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128-485: In the Olympian scheme, the king of gods Zeus is the father of her twins, Apollo and Artemis, whom Leto conceived after her hidden beauty accidentally caught the eye of Zeus. Classical Greek myths record little about Leto other than her pregnancy and search for a place where she could give birth to Apollo and Artemis, since Hera , the wife of Zeus, in her jealousy ordered all lands to shun her and deny her shelter. Hera

256-469: A chthonic earth-god rather than a god of the sky. These local divinities were gradually consolidated, via conquest and religious syncretism , with the Homeric conception of Zeus. Local or idiosyncratic versions of Zeus were given epithets — surnames or titles which distinguish different conceptions of the god. Letoon Letoon or Letoum ( Turkish : Letoon , Ancient Greek : Λητῷον ) in

384-502: A Hellenistic structure built over a spring. Spring water used to emerge from the nymphaeum , flanked by a pair of exedras ; of the remains, only those dating from the 3rd century are visible. The remaining ruins remain largely intact and unaffected by tourism or modern building. Letoon was added as a UNESCO World Heritage Site , along with Xanthos, in 1988. According to UNESCO , the archaeological sites at Xanthos and Letoon represent “the most unique extant architectural example of

512-494: A bride, and names it Daidale. When preparations are being made for the wedding, Hera rushes down from Cithaeron, followed by the women of Plataia , and upon discovering the trick, the couple are reconciled, with the matter ending in joy and laughter among all involved. After his marriage to Hera, different authors describe Zeus's numerous affairs with various mortal women. In many of these affairs, Zeus transforms himself into an animal, someone else, or some other form. According to

640-424: A cuckoo bird, landing on Mount Thornax. He creates a terrible storm, and when Hera arrives at the mountain and sees the bird, which sits on her lap, she takes pity on it, laying her cloak over it. Zeus then transforms back and takes hold of her; when she refuses to have intercourse with him because of their mother, he promises that she will become his wife. Pausanias similarly refers to Zeus transforming himself into

768-416: A cuckoo to woo Hera, and identifies the location as Mount Thornax. According to a version from Plutarch , as recorded by Eusebius in his Praeparatio evangelica , Hera is raised by a nymph named Macris on the island of Euboea when Zeus kidnaps her, taking her to Mount Cithaeron , where they find a shady hollow, which serves as a "natural bridal chamber". When Macris comes to look for Hera, Cithaeron,

896-452: A folk etymology of Zeus meaning "cause of life always to all things", because of puns between alternate titles of Zeus ( Zen and Dia ) with the Greek words for life and "because of". This etymology, along with Plato's entire method of deriving etymologies, is not supported by modern scholarship. Diodorus Siculus wrote that Zeus was also called Zen, because the humans believed that he was

1024-496: A giant scorpion to kill him. In one version, Orion dies after pushing Leto out of the scorpion's way. Afterwards, Leto (and Artemis) placed Orion among the stars (the constellation Orion ). Clinis was a rich Babylonian man who deeply respected Apollo. Having witnessed the Hyperboreans sacrifice donkeys to Apollo, he attempted to do the same, only to be prohibited by the god himself under pain of death. Clinis obeyed and sent

1152-489: A man who was guilty of murdering his father-in-law, by purifying him and bringing him to Olympus. However, Ixion started to lust after Hera. Hera complained about this to her husband, and Zeus decided to test Ixion. Zeus fashioned a cloud that resembles Hera ( Nephele ) and laid the cloud-Hera in Ixion's bed. Ixion coupled with Nephele, resulting in the birth of Centaurus . Zeus punished Ixion for lusting after Hera by tying him to

1280-579: A more complex narrative. Typhon is, similarly to in Hesiod, the child of Gaia and Tartarus, produced out of anger at Zeus's defeat of the Giants. The monster attacks heaven, and all of the gods, out of fear, transform into animals and flee to Egypt, except for Zeus, who attacks the monster with his thunderbolt and sickle. Typhon is wounded and retreats to Mount Kasios in Syria, where Zeus grapples with him, giving

