Zeus had how many kids

Metis lived on within Zeus, providing him advice, helping him to become known for his wisdom and thoughtful arbitration for an example, see Iliad The gods, by the way, never have a sexual encounter in vain; children are always produced.

At some point Zeus married his sister, Hera, and together they had three children: Ares, Eileithyia, and Hebe. Zeus pursued mortal women even more frequently than he pursued goddesses. He sired the god Dionysus with the mortal woman Semele [see Dionysus ].

He came to Alcmene in the form of her husband, Amphitryon [see Heracles], fathering Heracles. Io later traveled to Egypt and bore Epaphus, who became an Egyptian god. Zeus abducted Europa in the form of a bull and took her to Crete, where she bore him three sons, Minos, Rhadamanthys, and Sarpedon. Hera was one of Zeus's sisters. She was the Goddess of marriage. This is a statue of Poseidon's head. Poseidon was one of Zeus's brothers. He was the God of the sea. Hestia in a Mythical Landscape , c.

This is a painting of Hestia. Hestia was one of Zeus's sisters. She was the Goddess of the home. This is a statue of Artemis. Despite that, he was considered a hero.

Hera, however, was extremely jealous of Leto and made it difficult for her to find a place to give birth. Finally, she was able to give birth to her twins on Delos, an isolated and barren island filled with rocks.

The twins grew fast. Both Artemis and Apollo became Olympian gods. Artemis was the goddess of the hunt and Apollo was the god of music, poetry, and medicine. Categorized in: Greek Mythology. Share this Greek Mythology Article:. Hermes, the son of the nymph Maia , was born in secret. Zeus had managed to keep his visits to Maia a secret from both his wife and the court of gods so no one knew when she gave birth to his son.

Hermes was a born trickster. On the first night of his life he crept from his crib while his mother slept and stole the prized cattle of Apollo on a whim. The older son of Zeus was only able to track the thief because of his prophetic gifts, and even Maia could not believe that her newborn child was capable of such mischief. Apollo took the baby to Olympus to be judged by their father, but the proceedings did not go as he might have planned. Despite his knack for making trouble, Hermes was welcomed by the Olympians as one of their own.

And in spite of their rocky start, Hermes and Apollo became friends as well. The gift of the newly-invented lyre smoothed over any anger Apollo felt over the theft of his cattle and established the elder brother as the god of music and poetry.

While Maia kept her pregnancy a secret from Hera, Semele was not so lucky. Hera tricked the human girl into seeing Zeus in all his divine glory, resulting in her immediate death. Zeus sewed the unborn child into his own leg, cutting Dionysus out when it was time for his birth. He was the god of wine, feasting, and merriment. Hera tried again to destroy him, cursing him with madness as she had done to Heracles. Dionysus roamed the world, spreading his gift of wine to all the people he encountered.

Dionysus was eventually cured of his temporary insanity, although madness was forever part of his infamous revels. Among the mortals and semi-divine sons of Zeus, however, several still left their mark on the Greek world.

Sometimes this lineage was a matter of local legend, but often it was an established and widely-held belief throughout the region. An incomplete list of the royal sons of Zeus is still an impressive overview of Greece and the Mediterranean. Virtually every land in the region could trace its ruling heritage back to the king of the gods.

Added grandsons and further generations would tie virtually every city-state and foreign land known to the Greeks back to the king of Olympus.

There was a good reason so many cities and nations claimed to have been founded by sons and grandsons of Zeus. Zeus was the king of the gods, the highest authority in the cosmos.

When a king claimed his family tree went back not just to a god, but to the king of Olympus, it strengthened his claim to power.

The divine blood running through him, even if watered down after many generations, gave him a greater right to rule than someone from a purely mortal background. The same held true for entire cities and countries. Of course, in many cases it is obvious that supposed descent from Zeus was an invention of later eras and not a long-held belief. Newer colonies, for example, would sometimes claim ancient divine origins in an attempt at establishing greater authority and legitimacy.

One of the most famous examples of this was the Roman hero Aeneas. In an effort to establish their ancient origins and link to the Greek past, the early Romans borrowed the figure of Aeneas from the Iliad and created a mythology in which the son of Venus Aphrodite traveled west to found Rome. The creation of the myth of Aeneas gave the Romans a claim to a heritage that included three major deities in the Greco-Roman pantheon and the legendary king of Troy. The idea of claiming a god, particularly Zeus, as the ancestor of kings helped to establish monarchies based on divine authority as well as mortal lineage.