek thing I've ever heard. Well, we live in chaos, so. That's what I'm, no, you don't live in chaos. You live in harmony where plates are breaking everywhere and people are flinging towels over their head. That's harmony? For Greeks? Yes. Chaos for Greeks is like, a quiet restaurant where everyone's like cutting, like a French restaurant. Well, it's opposite there. The Greeks are the opposite people, right, Christos? Am I wrong on that? And the best. The Greeks like a party and they like noise. So the idea of the universe being quiet, they're like, oh man, this chaos is just brutal. So this is the void that existed before anything had shape. It wasn't a storm, but literally it was absence. And then out of that emptiness comes the first beings. So first we have Gaia, that is the earth. And then you have Tartarus, a bottomless abyss, buried far below the world, like a cosmic dungeon that we'll be coming back to. Just remember Tartarus, 'cause that's gonna be important. And then of course you have Eros. This is desire. This is the force that pulls things together and it makes new things. And it's like the energy, the life force behind all things. And notice these aren't places. Like Gaia, even though she is earth, she's not the planet earth, right? She's a person. She's a divine feminine being. The earth, that thinks and feels and schemes. It's a living female deity. That's also the earth. Does that make sense? So remember that because that is central to the whole religion. Now, Gaia gives birth to Uranus. Uranus, not a pun, actually Uranus, that is the starry sky. And then the skies settle over the earth and the two of them actually become the first couple. Now notice really quick what the Greeks are doing. The universe doesn't start with a creator outside the religion being like, let there be light, bang, everything exists, giving orders. It starts with the world, like generating itself. It is birthing its own next generation. And the cosmos is most importantly a family. And if you know anything about families, they fight a lot. So Gaia and Uranus or Uranus, they have a ton of children together, which is already kind of weird because you're like, okay, Gaia was first and then Gaia creates Uranus. And then the two of them are married and they have kids. Look past that. It was a different time. Okay. Some of their children are extraordinary. So the Titans, which are the elder gods. And then of course the Cyclopses, the one-eyed giants, and then the strangest maybe of all. And Christos, I'm going to need help with this. Okay. The pronunciation that I have is Hecatonicaries. What do you got? That's good enough for me. Nice, dude. I was able to get Christos. So the strangest of all of them is these Hecatonicaries. These are the hundred handed ones. They are these like beings that are beyond monstrous. Like they're so scary that even the gods are afraid of them and they each have 50 heads and as per the name, a hundred arms. And then there is the first crack in the cosmic family. Uranus looks at some of his own children and he's horrified by them. So he does something pretty gnarly. He shoves them down and he traps them inside Gaia, inside the earth herself, and then refuses for them to be born. Kind of like, uh, I don't even know what you would call it. He basically is just like, you're unborn now. Like you were born, you exist. I'm scared of you. Back to mama. So the earth is now a prison for these creatures and she's now packed with like her own captive children and she can feel all of them. And as a result, Gaia is now in agony and she's pissed. So she makes a plan. She's like, you know what? I'm going to forge a weapon. And it said in mythology, a great jagged sickle. And she goes to her children, the Titans, and she asked them which of them is brave enough to use it against their own father. Now, of course, all of them are afraid, except for one, the youngest and the most ambitious of all the Titans is named Cronus and Cronus. Well, he has his own plan. Basically, Cronus takes the sickle from his mama, Gaia, and he waits. And then when Dada Uranus comes down to lie with Gaia the way that he always does, Cronus springs out of hiding and attacks his own father, castrates him, overthrows him and ends his reign as, you know, the male, like the chief, like daddy of everything. And he does it all in one stroke. So immediately the sky god Uranus, he's defeated and a new king takes his place. Now, before we go any further, we got to pause because this same instance is going to repeat like a bunch of times. The Greeks, along with basically a lot of other ancient cultures, they often use repetition in these stories to communicate something really important. If you've ever read the Bible, this is a common theme where things repeat and you're kind of like, all right, we heard this already. Well, there's. It's done to highlight how important it is, and they're going to drive the point home to make sure that the audience doesn't miss it. So Uranus tried to hold on to power by controlling his children, caging them, bearing them, refusing to let them rise, pushing them back into Mother Gaia in like a prison. Hey, guys, we're gonna take a break really quick, because if you know me, you know, I'm constantly trying to find the perfect level of stimulation. Yeah, I want enough energy at the beginning of the day to go to the gym, be a good dad and then record a three hour podcast about like ancient civilizations. 