1408-522: A mortal woman who gave birth to Apollo . Leto is the daughter of the Titans Phoebe and Coeus . Her sister is Asteria , who is, by the Titan Perses , the mother of Hecate . Leto is also sometimes called the daughter of Coeus with no mother specified. The island of Kos , in the southeast Aegean Sea , is claimed to be her birthplace. However, Diodorus Siculus states clearly that Leto

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1536-513: A myth, Leto was drinking at a lake in Lycia whilst fleeing with her children Apollo and Artemis from the anger of the goddess Hera . When local peasants tried to drive her away, she rebuked them and transformed them into frogs. Leto may have been identified with an early Luwian goddess whose cult was located with Letoon. The Letoids were designated as the Lycians' national gods. The sanctity of

1664-462: A plan to save her child and bring retribution to Cronus. Following her parents' instructions, she travels to Lyctus in Crete , where she gives birth to Zeus, handing the newborn child over to Gaia for her to raise, and Gaia takes him to a cave on Mount Aegaeon (Aegeum). Rhea then gives to Cronus, in the place of a child, a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes, which he promptly swallows, unaware that it

1792-522: A priestess of Hera, who is subsequently turned into a cow, and suffers at Hera's hands: according to Apollodorus, Hera sends a gadfly to sting the cow, driving her all the way to Egypt, where she is finally transformed back into human form. In later accounts of Zeus's affair with Semele , a daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia , Hera tricks her into persuading Zeus to grant her any promise. Semele asks him to come to her as he comes to his own wife Hera, and when Zeus upholds this promise, she dies out of fright and

1920-468: A public occasion in the rites of a dynasty, where the authenticity of the child must be established beyond doubt from the first moment. The dynastic rite of the witnessed birth must have been familiar to the hymn's hearers. The dynasty that is so concerned about being authenticated in this myth is the new dynasty of Zeus and the Olympian Pantheon , and the goddesses at Delos who bear witness to

2048-438: A punishing gift to compensate for the boon they had been given. He commands Hephaestus to mold from earth the first woman, a "beautiful evil" whose descendants would torment the human race. After Hephaestus does so, several other gods contribute to her creation. Hermes names the woman ' Pandora '. Pandora was given in marriage to Prometheus's brother Epimetheus . Zeus gave her a jar which contained many evils. Pandora opened

2176-541: A scholion on the Iliad (citing Hesiod and Bacchylides ), when Europa is picking flowers with her female companions in a meadow in Phoenicia, Zeus transforms himself into a bull, lures her from the others, and then carries her across the sea to the island of Crete, where he resumes his usual form to sleep with her. In Euripides ' Helen , Zeus takes the form of a swan, and after being chased by an eagle, finds shelter in

2304-417: A she-wolf, or that she sought out the "wolf-country" of Lycia, formerly called Tremilis, which she renamed to honour wolves that had befriended her. Another late source, Aelian , also links Leto with wolves and Hyperboreans: Wolves are not easily delivered of their young, only after twelve days and twelve nights, for the people of Delos maintain that this was the length of time that it took Leto to travel from

2432-623: A similar ten-year war against the Titans, until, upon the prophesying of Gaia, he releases the Cyclopes and Hundred-Handers from Tartarus, first slaying their warder, Campe . The Cyclopes give him his thunderbolt, Poseidon his trident and Hades his helmet of invisibility, and the Titans are defeated and the Hundred-Handers made their guards. According to the Iliad , after the battle with

2560-518: A snake and raped her. Rhea became pregnant and gave birth to Persephone . Zeus in the form of a snake would mate with his daughter Persephone, which resulted in the birth of Dionysus . Zeus granted Callirrhoe's prayer that her sons by Alcmaeon , Acarnan and Amphoterus , grow quickly so that they might be able to avenge the death of their father by the hands of Phegeus and his two sons. Both Zeus and Poseidon wooed Thetis , daughter of Nereus . But when Themis (or Prometheus) prophesied that

