Talk:Zeus

How is the offspring table supposed to be sorted?

While fixing the entry for Persephone by Rhea (it had them in the wrong columns) it occurred to me that there didn't seem to be much of a consistent method in how the table is ordered by default. Did anyone define a proper order for this table? Arcorann (talk) 01:29, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Currently, there isn't any real default order (you can see the discussion which led to the current version of the table here). I think sensible default orderings could include having the names of the offspring in alphabetical order, or having the dates of the sources in chronological order. I would probably lean towards the latter of these, but I'd be interested to hear the opinions of others. – Michael Aurel (talk) 03:08, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Rearranged (mostly) as such. – Michael Aurel (talk) 23:46, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Indra

Michael Aurel has removed an edit I made that was attempting to create a version of this article similar to (but not the same as) an older version of this article I remember reading a long time ago. The old version I am thinking of can be found here but my edit can be found in this link.

According to Michael Aurel this is giving undue weight in the lead section. I assume this is because the relation of Jupiter to Zeus is seen as more important and notable than the relation of Zeus to other deities, so only Jupiter should be mentioned in the lead section.

If this is the case, I would point out that Indra is considered a very notable/important deity within Hinduism which is the third largest religion in the world with over a billion followers, much more than any religions that worship Zeus or Jupiter in modern times, so this makes Indra a very known and therefore notable deity in Hindu countries/communities, even if Indra is not as well known in western countries. When I was in India people I met knew more about Indra than Zeus or Jupiter.

I also noticed the sentence before the one I created with my edit only said Zeus was related to Jupiter in a cognate way but does not say they have mythologies that are related, which is an important part of the relation between Zeus and Jupiter, unlike what this article originally said in the older version of this article linked above which explains there is a relation between the mythologies of Zeus and Jupiter, just like what my recent edit also explains.

There are also other deities who are equivalents of Zeus, but I am unsure how important they would be considered in relation to Zeus. However, I think it would be useful to restore my edition or a similar edition. FantasticHappyJoyous (talk) 19:29, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

@FantasticHappyJoyous: Thanks for bringing this up here. The most relevant guideline here is WP:LEAD, which says that:

As in the body of the article itself, the emphasis given to material in the lead should roughly reflect its importance to the topic, according to reliable, published sources. Apart from basic facts, significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article.

It is reliable sources about Zeus which determine how much weight we give to information in the lead; going against this is giving WP:UNDUE weight to certain information. Major reliable sources about Zeus don't deem information such as perceived parallels with Indra (or any deity other than Jupiter) to be signficant enough to mention in summaries of him; for example, see the entries for Zeus in major reference works such as Brill's New Pauly, the Oxford Classical Dictionary, and Grimal's Dictionary of Classical Mythology, none of which mention Indra (in contrast to Jupiter). The relative importance or popularity of Indra or the religion to which he belongs isn't relevant here; all that matters is the significance of this information to Zeus, and on Wikipedia we judge this by its weighting in reliable sources. Furthermore, Indra is currently only very briefly mentioned in the article, so adding such information to the lead, especially in such a prominent position, would also go against WP:LEAD's definition of an article's lead as a summary of its most important contents.

Jupiter probably shouldn't be mentioned as prominently in the lead as he is currently, but I would say that he is likely the only "parallel" deity who ought to be mentioned there (before any other such deity could be added to the lead, their parallels with Zeus would, at a minimum, need to be discussed in the article's body, with reliable sourcing). I would be opposed to adding back a sentence which resembles the old one, as it would go against both WP:LEAD and WP:DUE (in the same way a sentence mentioning just Indra would). Furthermore, such a sentence (just like the highly problematic "equivalent" fields in the infobox) would invite the addition of various factoids about perceived "parallel" deities to Zeus, none of which are of any significance to Zeus himself. As to the notion of other deities who are equivalents of Zeus, see the last comment I left in the #Deity equivalencies section above.

To your criticism of how Jupiter is currently mentioned in the lead: lampooning the current lead is entirely justified; it really, like most of the article, ought just to be scrapped and rewritten from scratch.

Hope this answers your questions. – Michael Aurel (talk) 22:23, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Whether or not Indra (or any other deities) is mentioned in the lead section, I feel like Indra could be added to the infobox since he is already mentioned in the lower part of the article, so this would make the infobox summarize what is already stated without adding as much content. Though I would see it as relevant/useful to add more information about Indra/other deities in the part of the lead section I edited or anywhere else. FantasticHappyJoyous (talk) 00:58, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Infoboxes should generally be reserved for "key facts" about the article's subject (this is explained at MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE). The best way to determine whether something constitutes a "key fact" about Zeus is probably, again, to look at reliable sources about Zeus, and see whether they treat that thing as being a "key fact" about him. From what I can tell, the sorts of reliable sources about Zeus we would look to for this, such as major reference works, don't mention Indra, so his inclusion in the infobox probably wouldn't be appropriate. – Michael Aurel (talk) 01:40, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Very shortly, I'll just say that, per Michael Aurel's explanation, the proposed opening to the article, even if it was sourced, appeared indeed somewhat undue. Similarly, the infobox seems to include core information that is part of Zeus' canon, such as abode, familial ties with other deities etc., the equivalent of a religion that had limited interaction with ancient Greek religion, might also be undue, especially when compared with the rest of the information that is provided there. The Roman counterparts are a sui generis situation, since ancient worshipers actively syncretized the two, treating them as the same deity, and often so does modern scholarship in the context of what is called Classical, or Greco-Roman, mythology. Piccco (talk) 23:01, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Fixing Roles and Epithets