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And you would think, like, all right, we had this crazy thing, this child kills his dad, takes the throne, the story's gonna chill, right? Wrong. Because Cronus now has a problem. And he knows it. He knows exactly how he got the throne, how he took it from his own father with his own hands. And then Cronus hears a prophecy that one day, the same thing will happen to him. So now Cronus is like, all right, I have to do something to protect myself. So his wife, the titan Rhea, starts having children, beautiful, powerful gods, Hestia, Democritus, and then he's like, all right, I have to do something to protect myself. Hermeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, names that you've probably heard. These are like the first Olympians. And as each baby is born, Cronus takes the newborn and swallows it whole. Yeah, he's trying to prevent another rebellion against him. So five children swallowed alive, sealed away inside their own father so that none of them can ever grow up and take the throne. And this little detail is actually super important. He doesn't kill them. He can't. They're gods. They're not dead. They're alive. Which, I mean, if you can imagine immortality, that is way worse, right? Being immortal and condemned to live inside like a prison inside your own father. It's kind of abstract, but you get the point. Now, Rhea watches this happen five times. Five of her children immediately gone, and then she gets pregnant with her sixth child, and something in her just breaks. Like any mother who sees five of their children swallowed whole by their husband, they're going to be pissed. So she can't take it anymore. So what does she do? She runs. She runs. She runs. She runs. She runs. She flees to the island of Crete, a place that I've been to. I love Crete. I just got back. You were there? Yep. In Chania? Yeah. It's the old town. It's beautiful, right? Lovely. Maybe the best food in all of Greece. I'm willing to say it. I can attest. Wow. Even a mainlander saying it. Look at that. Now, she goes to Crete, and in secret, she gives birth to her sixth child. And then she pulls off a trick that changes, I don't know, the history of the whole universe. She wraps it in baby blankets and cradles it like it's a newborn, and then hands it to her husband, right? She kind of knows what's happening. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me five times, shame on me, right? Now, Cronus, very arrogant, paranoid, not really paying attention. He says, oh, thanks for the baby. Appreciate it. You had another kid. Swallows the whole thing whole, completely certain that he's just killed his sixth kid, not killed, swallowed whole. You get what I'm saying? Now, Cronus has no idea that he's been fooled and that his real child was hidden back on Crete. Now, who is it? It's Zeus himself. Yeah, baby. That is the birth story of Zeus. And somewhere on the island of Crete, far out of his father's reach, young baby Zeus is growing up with one purpose in mind. And I bet you can guess what it is. So Zeus is growing up on Crete, right? His dad doesn't know that he even exists. And then when he's grown, he finally comes back for a reckoning. But Zeus doesn't attack, not yet, at least, because Cronus is still the most powerful being in the whole universe. And Zeus alone doesn't really stand a chance. He needs an army. And he knows exactly where to find one. It's trapped inside his father's stomach. So instead of force, he starts being a little clever. And for the cleverness, he needs help. So first, he gets an ally. This is a goddess named Metis, whose name literally means like super smart, intelligent person. So she brews a potion, something to make Cronus violently sick. And together, they trick Cronus into drinking it. Now, does Cronus know that he's being played by his own hidden son? Well, in the oldest, versions of this story, not really. He doesn't even know that Zeus exists. So, you know, he swallowed a stone years ago. He thought that he swallowed up Zeus and he's in his belly with his other five kids. And that's what it is. So he takes the drink from this random guy and from this other god and his other goddess, rather, and it works. So first, all of a sudden, Cronus starts to projectile vomit. Up comes the stone, the one that Cronus ate, thinking that it was Zeus. And then one by one, up all the others, Zeus's brothers and sisters, like, I mentioned before, Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon, all alive, fully grown, and absolutely pissed that they had to spend their entire lifetime up until this point inside their father's stomach alive. So in a single move, Zeus didn't just reveal his own existence, but he freed an entire generation of gods who are now going to fight alongside him that are also his siblings. And every single one of them now owes their entire existence and life to Zeus. But of course, Zeus isn't done. So Zeus goes down deep into the cosmic dungeon and frees the ancestors of the old regime. Yes, you know who we're talking about. We're talking about the Cyclops, the other guy whose name is really hard to pronounce. Hecatonchires. Hecatonchires. You're doing great. Hecatonchires, I think is good. That's like the hundred-handed monster thing that's still been locked away all the way back from Uranus. Uranus. And in gratitude, the Cyclopses forge Zeus a gift. I bet you can guess what it is. What does Zeus need? He's trying to kill Cronus. The Cyclopses are going to forge something. It's going to be a weapon, something that no one has ever held before. It is a thunderbolt. And this is the moment where he starts to become the Zeus that we all know and love and worship him for. Why not, too? It's cool to know that he wasn't born without like with the thunderbolt. It's not like he was just like here. You're the god of the thunderbolt, right? It was not something that was like entitled to him. It was something bestowed upon him as a weapon of war forged by these super grateful prisoners that he freed. And Zeus is really going to need it because Cronus and the Titans aren't about to just like surrender the cosmos without a fight. And what's coming is the greatest war that the universe has ever seen. So this war is called Titanomachy. This is the war of the Titans. Everything Zeus becomes gets built like in this very moment. So here's the war. All right. You got Cronus on one side. He's, of course, the big daddy god. He's the one in charge of everything. And then, of course, he's got like some of his other homies, other Titans that are like the old military, the old government, you could think, right? This is like the reigning gods of the universe. They want to keep power at all costs. On the other side, you got his son, Zeus, that he thought that he swallowed. And then all the newly freed siblings. These are the young Olympians that were vomited out of the mouth of Cronus. And they're also backed by like monsters and cyclopses and all the new people, the one of revolution, right? And the war, according to the mythology, is devastating. And it's a fighting that is so violent, it cracks the foundations of the world. So the seas boil, the earth screams, the heat and the light is so intense. Like, it