2688-476: A tree which produces golden apples as a wedding gift. Eratosthenes and Hyginus attribute a similar story to Pherecydes, in which Hera is amazed by the gift, and asks for the apples to be planted in the "garden of the gods", nearby to Mount Atlas . Apollodorus specifies them as the golden apples of the Hesperides , and says that Gaia gives them to Zeus after the marriage. According to Diodorus Siculus ,

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2816-416: A wheel that spins forever. Once, Helios the sun god gave his chariot to his inexperienced son Phaethon to drive. Phaethon could not control his father's steeds so he ended up taking the chariot too high, freezing the earth, or too low, burning everything to the ground. The earth itself prayed to Zeus, and in order to prevent further disaster, Zeus hurled a thunderbolt at Phaethon, killing him and saving

2944-430: A youthful affair between Zeus and Hera. In the Iliad , the pair are described as having first lay with each other before Cronus is sent to Tartarus, without the knowledge of their parents. A scholiast on the Iliad states that, after Cronus is banished to Tartarus, Oceanus and Tethys give Hera to Zeus in marriage, and only shortly after the two are wed, Hera gives birth to Hephaestus , having lay secretly with Zeus on

3072-690: Is Latona , a Latinization of her name, influenced by the Etruscan Letun . In ancient art, she is presented as a modest, veiled woman in the presence of her children and Zeus, or in the process of being carried off by Tityos. 'Leto' is Attic Greek ; in the Doric Greek dialect, spoken in Sparta and the surrounding areas her name was spelled Lato with an alpha instead ( Ancient Greek : Λατώ , romanized :  Latṓ ; pronounced [laːtɔ̌ː] ). There are several explanations for

3200-499: Is a slightly later poet, Pindar. The two earliest poets, Homer and Hesiod , confirm Artemis and Apollo's status as full siblings born to Leto by Zeus, but neither explicitly makes them twins. According to the Homeric Hymn 3 to Delian Apollo , Leto travelled far and wide to find a place to give birth, but none of them dared be the birthplace of Apollo. After having arrived at Delos, she labored for nine nights and nine days, in

3328-414: Is also the one to have sent the monstrous Python , a giant serpent, against Leto to pursue and harm her. Leto eventually found an island, Delos , that was not joined to the mainland or attached to the ocean floor, therefore it was not considered land or island and she could give birth. In some stories, Hera further tormented Leto by delaying her labour, leaving Leto in agony for days before she could deliver

3456-682: Is an ancient Greek epic poem attributed to Homer about the Trojan war and the battle over the City of Troy , in which Zeus plays a major part. Scenes in which Zeus appears include: When Hades requested to marry Zeus's daughter, Persephone , Zeus approved and advised Hades to abduct Persephone, as her mother Demeter would not allow her to marry Hades. In the Orphic "Rhapsodic Theogony" (first century BC/AD), Zeus wanted to marry his mother Rhea . After Rhea refused to marry him, Zeus turned into

3584-610: Is born in Dicte , and the mythographer Apollodorus (first or second century AD) similarly says he was born in a cave in Dicte. While the Theogony says nothing of Zeus's upbringing other than that he grew up swiftly, other sources provide more detailed accounts. According to Apollodorus, Rhea, after giving birth to Zeus in a cave in Dicte, gives him to the nymphs Adrasteia and Ida , daughters of Melisseus , to nurse. They feed him on

3712-593: Is born, emerging from Zeus's head, but the foretold son never comes forth. Apollodorus presents a similar version, stating that Metis took many forms in attempting to avoid Zeus's embraces, and that it was Gaia alone who warned Zeus of the son who would overthrow him. According to a fragment likely from the Hesiodic corpus, quoted by Chrysippus, it is out of anger at Hera for producing Hephaestus on her own that Zeus has intercourse with Metis, and then swallows her, thereby giving rise to Athena from himself. A scholiast on

3840-461: Is ever glad for having borne the king of gods such a splendid son and archer. According to the Bibliotheca , "But Latona for her intrigue with Zeus was hunted by Hera over the whole earth, till she came to Delos and brought forth first Artemis, by the help of whose midwifery she afterwards gave birth to Apollo." Antoninus Liberalis hints that Leto came down from Hyperborea in the guise of

