Tantalus was initially known for having been welcomed to Zeus ' table in Olympus, like Ixion.

According to an archaic myth he was sired by Cronus when he had taken the form of a horse and impregnated the nymph Philyra, Chiron's lineage was different from other centaurs, who were born of sun and raincloud, rendered by Greeks of the Classic period as from the union of the king Ixion, consigned to a fiery wheel, and Nephele (" cloud "), which in the Olympian telling Zeus invented to look like Hera.

Zeus took pity on Ixion and invited him to a meal on Olympus.

But when Ixion saw Hera, he fell in love with her and did some under-the-table caressing until Zeus signaled him to stop.

After finding a place for Ixion to sleep, Zeus created a cloud-clone of Hera named Nephele to test him to see how much he loved Hera.

Greek myth also has it that Nephele is the cloud whom Zeus created in the image of Hera to trick Ixion to test his integrity after displaying his lust for Hera during a feast as a guest of Zeus.

: Apollo-So Zeus made a mistake when Ixion, the first to kill, appealed to him for help?

He was a son of " heavenly " Dia, fathered either by Ixion or by Zeus.

However, Zeus had pity on Ixion and brought him to Olympus and introduced him at the table of the gods.

Instead of being grateful, Ixion grew lustful for Hera, Zeus's wife, a further violation of guest-host relations and engaged in some under-the-table caressing until Zeus asked them to stop.

( Some texts say that Ixion and Hera were involved in only touching each other with their feet, while some say that Ixion started to perform cunnilingus on Hera until Zeus interrupted them and ordered them to stop ).

Zeus found out about his intentions and made a cloud in the shape of Hera, which became known as Nephele ( nephos " cloud ") and tricked Ixion into coupling with it.

Zeus ordered Hermes to bind Ixion to a winged fiery wheel that was always spinning.

According to legend, Zeus punished Ixion for lusting after Hera by having Hermes bind Ixion to a wheel of fire for all eternity.

When Zeus ' wife Hera discovered that Leto was pregnant and that Zeus was the father, she banned Leto from giving birth on " terra firma ".

When Zeus struck down Apollo's son Asclepius with a lightning bolt for resurrecting Hippolytus from the dead ( transgressing Themis by stealing Hades's subjects ), Apollo in revenge killed the Cyclopes, who had fashioned the bolt for Zeus.

Munich, copy from original, 460 BC at the Temple of Zeus, Olympia, Greece | Olympia, Greece

By the late 5th century BC, philosophers might separate Aphrodite into two separate goddesses, not individuated in cult: Aphrodite Ourania, born from the sea foam after Cronus castrated Uranus, and Aphrodite Pandemos, the common Aphrodite " of all the folk ," born from Zeus and Dione.

The older, Urania, is the daughter of Uranus, and inspires homosexual male ( and more specifically, ephebic ) love / eros ; the younger is named Pandemos, the daughter of Zeus and Dione, and all love for women comes from her.

When Amphitryon finally returned to Thebes, Alcmene told him that he had come the night before and slept with her ; he learned from Tiresias what Zeus had done.

In Homer's Iliad, when Alcmene was about to give birth to Heracles, Zeus announced to all the gods that on that day a child, descended from Zeus himself, would be born who would rule all those around him.

Hera, after requesting Zeus to swear an oath to that effect, descended from Olympus to Argos and made the wife of Sthenelus ( a son of Perseus ) give birth to Eurystheus after only seven months, while at the same time preventing Alcmene from delivering Heracles.

Ares was one of the Twelve Olympians in the archaic tradition represented by the Iliad and Odyssey, but Zeus expresses a recurring Greek revulsion toward the god when Ares returns wounded and complaining from the battlefield at Troy:

Other monuments that have left almost nothing visible to the present day are the Chalkotheke, the Pandroseion, Pandion's sanctuary, Athena's altar, Zeus Polieus's sanctuary and, from Roman times, the circular temple of Augustus and Rome.

He was born on the island of Oenone or Oenopia, to which Aegina had been carried by Zeus to secure her from the anger of her parents, and whence this island was afterwards called Aegina.

72 accounts for the island's archaic name Ortygia by asserting that Zeus transformed Leto into a quail ( ortux ) in order to prevent Hera from finding out his infidelity, and Kenneth McLeish suggested further that in quail form Leto would have given birth with as few birth-pains as a mother quail suffers when it lays an egg.

A poem of Callimachus to the goddess " who amuses herself on mountains with archery " imagines some charming vignettes: according to Callimachus, at three years old, Artemis, while sitting on the knee of her father, Zeus, asked him to grant her six wishes: to remain always a virgin ; to have many names to set her apart from her brother Apollo ; to be the Phaesporia or Light Bringer ; to have a bow and arrow and a knee-length tunic so that she could hunt ; to have sixty " daughters of Okeanos ", all nine years of age, to be her choir ; and for twenty Amnisides Nymphs as handmaidens to watch her dogs and bow while she rested.