feels like the sky itself is crashing down. And it lasts for 10 years. And this like, total cosmic stalemate. And what finally breaks it are those guys whose names I don't know how to pronounce. The hundred handed people, those hundred handed, like terrifying monsters, they get involved. And those beings with 100 arms each, they're ripping entire mountains out of the ground. And they're going to be like, they're throwing them 300 boulders at a time. And storms of like stone coming out of the sky and bearing the Titans under like, this crazy weight. And then above it all, Zeus is just posted up raining down fire with his thunderbolts. The old regime finally breaks and Zeus and all of his homies, they win. So he takes the defeated Titans, and he locks them in Tartarus, the same bottomless dungeon sealed away, where they can never threaten him or. anyone else ever again. And here is why this whole war matters for understanding Zeus. His power isn't just handed to him. He didn't wait for his turn to rule because, well, it was never going to come. He had to make it happen. He had to go build a coalition, free prisoners, help out his siblings, beat the reigning old regime in a war, and then completely redraw the map of who holds power in the cosmos. It is a classic revolution. And that is why the Greeks treat his rule as legitimate. It wasn't something that he inherited. He wasn't born into it. I mean, technically, he was sort of born into it. But he was not like just given the throne. He conquered it fair and square. But of course, he hasn't secured it all the way. Because the earth, remember Gaia, she isn't finished. She's about to give birth to one final horror to test whether this young king actually can rule on his own. So real quick, a clarification that's important because a lot of retellings of this story actually like completely butchered this part. People tend to smash. Three totally separate things into like one blurry like gods versus the monsters brawl. They're not all the same thing. The Titans were the old divine generation. That was the great war, the Titanomachy, the war that we just talked about, right? That was ruled by their father. And then there's going to be a different later war called the Gigantomachy. This is where the Olympians are versing the giants. These are different stories. And then there's a third thing that's in a category on its own that also has its own war. And this is called Typhon. So after Zeus beats the Titans and that war is finally over, Gaia, the earth goddess herself, mother of everything, brings forth one last child from the pit of the cosmos. And Typhon is not like anything before him, depending on the telling. He's a towering monster whose head scrapes the stars with a hundred serpent heads, like writhing off of his shoulders and fire, flashing from his eyes and like just a horrifying chorus sounds that are pouring out of him all at once. He is the raw, untamed force of the universe manifest into a single, grotesque, terrifying being. And he has come for one reason, to kill Zeus and to take the throne before the new order can settle in. But Zeus meets him with the storm. So thunderbolt after thunderbolt, fire, lightning, the two of them are now like shaking the entire cosmos once again, until Zeus finally overwhelms the monster and casts him down. Now, later versions of this very story love to say that Typhon got buried under a mountain and that Mount Etna is the mountain that Typhon is buried under. Its eruptions are explained as the monster still raging underneath the earth, but that's like a later kind of flourish. It's not really in like the super, super ancient, like OG version. So just be aware of that, but it's a fun little thing, right? Now, what matters is that this victory happened and what the victory meant. So it's a fun little thing. means. Zeus doesn't beat Typhon with clever trickery or, you know, like making him drink a poison or something like that, like he did with his daddy Cronus. He beats him with the thunderbolt, with the storm itself from the get-go. It's just like straight up war. And that's kind of when the thunderbolt becomes iconic for Zeus. This episode is brought to you by Nordstrom. For 125 years, Nordstrom has been part of your story. The stylist who found the perfect outfit for your big interview. The first pair of walking shoes for your one-year-old. The tomato soup you shared with your sister at the cafe. These are the moments that make Nordstrom Nordstrom. Big or small, we're here for all of it. Celebrating 125 years with new moments still ahead. Discover it all in Nordstrom stores and at Nordstrom.com. Zeus and his kingship, right? The proof is, you know, the sign that he and only Zeus was meant to rule. He's now beaten his grandfather's fate. He's beaten his father's armies and killed his father himself. And he's beaten the last monster that the universe could actually throw at him. Now, once and for all, Zeus is finally a real king. And this, the triumphant god of the sky on his mountain, is exactly where most versions of this story stopped. But what's interesting is that this is not where the ancient Greeks stopped. Because winning the throne, it turns out, is the easy part. It is actually keeping the throne that is way, way harder. So when we say Zeus is like the who just kind of runs everything and it's his word is the law. And that's not really the Zeus that the Greeks tell us about. So if you notice how he rules in the myths, especially in Homer, which if you remember, is the side of Zeus that's older and like more of like an administrator. Olympias looks less like an empire and more like, like a royal court. So it's packed with like powerful nobles and all these different nobles and gods and goddesses. They all have their own agendas. And Zeus does not rule the world. He rules the world. He rules the world. He rules the world. He rules not control them. Like he's the king, but he's not in charge of what they do. And so there's all this plotting. So Poseidon, he has his own kingdom and his own pride. And Hera schemes against Zeus all the time. And then Athena and Apollo, they're all pushing and negotiating and trying to work around him. So Zeus, of course, is powerful. He's the most powerful by far. But the other gods also have their own free will. And he governs them through persuasion and