ABSTRACT

It is easy when thinking about loftier roles of Zeus to forget a central role in cult: in both literature and life he is the sky and weather god. The sky especially is his realm. According to Poseidon in Iliad 15. 187-93, a lottery shared out the universe between three sons of Kronos: Poseidon got the sea, Hades the ‘misty darkness’ where he rules over the dead, and Zeus ‘the broad sky in the ether and clouds’ (192) – leaving the earth and Olympus as common ground.