Editing Zeus (section)

=== Panhellenic cults ===

[[File:Statue of Zeus dsc02611-.jpg|thumb|upright|Colossal seated [[Dagon|Marnas]] from [[Gaza City|Gaza]] portrayed in the style of Zeus. Roman period Marnas<ref>{{Cite CE1913|wstitle=Gaza}}; [http://www.plekos.uni-muenchen.de/2004/rhahn.html Johannes Hahn: Gewalt und religiöser Konflikt]; [http://philologos.org/__eb-thlatb/chap08.htm#mosue The Holy Land and the Bible]</ref> was the chief divinity of Gaza ([[Istanbul Archaeology Museum]]).]]The major center where all Greeks converged to pay honor to their chief god was [[Olympia, Greece|Olympia]]. Their quadrennial [[festival]] featured the famous Games. There was also an altar to Zeus made not of stone, but of ash, from the accumulated remains of many centuries' worth of animals sacrificed there.

Outside of the major inter-[[polis]] sanctuaries, there were no modes of worshipping Zeus precisely shared across the Greek world. Most of the titles listed below, for instance, could be found at any number of [[Greek temple]]s from [[Asia Minor]] to [[Sicily]]. Certain modes of ritual were held in common as well: sacrificing a white animal over a raised altar, for instance.

====Zeus Velchanos====

With one exception, Greeks were unanimous in recognizing the birthplace of Zeus as Crete. Minoan culture contributed many essentials of ancient Greek religion: "by a hundred channels the old civilization emptied itself into the new", Will Durant observed,<ref>Durant, ''The Life of Greece'' (''The Story of Civilization'' Part II, New York: Simon & Schuster) 1939:23.</ref> and Cretan Zeus retained his youthful Minoan features. The local child of the Great Mother, "a small and inferior deity who took the roles of son and consort",<ref>Rodney Castleden, ''Minoans: Life in Bronze-Age Crete'', "The Minoan belief-system" (Routledge) 1990:125</ref> whose Minoan name the Greeks Hellenized as Velchanos, was in time assumed as an [[epithet]] by Zeus, as transpired at many other sites, and he came to be venerated in Crete as '''Zeus Velchanos''' ("boy-Zeus"), often simply the ''[[Kouros]]''.

In [[Crete]], Zeus was worshipped at a number of caves at [[Knossos]], [[Mount Ida, Crete|Ida]] and [[Palaikastro]]. In the Hellenistic period a small sanctuary dedicated to Zeus Velchanos was founded at the [[Hagia Triada]] site of an earlier Minoan town. Broadly contemporary coins from [[Phaistos]] show the form under which he was worshiped: a youth sits among the branches of a tree, with a cockerel on his knees.<ref>Pointed out by Bernard Clive Dietrich, ''The Origins of Greek Religion'' (de Gruyter) 1973:15.</ref> On other Cretan coins Velchanos is represented as an eagle and in association with a goddess celebrating a mystic marriage.<ref>A.B. Cook, ''Zeus'' Cambridge University Press, 1914, I, figs 397, 398.</ref> Inscriptions at [[Gortyn]] and Lyttos record a ''Velchania'' festival, showing that Velchanios was still widely venerated in Hellenistic Crete.<ref>Dietrich 1973, noting [[Martin P. Nilsson]], ''Minoan-Mycenaean Religion, and Its Survival in Greek Religion'' 1950:551 and notes.</ref>

The stories of [[Minos]] and [[Epimenides]] suggest that these caves were once used for [[Incubation (ritual)|incubatory]] divination by kings and priests. The dramatic setting of [[Plato]]'s ''Laws'' is along the pilgrimage-route to one such site, emphasizing archaic Cretan knowledge. On Crete, Zeus was represented in art as a long-haired youth rather than a mature adult and hymned as ''ho megas kouros'', "the great youth". Ivory statuettes of the "Divine Boy" were unearthed near the [[Labyrinth]] at [[Knossos]] by [[Sir Arthur Evans]].<ref>"Professor [[Stylianos Alexiou]] reminds us that there were other divine boys who survived from the religion of the pre-Hellenic period — [[Linos]], [[Ploutos]] and [[Dionysos]] — so not all the young male deities we see depicted in Minoan works of art are necessarily Velchanos" (Castleden) 1990:125</ref> With the [[Kouretes]], a band of ecstatic armed dancers, he presided over the rigorous military-athletic training and secret rites of the Cretan ''[[paideia]]''.