negotiating and bargains. And he's dealt with like the endless, endless work of trying to manage all these other gods and goddesses ambition. So what he does is holds assemblies and cuts deals. And every so often, he has to raise his voice and remind the whole room like, hey, I could destroy you guys with a single thunderbolt. So stop messing with me, which is exactly what a ruler would have to do when his authority isn't secure. So trying to maintain the royal court of Olympus, that is a fight that Zeus can win. He can deal with that. He can manage all their egos, but there's a bigger fight that no one can win. Not even Zeus. And that is fate. So here's the question that sets us up here. And we kind of already touched on it, right? Is Zeus actually all powerful? We know that he doesn't control the other gods of Olympus, but does the king of the gods control everything else, even fate, which for the Greeks, fate is massively important, like this destiny, like this thing that's outside of you, sort of like the simulation that's running that you're kind of playing a role in. Is God, aka Zeus, inside that or outside that? And for the Greeks, they never really give us a clear answer. Sometimes Zeus seems to like control destiny in his hands and, you know, do things to manipulate destiny. Other times he's bound by destiny, unable to change what is fated, no matter what he does. One scene from the Iliad captures this better than anything else. So in the story, Zeus has a mortal son. His son's name is Sarpedon. He's a warrior that is fighting in the Trojan War. Zeus is watching from above and he knows that Sarpedon is fated to die in the coming. And it's tragic because Zeus loves him. So the king of the gods, the being who overthrew the Titans and crushed Typhon, rules the entire cosmos. He sits on his mountain and seriously considers reaching down to grab his own son and save him from death. But he doesn't because he understands what will happen if he does. If he starts overturning fate every time it is personally hurting him, then the whole order that he fought a war to build would fall apart. Every other god would demand the exact same for their children. And then the whole system collapses. The gods are now meddling with humanity too much. So Zeus, in one of like the most human moments, he grieves the death of his own son. The most powerful being in existence cannot save the person he loves. Rather, he can save the person he loves, but he chooses not to in order to maintain the harmony of the universe. And that is maybe the most interesting part of this. Because basically by manipulating humanity and fate, he can save the person he loves. And that's the most interesting part of it. He's now destroying the very thing that he's ruling over. And this is what the Greeks were trying to communicate through the story about power, that even at the very top, it comes with a price. And that's kind of what the gods of the sky look like from the top. But what do they look like from the ground to just like the average person that's in Athens who's praying to the gods every day? Because everything that we've covered so far is Zeus's mythology. It's like the epic story about Zeus. But there's another side of Zeus that needs to be talked about. This is the story that the Greek citizens actually worshipped day to day for basically a thousand years. And he was way more complicated than the god that we heard about in the stories, because the ancient Greeks didn't really pray to one singular Zeus. Let me explain. It was technically one Zeus, but like there were different manifestations of him that people would pray to depending on what they needed. They approached him through something called epithets, which were essentially like titles, like different cults kind of. And the list of those titles is actually really interesting because it's like, oh, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't it basically shows you what people needed God for and really what they were praying for. So first there is Zeus Keranios. This is the Zeus of the thunderbolt. This is the Zeus that everyone knows and loves. Can you hit me with the Greek on that? Keranios and Keranios thunder. Okay. Let's see. So that makes sense. And then you have Zeus Soter. This is Zeus, the savior, almost like the Messiah Zeus. How did I do on that one? That was perfect. Nice. And then of course you have Zeus Katabatis. This is the one who descends. This is the Zeus who comes down in the lightning strike. How was that one? Even better. And then there is Zeus Horcius. This is the Zeus of oaths. This is the God who looks at like all the sworn promises. So like if you break an oath, you don't just lie to a person, you're committing a crime against God. So like swearing on the Bible, this is when you're invoking Zeus Horcius. So to the ancient Greeks, they weren't just praying to a God. They were praying to a God. They were praying to the God of the sky. They could basically pray to Zeus for protection from storms or for the safety of their city or for like a promise to not get broken or for like a stranger. You know, he was basically stitched into every possible need that a person could have, but it wasn't just who they prayed to. It was where. So this is the really interesting part that you can kind of still see because the Greeks would build Zeus real places on earth that they could go pray. And two of them show you just how differently people experienced the same God. So first is, of course, Olympia. And here, Zeus's worship hits its peak. Olympia was a sanctuary of Zeus, and it was the home of the original Olympic Games. And here's the part that people don't always realize. The ancient Olympics, they were not like how we look at the Olympics today. It wasn't like a secular sporting event where people would run around. It was a proper religious festival. And just like today, it was held every four years in Zeus's honor, and it wasn't just like the Greek identity all into one sacred gathering. So the athletes weren't just chasing glory. They were literally competing to appease God, to appease Zeus. And at the center of all of it stood one of the most staggering works of art that maybe the ancient world has ever made. The sculptor Phidias built a colossal, like massive seated statue of Zeus. If you ever saw Hercules, this is what they're