ZEUS

the greatest of the Gk. gods, corresponding to Rom. Jupiter or Jove. All three words, with parallels in other Aryan languages, signify ‘bright,’ and have to do with the day. Hence Zeus is the skygod; his worship is very old, undoubtedly dating before the coming of the Hellenes into Greece; Z. is supreme among the gods in Homer. In Crete his worship was a imilated to an older diety corresponding to Dionysus. brated Gk. painter; he excelled with female figures, his masterpiece in this line being the Helen painted for the city of Croton.