In my opinion (which is just that), the lettered headings for Zeus' "roles and epithets" looks visually horrible in the table of contents. Is there a way we can collapse or condense this in the TOC without collapsing the other (valuable) subheadings? Or better yet, does anyone have ideas on how to update the formatting in this section so it is less... bulky? TNstingray (talk) 20:54, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

I agree. An editor solved this some time ago by adding anchors and a small horizontal TOC above the list of epithets (which I thought worked well), but this was later undone for being an apparent MOS violation. I'd recommend simply splitting the list of epithets out into its own list article – there are over 1000 known epithets of Zeus, so any relatively complete list would be many times the length of the current list, and would be, I think, too long to reasonably keep as part of this article. – Michael Aurel (talk) 00:17, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

I think this would be a good option. TNstingray (talk) 14:02, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

I have boldy performed this action, see Epithets of Zeus for text removed from this article. TNstingray (talk) 15:29, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Fair enough – moved to List of epithets of Zeus, as I think, at least in its current form, that's a more accurate description of its contents. – Michael Aurel (talk) 15:42, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

"ZeuS" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect ZeuS has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 February 9 § ZeuS until a consensus is reached. 1234qwer1234qwer4 03:23, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Modern depictions

I know adding an "In popular culture" section ends up becoming trivial and unencyclopedic. However, many other mythological figures have such a section, or a dedicated article to such a point. Does Zeus need one too? TNstingray (talk) 17:17, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Such a section would need to adhere to both MOS:POPCULT and WP:PROPORTION. – Michael Aurel (talk) 20:30, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Seven wives

Hello,

I don't think that section about 'seven wives' should refer to them as such. I went to source quoted in text by Gantz, and it's true that he refers seven goddesses named by Hesiod in Theogony as 'wives'. However, I found contradiction in other source. Classicist Zygmunt Kubiak writes:

"From the phrases found in the Theogony it is quite clear that the officially wedded - and therefore lawful - consorts of Zeus were, of those mentioned here [in catalogue], Metis and Themis (...). As the last one, according to Hesiod, wedded wife, the catalogue lists Hera." [Z wyrażeń padających w Teogonii dosyć jasno wynika, że uroczyście poślubionymi - a więc pełnoprawnymi - małżonkami Zeusa były, spośród tu wyżej wspomnianych, Metyda i Temida (...). Jako ostatnią zaś, według Hezjoda, poślubioną żonę katalog wymienia Herę.]

Source: Kubiak, Zygmunt, Mitologia Greków i Rzymian [Mythology of the Greeks and the Romans], 2005, Świat Książki, p. 172, ISBN 83-247-0125-7.

I know that is not English source, so not quite ideal one to English wikipedia, however it's still written by someone with expertise.

I don't know Greek language, so I don't know what are the phrases Kubiak means, however I want to point that translation on theoi.com [1] also refers to "wives" or "Zeus married" only in context of Metis, Themis and Hera; all others partners are described simply as being "joined in love" with Zeus which is not the same as marriage.

Anyway, I propose to change section seven wives into seven consorts (or: Catalogue of seven consorts, as Zeus had much more partners than 7, and it should be explained those seven are special because of being mentioned in Hesiod's catalogue). Metis, Themis and Hera should still be referred in this section as wives, as none is questioning it, while others should be labelled as "partners" or "consorts" with note linked to that word that would explain there is contradiction within cited studies about their marital status.

[Alternatively, we can recognize that Gantz was mistaken, get rid of his source and quote source that names only three of them; however I don't have currently access to many English books on mythology, so someone would have to this for me, hence I would preffer option number one.] Sobek2000 (talk) 18:37, 26 February 2025 (UTC)

"Seven consorts" might work, though I'm not sure that "consort" is really any different from "wife" in this context. I'd suggest renaming the section to "Partners before Hera", which lets the reader know why the section is placed where it is, and avoids labelling all seven as "wives" (it also prevents the semi-interested reader, who looks only at the section titles, from thinking that Zeus had seven wives at the same time). As to the content of the section itself, I think just a bit of rewording for the figures after Metis and Themis would hopefully resolve the issue there. – Michael Aurel (talk) 01:59, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

I've implemented these changes as per my comment. – Michael Aurel (talk) 17:01, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

Ok, cool! Sorry, that I wasn't responding - I was gonna follow your advice, but I had some things that needed to be done. But nice to see you managed it. Sobek2000 (talk) 19:41, 1 March 2025 (UTC)