The myth of the death of Cretan Zeus, localised in numerous mountain sites though only mentioned in a comparatively late source, [[Callimachus]],<ref>Richard Wyatt Hutchinson, ''Prehistoric Crete'', (Harmondsworth: Penguin) 1968:204, mentions that there is no classical reference to the death of Zeus (noted by Dietrich 1973:16 note 78).</ref> together with the assertion of [[Antoninus Liberalis]] that a fire shone forth annually from the birth-cave the infant shared with a [[Bees (mythology)|mythic swarm of bees]], suggests that Velchanos had been an annual vegetative spirit.<ref>"This annually reborn god of vegetation also experienced the other parts of the vegetation cycle: holy marriage and annual death when he was thought to disappear from the earth" (Dietrich 1973:15).</ref>
The Hellenistic writer [[Euhemerus]] apparently proposed a theory that Zeus had actually been a great king of [[Crete]] and that posthumously, his glory had slowly turned him into a deity. The works of Euhemerus himself have not survived, but Christian [[patristic]] writers took up the suggestion.

====Zeus Lykaios====
{{further|Lykaia}}

[[File:Stater Zeus Lampsacus CdM.jpg|thumb|[[Laurel wreath|Laurel-wreathed]] head of Zeus on a gold [[stater]], [[Lampsacus]], c 360–340 BC ([[Cabinet des Médailles]]).]]
The epithet '''Zeus Lykaios''' (Λύκαιος; "wolf-Zeus") is assumed by Zeus only in connection with the archaic festival of the [[Lykaia]] on the slopes of [[Lycaeus|Mount Lykaion]] ("Wolf Mountain"), the tallest peak in rustic [[Arcadia (ancient region)|Arcadia]]; Zeus had only a formal connection<ref>In the founding myth of [[Lycaon (king of Arcadia)|Lycaon]]'s banquet for the gods that included the flesh of a human sacrifice, perhaps one of his sons, [[Nyctimus]] or [[Arcas]]. Zeus overturned the table and struck the house of Lyceus with a thunderbolt; his patronage at the Lykaia can have been little more than a formula.</ref> with the rituals and myths of this primitive [[rite of passage]] with an ancient threat of [[Human cannibalism|cannibalism]] and the possibility of a [[werewolf]] transformation for the [[ephebos|ephebes]] who were the participants.<ref>A morphological connection to ''lyke'' "brightness" may be merely fortuitous.</ref> Near the ancient ash-heap where the sacrifices took place<ref>Modern archaeologists have found no trace of human remains among the sacrificial detritus, [[Walter Burkert]], "Lykaia and Lykaion", ''Homo Necans'', tr. by Peter Bing ([[University of California]]) 1983, p. 90.</ref> was a forbidden precinct in which, allegedly, no shadows were ever cast.<ref>[[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160%3Abook%3D8%3Achapter%3D38 8.38].</ref>

According to [[Plato]],<ref>''Republic'' 565d-e</ref> a particular clan would gather on the mountain to make a sacrifice every nine years to Zeus Lykaios, and a single morsel of human entrails would be intermingled with the animal's. Whoever ate the human flesh was said to turn into a wolf, and could only regain human form if he did not eat again of human flesh until the next nine-year cycle had ended. There were games associated with the Lykaia, removed in the fourth century to the first urbanization of Arcadia, [[Megalopolis, Greece|Megalopolis]]; there the major temple was dedicated to Zeus Lykaios.