3968-474: Is found at Olympus among the other gods, having gained her seat next to Zeus, or accompanying and helping her son and daughter in their various endeavors. In antiquity, Leto was usually worshipped in conjunction with her twin children, particularly in the sacred island of Delos, as a kourotrophic deity, the goddess of motherhood; in Lycia she was a mother goddess . In Roman mythology , Leto's Roman equivalent

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4096-476: Is given "ephemeral fruits" by the Moirai , which reduce his strength. The monster then flees to Thrace, where he hurls mountains at Zeus, which are sent back at him by the god's thunderbolts, before, while fleeing to Sicily , Zeus launches Mount Etna upon him, finally ending him. Nonnus , who gives the longest and most detailed account, presents a narrative similar to Apollodorus, with differences such as that it

4224-697: Is his sister Demeter , with whom he has Persephone . Zeus's next consort is the Titan Mnemosyne ; as described at the beginning of the Theogony , Zeus lies with Mnemosyne in Piera each night for nine nights, producing the nine Muses. His sixth wife is the Titan Leto , who bears him the twins Apollo and Artemis , who, according to the Homeric Hymn to Apollo , are born on the island of Delos . In Hesiod's account, Zeus's seventh and final wife

4352-442: Is his sister Hera . While Hera is Zeus's seventh wife in Hesiod's version, in other accounts she is his first and only wife. In the Theogony , the couple has three children, Ares , Hebe , and Eileithyia . While Hesiod states that Hera produces Hephaestus on her own after Athena is born from Zeus's head, other versions, including Homer, have Hephaestus as a child of Zeus and Hera as well. Various authors give descriptions of

4480-612: Is instead Cadmus and Pan who recovers Zeus's sinews, by luring Typhon with music and then tricking him. In the Iliad , Homer tells of another attempted overthrow, in which Hera, Poseidon, and Athena conspire to overpower Zeus and tie him in bonds. It is only because of the Nereid Thetis , who summons Briareus, one of the Hecatoncheires , to Olympus, that the other Olympians abandon their plans (out of fear for Briareus). According to Hesiod, Zeus takes Metis , one of

4608-572: Is located south of the village of Kumluova  [ tr ] (previously known as Botisullu), in the Fethiye district of Muğla Province , Turkey. The site is 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) southwest of the site of Lycia's most important city, Xanthos. The Greek geographer Strabo located Letoon ten stades —more than one mile (1.6 km)—from the coast, a figure considered by the English archaeologist George Ewart Bean to be correct, considering

4736-729: Is not his son. While Hesiod gives Lyctus as Zeus's birthplace, he is the only source to do so, and other authors give different locations. The poet Eumelos of Corinth (8th century BC), according to John the Lydian , considered Zeus to have been born in Lydia , while the Alexandrian poet Callimachus (c. 310 – c. 240 BC), in his Hymn to Zeus , says that he was born in Arcadia . Diodorus Siculus (fl. 1st century BC) seems at one point to give Mount Ida as his birthplace, but later states he

4864-422: Is reduced to ashes. According to Callimachus, after Zeus sleeps with Callisto, Hera turns her into a bear, and instructs Artemis to shoot her. In addition, Zeus's son by Alcmene, the hero Heracles , is persecuted continuously throughout his mortal life by Hera, up until his apotheosis. According to Diodorus Siculus , Alcmene, the mother of Heracles, was the very last mortal woman Zeus ever slept with; following

4992-433: Is remarkable that Leto brought forth Artemis, the elder twin, without travail. Libanius wrote that neither land nor visible islands would receive Leto, but by the will of Zeus Delos then became visible, and thus received Leto and the children. According to Hyginus , when Hera discovered that Leto was pregnant by Zeus, she banned Leto from giving birth on " terra firma ", the mainland, any island at sea, or any place under

5120-449: Is the child of Cronus and Rhea , the youngest of his siblings to be born, though sometimes reckoned the eldest as the others required disgorging from Cronus's stomach. In most traditions, he is married to Hera , by whom he is usually said to have fathered Ares , Eileithyia , Hebe , and Hephaestus . At the oracle of Dodona , his consort was said to be Dione , by whom the Iliad states that he fathered Aphrodite . According to