In Greek mythology, the constellation is sometimes identified as Amalthea, the goat that suckled the infant Zeus after his mother Rhea saved him from being devoured by his father Cronos ( in Greek mythology ).

Hercules wanted to honor the birthplace of Zeus by removing all " harmful " and " poisonous " animals from Crete.

According to Ovid, it was Jupiter ( Zeus ) who took the form of Diana ( Artemis ) so that he might evade his wife Juno ’ s detection, forcing himself upon Callisto while she was separated from Diana and the other nymphs.

The name Dardanelles derives from Dardania, an ancient land on the Asian shore of the strait which in turn takes its name from Dardanus, the mythical son of Zeus and Electra.

Gnosticism attributed falsehood, fallen or evil, to the concept of Demiurge or Creator ( see Zeus and Prometheus ), though sometimes the creator is from a fallen, ignorant or lesser, rather than evil, perspective ( in some Gnosticism traditions ), such as that of Valentinius.

They are the largest of the many moons of Jupiter and derive their names from the lovers of Zeus: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.

Aquarius is also sometimes identified with Ganymede, a youth in Greek mythology who was taken to Mount Olympus by Zeus to act as cup-carrier to the gods.

* Idê, one of the Cretan nymphs who nursed the infant Zeus: see Mount Ida, Crete

Mount Lykaion is sacred to Zeus Lykaios, who was said to have been born and brought up on it, and was the home of Pelasgus and his son Lycaon, who is said to have founded the ritual of Zeus practiced on its summit.

According to some, the modern name of the mountain is Diaforti ( Gell gives " Dioforti " or " Dioforte "), which is presumed to consist of two Greek words: " Dias ", the name of Zeus in modern Greek, and " fero ," a verb meaning " I bring ," thus meaning that Mount Lykaion is a mountain that brings Zeus.

* Idaean Nymphs ( Mount Ida ), nurses of infant Zeus

* Lycaean Nymphs ( Mount Lycaeus ), nurses of infant Zeus, perhaps a subgroup of the Oceanides

Odysseus ’ protectress, the goddess Athena, discusses his fate with Zeus, king of the gods, at a moment when Odysseus ' enemy, the god of the sea Poseidon, is absent from Mount Olympus.

Homer and Hesiod suggest that Poseidon became lord of the sea following the defeat of his father Kronos, when the world was divided by lot among his three sons ; Zeus was given the sky, Hades the underworld, and Poseidon the sea, with the Earth and Mount Olympus belonging to all three.

In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus ( Ancient Greek:, Zeús ; Modern Greek: Δίας, Días ) is the " Father of Gods and men " (, patḕr andrōn te theōn te ) who rules the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father rules the family.

The hymn locates Hestia in ancient Delphi, the central hearth of all the Hellenes, rather than at the hearth of Zeus on Mount Olympus.

Then she hid Zeus in a cave on Mount Ida in Crete.

" Upon the Mother depend the winds, the ocean, the whole earth beneath the snowy seat of Olympus ; whenever she leaves the mountains and climbs to the great vault of heaven, Zeus himself, the son of Cronus, makes way, and all the other immortal gods likewise make way for the dread goddess ," the seer Mopsus tells Jason in Argonautica ; Jason climbed to the sanctuary high on Mount Dindymon to offer sacrifice and libations to placate the goddess, so that the Argonauts might continue on their way.

Mount Zeus ( 1003 metres ) is the highest peak in the Cyclades, and tends to trap the clouds, permitting greater rainfall.

In celebration of the marriage of Peleus and Thetis, Lord Zeus, father of the Greek pantheon, hosted a banquet on Mount Olympus.

Myiagros was a god in Greek mythology who chased away flies during the sacrifices to Zeus and Athena, and Zeus sent a fly to bite Pegasus, causing Bellerophon to fall back to Earth when he attempted to ride the winged steed to Mount Olympus.

In Hesiod's telling of Zeus's birth, when Great Gaia came to Crete and hid the child Zeus in a " steep cave ", beneath the secret places of the earth, on Mount Aigaion with its thick forests ; there the Cretan Kouretes ' ritual clashing spears and shields were interpreted by Hellenes as intended to drown out the infant god's cries, and prevent his discovery by his cannibal father Cronus.

According to a legend, when Phidias was asked what inspired him — whether he climbed Mount Olympus to see Zeus, or whether Zeus came down from Olympus so that Pheidias could see him — the artist answered that he portrayed Zeus according to Book One, verses 528 – 530 of Homer's Iliad:

He explains the story of his birth, how his mother Semele had enamoured the god Zeus, who had come down from Mount Olympus to lie with her.

Adrasteia and her sister Ida, the nymph of Mount Ida, who also cared for the infant Zeus, were perhaps the daughters of Melisseus.