How many children did zeus have?

Artemis

Member
How many children did Zeus have and how many women became mothers of his children? Can you name them all? Who was the greatest among his children?
 

Rhonda Tharp

Active Member
Let's see, all the women in Zeus' life that I can recall off the top of my head are: Hera, Alcmene, Leto, and Maia.

(I'm especially fond of Hermes and also Hindu and Buddhist beliefs, so naturally, I named my daughter Maia.)
 

Nadai

Active Member
I liked the story of Io being taken away by Zeus while in the guise of the bull, but also Danae, Semele, Demeter, Alcmena, and Leda.
 
Zeus has 5 relationships.These are Metis,Themis,Eurynome,Mnemosyne and Hera.These women's children are;
1.Metis-Athena
2.Themis-Horas and Moiras
3.Eurynome-Kharits
4.Mnemosyne-Musas
5.Hera-Hebe,Ilithya,Ares and Hephaistos.

FOOTNOTE:Although Hera's jealousness,Zeus has lots of relationships with goddesses and transitories.

One of them is Io and she has one child,Epaphos.
Second woman is Europa and her children are Minos and Rhadamanthys.
Another lover is Leda and her children are Polydeukes and Helena.
Finally sweetheart is Danae and her child is Perseus.

The final question's answer is absolutely Athena!
 

Alejandro

Active Member
How many children did Zeus have and how many women became mothers of his children? Can you name them all? Who was the greatest among his children?
By my count, even including the obscurer versions of the myths, Zeus had about forty women and a total of roughly sixty children. I can think of only one story in which a woman who consorted with Zeus is not ascribed any children. Your definition of "greatest" would determine the answer to your last question, but I think that the ancient Orphic god Zagreus was that original gangstah.


Zagreus was the son of Zeus by his own daughter Kore, whom (before she became Persephone) he had raped in the form of a spotted snake or dragon in a subterraneous cave (yeah, really messed up, I know.) The Egyptian writer Nonnos describes Zagreus as a little, beautiful and powerful shape-shifter of whom Zeus was so fond that he let him, a mere baby, play with his thunderbolts(!). He also apparently planned to abdicate from his rule as king of the gods once Zagreus came of age. If that doesn't make Zagreus great, I don't know what does, since some of the gods and the Gigantes tried to overthrow Zeus, each group on a different occasion; there were curses and prophecies regarding the end of his reign at the hands of one of his own sons; and his own grandson Lykaon once tried to kill him. This baby god Zagreus, however, managed to do what none of these other contenders could, try as they might: get Zeus to want to step down from his throne, which Zeus would eventually have done, hadn't the Titans, at Hera's behest, torn the young god into pieces and devoured his flesh. Zagreus was reincarnated some centuries later as Dionysos, another son of Zeus, of whom he was also very fond, but none of Zeus' other favourites—not Athena, nor Apollon, nor Herakles (Hercules)—ever come close to achieving the amount of power and the level of prestige that Zagreus enjoyed.
 
Top