5248-518: The Iliad , in contrast, states that when Zeus swallows her, Metis is pregnant with Athena not by Zeus himself, but by the Cyclops Brontes. The motif of Zeus swallowing Metis can be seen as a continuation of the succession myth: it is prophesied that a son of Zeus will overthrow him, just as he overthrew his father, but whereas Cronos met his end because he did not swallow the real Zeus, Zeus holds onto his power because he successfully swallows

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5376-566: The Orphic Hymn 35 to Leto describes her as "dark-veiled" and "goddess who gave birth to twins" ( θεός διδυματόκος ). In the Homeric Hymn to Apollo , she is described as golden-haired. Hesiod makes her the sixth out of the seven wives of Zeus, who bore his children before his marriage to Hera, however this element is absent in later accounts, all of which speak of a liaison between the two, that ended up in Leto falling pregnant. When Hera,

5504-519: The Theogony , Zeus's first wife was Metis , by whom he had Athena . Zeus was also infamous for his erotic escapades. These resulted in many divine and heroic offspring, including Apollo , Artemis , Hermes , Persephone , Dionysus , Perseus , Heracles , Helen of Troy , Minos , and the Muses . He was respected as a sky father who was chief of the gods and assigned roles to the others: "Even

5632-462: The Fethiye district of Muğla Province , Turkey, was a sanctuary of Leto located 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) south of the ancient city of Xanthos , to which it was closely associated, and along the Xanthos River. It was one of the most important religious centres in the region though never a fully-occupied settlement. Letoon was added as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988. Letoon was

5760-603: The Linear B syllabic script. Zeus is the Greek continuation of * Di̯ēus , the name of the Proto-Indo-European god of the daytime sky, also called * Dyeus ph 2 tēr ("Sky Father"). The god is known under this name in the Rigveda ( Vedic Sanskrit Dyaus/Dyaus Pita ), Latin (compare Jupiter , from Iuppiter , deriving from the Proto-Indo-European vocative * dyeu-ph 2 tēr ), deriving from

5888-587: The Lycian language , Ancient Greek and Aramaic . The so-called Letoon trilingual is now conserved in the Fethiye Museum  [ tr ] . It contains regulations for the establishment of a cult at Letoom. The text has contributed greatly to a greater understanding of the Lycian language. The text is unusual, in that, unlike most Lycian texts, it does not consist of consists of epitaphs . Letoon

6016-461: The Oceanid daughters of Oceanus and Tethys , as his first wife. However, when she is about to give birth to a daughter, Athena , he swallows her whole upon the advice of Gaia and Uranus, as it had been foretold that after bearing a daughter, she would give birth to a son, who would overthrow him as king of gods and mortals; it is from this position that Metis gives counsel to Zeus. In time, Athena

6144-668: The Siphnian frieze from Delphi, another relief depiction of the battle of the gods against the Giants. When the gigantic Typhon attacked Olympus, all the gods transformed into animals and fled to Egypt terrified, or alternatively Typhon attacked them once they had assembled in Egypt in great numbers. Leto turned into a shrew mouse. Leto was equated with the Egyptian goddess Wadjet , a cobra goddess, however other Egyptian gods and goddesses were also connected to shrew mice. Additionally,

6272-486: The root * dyeu - ("to shine", and in its many derivatives, "sky, heaven, god"). Albanian Zoj-z and Messapic Zis are clear equivalents and cognates of Zeus . In the Greek, Albanian, and Messapic forms the original cluster *di̯ underwent affrication to *dz . Zeus is the only deity in the Olympic pantheon whose name has such a transparent Indo-European etymology. Plato , in his Cratylus , gives

6400-517: The tutelary deity of the mountain, stops her, saying that Zeus is sleeping there with Leto. Photius , in his Bibliotheca , tells us that in Ptolemy Hephaestion 's New History , Hera refuses to lay with Zeus, and hides in a cave to avoid him, before an earthborn man named Achilles convinces her to marry Zeus, leading to the pair first sleeping with each other. According to Stephanus of Byzantium , Zeus and Hera first lay together at