drawing on, where Hercules goes to Zeus, like the giant statue. It was literally, it was 40 feet tall, made of gold and ivory. And it just showed Zeus enthroned in like this beautiful majesty in his temple. It was so magnificent, it got named one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. And I would tell you to go see it now, but it's gone. Sorry. Ancient writers described standing in front of it and feeling like they were in the actual literal presence of God. Phidias didn't just sculpt what Zeus looked like. It's like he made Zeus. Everything converged at once. You had Zeus's political power, the religious authority, the Olympic games, like the festivals. and like the peak of Greek art and sculpture. It was all there at one place where just a normal citizen could stand and like be in the presence of God. But the second place couldn't be more different because at Olympia, Zeus is overwhelming, monumental, 40 feet tall, gold, ivory, all that stuff. Well, the next place, it was something that was literally the opposite. You had to go and be quiet and you had to listen. So it's called Dodona. It's in the region of Epirus and it's one of the oldest and most important oracle sites of Zeus in the entire Greek world. So forget everything that you're picturing. When we think Greek oracle, you're probably thinking like the oracle at Delphi, the famous prophetess in a trance and giving you like a cryptic riddle and like having visions. Well, Dodona was nothing like that. At Dodona, Zeus didn't speak in words, he spoke in sound. So there was a sacred oak tree and trained priests would basically go to the tree and interpret the rustling of its leaves in the wind. And they would, read the calls of the birds and nesting in the branches. So you'd have doves and you'd have pigeons and they would listen to the ringing of these bronze vessels like resonating in the breeze, like wind chimes. This was a God who communicated through the living world, through wind and wood and through animals and like the hum of like these metal chimes. It's almost like what you would think of almost like an Eastern religion, almost like Buddhism or like Shinto or something. So this wasn't a bunch of people standing around like listening to leaves. These were like authorized priests and interpreters reading the landscape of sacred signs. And the whole environment now turned into like a temple for Zeus. So if you close your eyes at Dodona, Zeus is all around you and it's murmuring through every natural sound. This is like very much like an animistic way to interpret God. This is kind of like how the native Americans did it, right? They would be like, God is in the trees, is in the mountains. This is where our gods reside. There's different gods. And if you listen, you can hear the messages. And that's the Zeus that people prayed to for storms and cities and for their fate at the, you know, whisper of like an oak. And then there's one title that I left off the list on purpose because there's not really any type of temple or anything that you can physically be in. And it's the strangest contradiction in Zeus's whole personality. And that title is Zeus Xenios, the protector of guests and of strangers. If you saw our episode on the Odyssey, then you've probably heard about this idea that's essentially the whole like heartbeat of that poem. And it's really more than that. It's one that centers on like the Greek identity. And it's the concept of Xenia or Filio Xenia. You pronounce it the Greek way. - Xenia or Filoxenia. - Xenia, Filoxenia, you say it so nice. Now this idea in the modern Greek really gets translated to like hospitality. But I think the word in English is too weak. Like Xenia is sacred. It is a binding code of friendship and love to strangers and to guests and to people that are in your space. That is a obligation with a very real meaning. So here's how it worked in the ancient Greek world. You're in your house, a stranger shows up and under this like divine contract of Xenia, you don't interrogate them. You don't demand to know who they are. You just take them in and you feed them and you offer them protection. You give them food and comfort. And first, before you even ask their name, you just try to help them. And in return, the guest is also bound by the same principle of Xenia. They have to respect the household. They have to never abuse the generosity and they have to return the favor if the day ever comes where they're in their home and someone shows up at their door. And the God enforcing that agreement is Zeus Xenios, which means that if you mistreat a stranger, it's not just rude. You're not just like, you know, being like an a-hole to him. It is like a sin. You're doing a religious crime. So if there's a beggar at your door, you might be turning away someone who's under the direct protection of Zeus himself. And the Greeks would tell stories like this all the time of gods walking the earth in disguise. They'd be wearing rags just to see who was being nice. And if you slam the door in their face, well, that was an issue. And this is why the Odyssey judges every household based on this one test. How do they treat the strangers who show up hungry? So Zeus is the great prophet. He's the great protector of that bond. And he's the God who upholds that entire obligation, which makes what we're about to talk about kind of impossible to square. Because in myth after myth, the God who guards this bond is also the one that's like breaking all the bonds that he's under. So try to make sense of this, okay? Zeus is the guardian of oaths, right? He's the protector of strangers, God of justice, order, all that stuff. It's very nice. But Zeus is also kind of, he's an asshole. Pardon my language here. I know this is a, you know, we're trying to be polite and educational, but he's sort of violent. And it sounds intense to say, but it's true. So like a huge share of Greek mythology's family tree exists because Zeus pursued and forced himself onto goddesses, even just regular women on earth through some type of deception. Like he transformed himself to get close to them and then like kind of gaslight them or like get them off, you know, keep them on their toes or catch them off guard. And then he would swoop in. Now, you'll usually see these stories retold as like romance, like, oh yeah, Zeus is like very seductive