By Iman Malik
This article is the first of many articles about the Greek Gods. This article is all about Zeus, the mightiest of them all. Some believe these gods are mythological characters while others believe they are a part of our history. This article will let you be the judge.
Before Zeus was born, his father Cronus the Titan was given a prophecy that said that his own children would be born as Gods and would overthrow him. So, whenever his wife Rhea the Titan had a child she would check if they were Titan or God. If they were Titan he would keep them but if they were god he would eat them. After he ate all of Zeus' siblings (the first gods), Rhea had Zeus. She looked straight into Zeus’s eyes and knew he would overthrow his father. So when Cronus wanted to eat Zeus she put a rock in a blanket instead of Zeus, and Cronus ate the rock! She then sent the real Zeus to an island (boarding school) where he was taken care of by nymphs (beautiful maidens who take care of nature) and satyrs (half goat half man). They fed him ambrosia and nectar, the food and drink of the gods. They also taught him how to fight and use his powers.
When Zeus was a bit older -a man- he left the island with a plan to free his immortal siblings from Cronus’ ever growing belly. He went to Cronus using his best acting skills and pretended to be a waiter and entertainer for the Titans. They were completely fooled by his Oscar winning performance. So one day he poisoned Cronos and cut open his belly and freed his siblings and then ran down to Tartarus (a land where monsters are banished to) with his siblings. They fought the guard monsters and went to the cyclops and hundred handed ones and asked for weapons to fight. Zeus got the famous lighting bolt, Poseidon got the sea trident and Hades got the invisibility helmet.
With all the weapons they went back to the Titans and started the Titan war, young against old, trees burned, oceans were flooding the world, thunder was in the skies, parts of earth were falling off! The world was coming apart and finally the Gods asked for help from the cyclops, hundred handed ones and some of the Titans took the Gods' side. Of course it didn't occur to them to ask the women for help! After so much fighting the Gods won and cut Cronus to pieces and sent him to the depths of Tartarus.
What we should remember from this story is that the young can outsmart the old any day, and we wouldn't need hundred handed ones and cyclops to help us if we just asked the women.