6528-566: The 6th century BCE, and pre-date the Greek cultural hegemony in Lycia . The sanctuary was connected to Xanthos by a road that led up from Patara to the south. The foundations of the three Hellenistic temples dedicated to Leto and her children have been excavated since 1962, under the successive direction of the French archaeologists Henri Metzger , Jacques Des Courtils and Emmanuel Laroche . Since then, excavations have uncovered most of

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6656-599: The Egyptians would embalm small animals like ichneumons and shrew mice and put their mummies in bronze containers. Leto also took part in the Trojan War , on the Trojans' side, along with her children Apollo and Artemis. When Apollo saved Aeneas from the battlefield, he brought him to one of his own temples in nearby Pergamus, where he was healed by Artemis and Leto. Later, when the gods battle each other, Leto supports

6784-477: The Gigantomachy. According to Hesiod, the Giants are the offspring of Gaia, born from the drops of blood that fell on the ground when Cronus castrated his father Uranus; there is, however, no mention of a battle between the gods and the Giants in the Theogony . It is Apollodorus who provides the most complete account of the Gigantomachy. He says that Gaia, out of anger at how Zeus had imprisoned her children,

6912-529: The Homeric "cloud collector" was the god of the sky and thunder like his Near-Eastern counterparts, he was also the supreme cultural artifact; in some senses, he was the embodiment of Greek religious beliefs and the archetypal Greek deity. Popular conceptions of Zeus differed widely from place to place. Local varieties of Zeus often have little in common with each other except the name. They exercised different areas of authority and were worshiped in different ways; for example, some local cults conceived of Zeus as

7040-498: The Hundred-Handers attack with barrages of rocks, and the Titans are finally defeated, with Zeus banishing them to Tartarus and assigning the Hundred-Handers the task of acting as their warders. Apollodorus provides a similar account, saying that, when Zeus reaches adulthood, he enlists the help of the Oceanid Metis , who gives Cronus an emetic , forcing to him to disgorge the stone and Zeus's five siblings. Zeus then fights

7168-591: The Hyperboreoi to Delos. Leto found the barren floating island of Delos, still bearing its archaic name of Asterios, which was neither mainland nor a real island and gave birth there, promising the island wealth from the worshippers who would flock to the obscure birthplace of the splendid god who was to come. As a gesture of gratitude, Delos was secured with four pillars and later became sacred to Apollo. Callimachus states that not only did every place on earth refuse to give sanctuary to Leto out of fear of Hera, but

7296-439: The Titans and banishes them to Tartarus, his rule is challenged by the monster Typhon , a giant serpentine creature who battles Zeus for control of the cosmos. According to Hesiod, Typhon is the offspring of Gaia and Tartarus , described as having a hundred snaky fire-breathing heads. Hesiod says he "would have come to reign over mortals and immortals" had it not been for Zeus noticing the monster and dispatching with him quickly:

7424-612: The Titans fighting from Mount Othrys . The battle lasts for ten years with no clear victor emerging, until, upon Gaia's advice, Zeus releases the Hundred-Handers , who (similarly to the Cyclopes) were imprisoned beneath the Earth's surface. He gives them nectar and ambrosia and revives their spirits, and they agree to aid him in the war. Zeus then launches his final attack on the Titans, hurling bolts of lightning upon them while

7552-462: The Titans, Zeus shares the world with his brothers, Poseidon and Hades, by drawing lots: Zeus receives the sky, Poseidon the sea, and Hades the underworld, with the earth and Olympus remaining common ground. Upon assuming his place as king of the cosmos, Zeus's rule is quickly challenged. The first of these challenges to his power comes from the Giants , who fight the Olympian gods in a battle known as

7680-406: The Titans, bore the Giants to Uranus. There comes to the gods a prophecy that the Giants cannot be defeated by the gods on their own, but can be defeated only with the help of a mortal; Gaia, upon hearing of this, seeks a special pharmakon (herb) that will prevent the Giants from being killed. Zeus, however, orders Eos (Dawn), Selene (Moon) and Helios (Sun) to stop shining, and harvests all of