and charming. And they frame Zeus as like a womanizer and like a charming kind of like shape-shifter. But I don't know if it is actually that way, right? Like by modern standards, they read pretty poorly and sure it's a different time and context, but it's worth saying that, you know, even by ancient standards, they would be pretty disturbing. So how do you hold these things together? That the God who protects the bond between guest and host is also the God who is like violating these bonds of like marriage and family and life. - This episode is brought to you by Nordstrom. These are the moments that make Nordstrom, Nordstrom. Celebrating 125 years with new moments, we still add. - Like not to be all gay about it, but like consent. Well, you can't really. And that's sort of the point. The Greeks didn't build themselves a flawless God. They built a God who was power. Like literally power incarnates and power they understood is not the same thing as goodness. Like being powerful doesn't mean that you're all good. It just means that you can do whatever you want. Zeus is what unlimited authority looks like. And sometimes it's great and sometimes it's bad. He isn't the moral ideal, which again is something that the Christian sort of Western framework doesn't really handle well because we're like, no, God is all powerful and super moral and knows everything. Well, not Zeus. And nowhere is that clearer than in the last piece of the story. The one that we've kind of been inching around. And it's the one that Zeus has been running from since the moment he's born. The exact same curse that took down his father, and his father before him. So at this point, we've been all over Zeus' story. So really quickly, let's just review the trajectory of the curse of fate and remind ourselves ultimately what Zeus is most afraid of. Uranus feared his children and his children destroyed him or specifically one child. And Cronus, after taking out Uranus, fears his children. So he swallowed them whole and then got destroyed anyway by Zeus. And that is the iron law of the universe. The king is always overthrown by his own child. And no one knows that better than Zeus himself. So when Zeus' turn comes inevitably, or when it is coming, he's like, am I going to go out the same way? You know, like, is this going to happen to me? Am I going to be able to find a way out? Well, don't worry, here's what happened. Zeus takes a wife. Should I say his first wife? This is the goddess named Metis. And if you remember from earlier, she's the cunning goddess who helped Zeus actually trick Cronus into vomiting up his brothers and sisters. And then Zeus gets a warning that Metis will bear children of tremendous power. First a daughter and then a son. Now the son is fated to overthrow his father and take the throne, just like all the great gods before him. So it seems like at this point, Zeus is destined to be, you know, the same as Cronus and as Uranus. But Zeus does something different than either of them in order to try to get out of this curse. While Uranus imprisoned his threat and then Cronus swallowed his threat, Zeus goes further, further than either of them. So while Metis is pregnant, Zeus swallows Metis herself before the son can ever be born. Now keep in mind, Metis was already pregnant, but at this point with the daughter. So sometime later, Zeus is hit with a monstrous headache. Literally, he's just like, "Oh man, my brain hurts." And out of his own skull springs forth a full grown, fully armored goddess screaming a war cry. And this is the birth of. Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war. And she's the only child that Metis and Zeus end up having. So instead of fighting the threat from the outside, Zeus made it impossible for the threat to even take root. So his dangerous son is never even born. And just like that, bada-bing, Zeus breaks the cycle of fate and destiny. But there is one last part of the story that just shows how he learned this lesson for good. Later, Zeus falls for a sea goddess named Thetis. And he's. you know, ready to chase her the way that he's chased so many others. But a prophecy reaches him just then. in time any son born to thetis is once again fated to be greater than his father so this is the curse this is fate it just continues to follow zeus he can't escape it and so zeus just stops he's like hey if i have a kid with you that kid's gonna grow up kill me take me out i don't want that to happen so he basically marries thetis off to a mortal man and then they have a son but remember her son will be greater than his father but now the father is a mortal so the greater son is simply just the greatest of all mortals and you already know his name his name is achilles he is famously zeus's favorite man but he's technically not his son right he married thetis off to a regular human and their son is achilles so anyway zeus sees the curse coming and he steps out of the way and he wins again and he's able to keep his throne but the story of zeus doesn't end on olympus a god that is this big doesn't just fade away right so what actually happens to zeus well depending on how you look at it he gets conquered so when rome swallowed up the greek world the romans looked at their own sky daddy and this is a god that they named jupiter and they basically said hey that's the same guy that's zeus zeus and jupiter these are the same people and just like that they folded the entire greek mythology into roman religion so all of zeus's stories his imagery his children his affairs all of that gets poured into jupiter and carried straight into the heart of the roman state and here's what people don't realize the romans didn't just borrow zeus like in some ways they took zeus and then added onto it and they made zeus even bigger because to the romans jupiter aka zeus remember these are the same people jupiter wasn't just a character in old stories he was the divine guardian of rome they called him jupiter optimus maximus literally the best and the greatest they built him a massive temple on the capitolian hill the religious center of the entire city where he ruled alongside his wife juno and his daughter minerva the roman version of like hera and athena generals marched to his temple in triumph after they won wars the most sacred oaths of the entire roman state they were sworn in the name of