Zeus (Jupiter)

Zeus and his brothers drew lots for their share of the universe. The sea fell to Poseidon, and the underworld to Hades. Zeus became the supreme ruler. He was the Lord Of the Sky, the Rain-God and the Cloud-gatherer, who wielded the awful thunderbolt. His power was greater than that of all the other divinities together. In the Iliad he tells his family, "I am the mightiest of all. Make trial that you  may know. Fasten a rope of gold to heaven and lay hold, every god and goddess. You could not drag Zeus down. But if I wished to drag you down, then i would. The rope I would bind to a pinnacle of Olympus and all would hang in air, yes, the very earth and the sea too." Nevertheless he was not omnipotent or omniscient, either. He could be deceived and opposed. Sometimes, too, the mysterious power, Fate, is spoken of as stronger than he. Homer makes Hera ask him scornfully if he proposes to deliver from death a man Fate has doomed. He is represented as falling in love with one woman to another and descending to all manner of tricks to hide his infidelity from his wife. Still, even in the earliest records Zeus had grandeur. In the Iliad Agamemmon prays: "Zeus, most glorious , most great, God of the storm-cloud, thou  shall dwellest in the heavens." The Greek Army at Troy is said "Father Zeus never helps liars or those who breaks their oaths." The Two ideas of him, the low and the high, persisted side by side for a long time. His breastplate was the aegis, a large collar or cape worn in ancient times to display the protection provided by a high religious authority, his bird was the eagle, his tree the oak, his oracle was Dodona in the forest of oak