Talk:Zeus

The 2nd-century AD statue from Smyrna, while very grand in appearance, is probably not ideal as the lead image. The right arm, thunderbolt, and feet are 17th-century additions, and the Louvre's website names its subject as Jupiter (though it does also suggest it may have been based on a 2nd-century BC original). The identification as Jupiter also doesn't seem to be completely certain. As I don't think there's an obvious replacement, I'll put forward a few possibilities and allow others to opine.

The Zeus of Otricoli has the drawback of not really illustrating any iconographic features beyond the hair and beard. Image 3 (which can be cropped) includes the thunderbolt but lacks the throne, whereas the opposite is true for Image 2. The Marbury Hall Zeus and the statue group with Ganymede probably also deserve consideration.

– Michael Aurel (talk) 11:38, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

As this hasn't received any responses, I've used Image 1, though I'm certainly open to objections or alternative suggestions. – Michael Aurel (talk) 02:13, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

There doesn’t seem to be a source for this claim anywhere in the article. Where does it come from? It also boldly implies that all versions of Zeus which make him the eldest do so with the understanding that Kronos disgorged his children, when this obviously isn’t true because Kronos did not cannibalize his children at all in the Iliad (and even if he did, he did not do so with his daughter(s)).

The Iliad explicitly lists Zeus as the eldest brother, but in book 4 Hera claims to be Kronos’ firstborn child. Additionally, during the theogamia scene, it’s mentioned that they first coupled while “their parents knew not thereof.” Floreditor (talk) 20:17, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

I do think there's some truth to it. The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 22–23, for example, refers to Hestia as both the eldest and the youngest child, and the Iliad makes Zeus older that Poseidon at 13.354–55 and younger than him at 15.166. In that passage in the Iliad's fourth book, Hera seems only to be calling herself the eldest daughter (not necessarily the eldest child). On these passages, see Gantz, pp. 44, 834 and West on Theogony 454, the latter of which says that "the idea that the regurgitation was a second birth may have been developed so that Zeus, who grew up before any of these secondary births, could be counted as the eldest as well as the youngest".

This information really isn't important enough to mention in the first few sentences of the lead, though, so I've removed it. – Michael Aurel (talk) 22:07, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

@Abttyr: Your edits are completely unexplained. tgeorgescu (talk) 04:56, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

Also, you wrote "biased tone", but I have no idea what that bias would be. It's not our task to WP:CENSOR Ancient mythology. tgeorgescu (talk) 03:45, 17 March 2026 (UTC)