jupiter he wasn't just the god of the sky daddy he was the god of the sky anymore he was the god of rome and its power and its military and its victories like the the entire and identity whatever the greek identity surrounded around and how they made zeus the focal point jupiter was the same thing if not greater to the roman people so in a way zeus didn't die when the greek world faded he just changed and you know put on a roman toga and just kind of kept on ruling it's one way to interpret it and that's kind of what makes zeus interesting throughout all of this like the whole story he never really settled into one shape he just kind of got carried over from different people and different things got added on like think about how many versions of him we've already talked about in this episode there's the zeus scratched into like bronze age clay and then there's his odds like version of zeus that's like the young revolutionary that like fights his dad there's a cosmic war and then of course you have homer's version of zeus that is like the administrator that kind of keeps everything going he's the father that cries over his own son's death the zeus who's like you know tricking his father the zeus who beats the titans the zeus that's literally whispering in the trees at the donna the 40-foot version of zeus that's you know crafted by the master sculptors of their day and you could argue that the new version of zeus is jupiter the roman state god that presides over the entire empire there's not one zeus there is an ever-changing multi-layered version of zeus that is stacked and iterated over thousands and thousands of years so what a massive god and an insane story to try to squeeze into one episode any part of the story could honestly be an isolated version and scholars have written literally entire books on just one little section we've talked about you have the revolutionary the king that tries to hold together a court the giant uh you know statue of gold and ivory all of them are zeus i mean jupiter they're all zeus and most gods don't get that most gods kind of rise with the people and then when the people get conquered or dispersed like the gods fall and you know they were they get worshiped for you know a couple decades maybe a few centuries if they have a good run and then they're forgotten but what's crazy is that for zeus like for thousands of years basically 3 000 years if you really want to be generous he just continued to change and every era that met him they made their own versions right like the greeks the romans the poets the philosophers the sculptors each one handed their version of zeus down to the next and when they passed it on they maybe added to it a little bit and here's the thing we're not apart from this like we are a part of this i am in a way a part of this because i'm continuing to tell his story and you are continuing to listen like literally he's the biggest planet in the solar system jupiter he's in movies and books and video games like the word olympian alone is a term that we hand to our greatest athletes every four years at games that now are secular but still carry over the tradition and the ethos of zeus so you know we don't worship zeus anymore but we didn't really let zeus go zeus has been living in human imagination since before recorded history and in a way still here kind of right i mean still present and still relevant and maybe still ruling and maybe that is the god like truly the only god who really became immortal and that is why so many people around the world specifically the greeks they see zeus as the immortal king and that ladies and gentlemen is a brief history on who zeus is how he got his name how he got his role and why he is so important to greek literature history and mythology i mean crazy right there's a couple little parallels here between like christianity and uh greek mythology or like you know god giving up his own son on earth and like zeus this episode is brought to you by nordstrom for 125 years nordstrom has been part of your story the stylist who found the perfect outfit for your big interview the first pair of walking shoes for your one-year-old the tomato soup you shared with your sister at the cafe these are the most important parts of your life and i hope you enjoy the rest of your journey and i look forward to hearing what you have to say about it and i hope to see you in the next episode of nordstrom these are the moments that make nordstrom nordstrom bigger small we're here for all of it celebrating 125 years with new moments still had discover it all in nordstrom stores and at nordstrom.com just watching his son you know get killed in the trojan war and like grieving over him it's like one little thread but there's so many interesting things about like how zeus just like kind of got away from fate like he didn't stop fate but he was able to like work around it fate is like hey chronos kills uranus you kill cronus your kid will kill you it's done it's gonna happen and he was like well what if i just don't have any more babies and then fate's like well i didn't really think of that which kind of shows like he is all powerful kind of you know like he could mingle with with fate which actually that might be my favorite part of this whole thing looking because there i think there's even parallels with like modern religion today they're like oh if god is so powerful why doesn't he just like stop war why doesn't he just like intervene it's like hey we have free will and even the greeks knew this when talking about zeus hey your son is going to go into the trojan war and he's going to die that's really sad right but if you mingle with this and you like get involved and you save your son well guess what you are going to now be stopping free will and if you stop free will then this whole creation that you're the god over all of a sudden stops to me i'm like oh that's again it's not as sophisticated as like modern sort of understandings and explanations of like god's divinity and free will and how they intersect but it is an interesting thread that even you know 2500 years ago 3 000 years ago the greeks were talking about like yeah god just can't come in and like intervene on free will sure he could stop war but how do you stop war you have to come in to a general or to a dictator to a president and be like hey i'm