There is, however, the crucial detail that ''Lykaios'' or ''Lykeios'' (epithets of Zeus and Apollo) may derive from [[Proto-Greek language|Proto-Greek]] *{{lang|grc|λύκη}}, "light", a noun still attested in compounds such as {{lang|grc|ἀμφιλύκη}}, "twilight", {{lang|grc|λυκάβας}}, "year" ({{lit|light}}s course") etc. This, Cook argues, brings indeed much new 'light' to the matter as [[Achaeus of Eretria|Achaeus]], the contemporary tragedian of [[Sophocles]], spoke of Zeus Lykaios as "starry-eyed", and this Zeus Lykaios may just be the Arcadian Zeus, son of Aether, described by [[Cicero]]. Again under this new signification may be seen [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]]' descriptions of Lykosoura being 'the first city that ever the sun beheld', and of the altar of Zeus, at the summit of Mount Lykaion, before which stood two columns bearing gilded eagles and 'facing the sun-rise'. Further Cook sees only the tale of Zeus's sacred precinct at Mount Lykaion allowing no shadows referring to Zeus as 'god of light' (Lykaios).<ref>A. B. Cook ('''1914'''), ''Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion'', Vol. I, p.63, Cambridge University Press</ref>[[File:Statue of Zeus.jpg|thumb|A statue of Zeus in a drawing.]]

====Additional cults====
{{More citations needed section|date=June 2021}}
Although etymology indicates that Zeus was originally a sky god, many Greek cities honored a local Zeus who lived underground. Athenians and Sicilians honored '''Zeus Meilichios''' (Μειλίχιος; "kindly" or "honeyed") while other cities had '''Zeus Chthonios''' ("earthy"), '''Zeus Katachthonios''' (Καταχθόνιος; "under-the-earth") and '''Zeus Plousios''' ("wealth-bringing"). These deities might be represented as snakes or in human form in visual art, or, for emphasis as both together in one image. They also received offerings of black animal victims sacrificed into sunken pits, as did [[chthonic]] deities like [[Persephone]] and [[Demeter]], and also the [[hero]]es at their tombs. Olympian gods, by contrast, usually received white victims sacrificed upon raised altars.

In some cases, cities were not entirely sure whether the ''daimon'' to whom they sacrificed was a hero or an underground Zeus. Thus the shrine at Lebadaea in [[Boeotia]] might belong to the hero [[Trophonius]] or to '''Zeus Trephonius''' ("the nurturing"), depending on whether you believe [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], or [[Strabo]]. The hero [[Amphiaraus]] was honored as '''Zeus Amphiaraus''' at Oropus outside of [[Thebes, Greece|Thebes]], and the Spartans even had a shrine to '''Zeus Agamemnon'''. Ancient [[Molossians|Molossian]] kings sacrificed to '''[[Zeus Areius]]''' (Αρειος). [[Strabo]] mention that at [[Tralles]] there was the '''Zeus Larisaeus''' (Λαρισαιος).<ref>[[Strabo]], ''[[Geographica]]'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0239%3Abook%3D14%3Achapter%3D1%3Asection%3D42 14.1.42].</ref> In [[Ithome]], they honored the '''Zeus Ithomatas''', they had a sanctuary and a statue of Zeus and also held an annual festival in honour of Zeus which was called [[Ithomaea]] (ἰθώμαια).<ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160%3Abook%3D4%3Achapter%3D33%3Asection%3D2 Pausanias, Description of Greece, 4.33.2]</ref>

==== Hecatomphonia ====
Hecatomphonia ({{langx|grc|ἑκατομφόνια}}), meaning killing of a hundred, from ἑκατόν "a hundred" and φονεύω "to kill". It was a custom of [[Messenians]], at which they offered sacrifice to Zeus when any of them had killed a hundred enemies. [[Aristomenes]] have offered three times this sacrifice at the Messenian wars against [[Sparta]].<ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0063:id=hecatomphonia-cn A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), Hecatomphonia]</ref><ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0062:entry=clothing-harpers Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898), Hecatomphonia]</ref><ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0004:entry=hecatomphonia Perseus Encyclopedia, Hecatomphonia]</ref><ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Paus.%204.19.3&lang=original Pausanias, Description of Greece, 4.19.3]</ref>