Zeus

Zeus, the Roman Jupiter, is the king of the Olympians and father of gods and men — god of the sky, the thunderbolt, kingship, and the sacred laws of hospitality and oaths. Youngest son of the Titan Kronos, he overthrew his father, divided the cosmos with his brothers Poseidon and Hades (taking the heavens for himself), and established the Olympian order.

His supremacy made him, for the philosophers, the natural image of the highest governing intelligence. In the Neoplatonists, and above all in Proclus, Zeus is identified with the Demiurge of the Timaeus — the divine craftsman-intellect who frames the cosmos and orders it by reason. In Plato's Phaedrus he leads the great procession of gods and souls across the heavens; to follow in the train of Zeus is to live the philosophical life.

Epithets

• Olympios Ὀλύμπιος — of Olympus, king of the gods
• Xenios Ξένιος — protector of guests and strangers
• Horkios Ὅρκιος — guardian of oaths
• Herkeios Ἑρκεῖος — of the courtyard, who guards the home
• Ktesios Κτήσιος — of the household stores
• Soter Σωτήρ — the savior, deliverer
• Keraunios Κεραύνιος — of the thunderbolt
• Meilichios Μειλίχιος — the gracious, easily entreated
• Panhellenios Πανελλήνιος — of all the Greeks
• Optimus Maximus Lat. — Jupiter 'Best and Greatest', god of the Roman state