going to change your free will i'm going to change what it means for you to be human in order to achieve my own ends and if that's the case then it's like well reality is now a moot existence because free will is now taken away and that is ultimately like the presiding thing within christianity that makes human beings so significant and why everything kind of makes sense is because christians believe in free will and it seems like the greeks also had a high premium on free will as well fascinating anything you learned christos the greek freak a couple of things actually what's that it's amazing how time changes what swallowing your kids means first of all that is a great point that i didn't even think about you dirty dog i've been thinking about it since the start of the episode a second i i wondered aloud for a second when i was dumb that like why achilles has powers if he's not actually zeus's son right and it's because his mother was a sea nymph who was a divine mother right so that's the powerful she's a goddess right that at one point was loki with zeus so like i guess technically no but like if they're married like zeus is like i guess now zeus is kind of the stepdad yeah but not the biological dad right and that's what makes achilles and that's why achilles is so bad and that they're apparently achilles gets dunked in the river right and is given like uh impenetrable like immortality everywhere except his heel kind of awesome yeah the name of the sculptor i can't remember his name that made the 40-foot statue phidias yep that guy's awesome yeah i mean we don't know what it looks like because it's no longer in existence but the ancient writers were like hey gold ivory 40 feet tall badass that's pretty sweet also that second location yes not the first the one where you like you hear zeus torna and ipiro which is where my father's from no way yep how far from athens six hours no it's far but you can still go there yep have you been yep no way that's where one of the properties that i tried to salvage is no way yeah that's awesome yep so you have if you go there or do they do like historical kind of like reenactments where they're like hey this is like the temple of zeus in the wilderness i don't know i'm embarrassed but i've never looked into it brother i didn't know about that until just now i have great news you're gonna go back to greece again soon i'd love to and i'm coming with you i'll see you later and we're going on a tour of dorana and we're also going to go to olympus and we're going to hit all these spots so we can figure out what's going on i can leave right now all right well we have to we have some other stuff to do yeah but then eventually we will sure what do you guys think are you a practitioner of the temple of zeus do you currently still worship him if i do if you do i apologize if i was uh offensive or or uh sacrilegious in any way now if you are a greek historian you understand the mythology and the pantheon of the greek gods and goddesses anything i missed anything that i didn't cover or anything that you learned or any connections that you've got from this that you can tie to other things like religions or parts of history or even in the iliad and the odyssey that now make more sense that contextualize much many more things again looking at zeus is like oh you're the god of xenia phileo xenia xenia xenia phileo xenia if you are the god of that like you can see why the odyssey is like him just watching over being like yo what you guys gonna do are the greeks as hospitable as greek mythology would make you believe so hospitable the most they're not gonna be happy about it but they will take care of you they oblige the airbnb that i was staying at a lady that never met me before washed my clothes i had the same experience and i i assumed it's because like i'm a tourist or like oh because like i'm an american we tip because we don't know how things work i assumed they were being nice to me because they were like okay we want you to come back like just capitalism it's the idea that you're staying in their house they're gonna take care of you it's so ingrained now be honest if i were to go to like a random apartment to like an old old greek guy somewhere and knocked on the door and i was like hey man can i like borrow your phone or like can i just do you have any food i'm so hungry he'd grill you light up a cigarette and then give you a full feast you really think so absolutely i'm putting this to the test and i cannot wait we are going to greece baby and anyway guys i have great news if you like religious content similar to what we talked about today but practicing religions that people uh adhere to and the millions well great news we religion camp that's where i deep dive and all the crazy stuff from every religion from around the world not just christianity or catholicism the faith that i belong to but islam hinduism judaism i try to understand the secret teachings of all religions ever and if you like crazy deep dives and mysteries pertaining to you know more current affairs crazy mysteries conspiracies that kind of stuff well great news camp the main channel is for you and if you just like to rock with a history vibe well you're in the right spot because every single wednesday we drop these episodes so make sure you subscribe like comment all that stuff also we do have a secret society that is patreon.com slash camp gagnon you can check that out and you'll get every episode of this show for i mean not for free ad free and there'll be no ads and on top of that you're going to get monthly zooms with me and the rest of the squad you're also going to be able to contribute ideas for future episodes and it's just a great community where people hang out and chit chat so you can check that out patreon dot com slash camp gagnon five bucks a month and you're going to get all that and more thank you guys so much for tuning in to another episode of history camp god bless you all and i will see you in the future to talk about the past peace hey guys if you love conspiracies and hypothetical history well i want to invite you to check out signal 33 this is a companion pod to our podcast here at camp it's made and edited by the same team that runs all of our shows and i choose the topics every single week so check it out 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