7808-514: The Trojans, standing opposite of Hermes , who supports the Achaeans. After witnessing Hera defeat Artemis and beating her with her own bow, and Artemis fleeing in tears, Hermes refuses to challenge Leto, encouraging her to simply tell everyone she beat him fair and square. Leto picks up Artemis's discarded bow and arrows and runs after her crying daughter. According to a scholium on the Iliad that claims to report Theagenes 's interpretation of

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7936-403: The ancient Lycian Civilization”. UNESCO has acknowledged that the Lycian rock inscriptions are the language’s most important texts, and have a crucial role in helping to understand both the ancient Lycian people, their civilization, and their long-lost language. Letoon is a 1st degree archaeological site and so subject to conservation legislation. It is within an Environment Protection Zone under

8064-412: The better portions. He sacrificed a large ox , and divided it into two piles. In one pile he put all the meat and most of the fat, covering it with the ox's grotesque stomach, while in the other pile, he dressed up the bones with fat. Prometheus then invited Zeus to choose; Zeus chose the pile of bones. This set a precedent for sacrifices, where humans will keep the fat for themselves and burn the bones for

8192-449: The birth of Heracles, he ceased to beget humans altogether, and fathered no more children. The following is a list of Zeus's offspring, by various mothers. Beside each offspring, the earliest source to record the parentage is given, along with the century to which the source dates. When the gods met at Mecone to discuss which portions they will receive after a sacrifice, the titan Prometheus decided to trick Zeus so that humans receive

8320-428: The bridal clothing; she is so relieved that the couple are reconciled. According to a version from Plutarch, as recorded by Eusebius in his Praeparatio evangelica , when Hera is angry with her husband, she retreats instead to Cithaeron, and Zeus goes to the earth-born man Alalcomeneus, who suggests he pretend to marry someone else. With the help of Alalcomeneus, Zeus creates a wooden statue from an oak tree, dresses it as

8448-474: The cause of life (zen). While Lactantius wrote that he was called Zeus and Zen, not because he is the giver of life, but because he was the first who lived of the children of Cronus . Zeus was called by numerous alternative names or surnames, known as epithets . Some epithets are the surviving names of local gods who were consolidated into the myth of Zeus. In Hesiod 's Theogony (c. 730 – 700 BC), Cronus , after castrating his father Uranus , becomes

8576-424: The city of Hermione , having come there from Crete. Callimachus, in a fragment from his Aetia , also apparently makes reference to the couple's union occurring at Naxos . Though no complete account of Zeus and Hera's wedding exists, various authors make reference to it. According to a scholiast on Apollonius of Rhodes ' Argonautica , Pherecydes states that when Zeus and Hera are being married, Gaia brings

8704-558: The cultures of the ancient Near East , such as the scepter . The god's name in the nominative is Ζεύς ( Zeús ). It is inflected as follows: vocative : Ζεῦ ( Zeû ); accusative : Δία ( Día ); genitive : Διός ( Diós ); dative : Διί ( Dií ). Diogenes Laërtius quotes Pherecydes of Syros as spelling the name Ζάς . The earliest attested forms of the name are the Mycenaean Greek 𐀇𐀸 , di-we (dative) and 𐀇𐀺 , di-wo (genitive), written in

8832-470: The dead back to life, with a thunderbolt, Zeus was about to punish Apollo by throwing him into Tartarus , but Leto interceded for him, and Apollo became bondman to a mortal king named Admetus instead. Apollo happily served Admetus, and enthusiastically undertook several domestic chores during his servitude with him. Leto is said to have despaired at the sight of his unkempt and disheveled locks, which had been admired by even Hera. Praxilla wrote that Carneus

8960-407: The deathless gods, mild from the beginning," the gentlest goddess in all Olympus . Plato also makes references to Leto's softness when trying to link etymologically her name to the word ἐθελήμονα ("willing", i.e. to assist those asking for her help), as well as λεῖον ("mild"). Next to Demeter , Leto was the most celebrated mother of the ancient world. Hesiod describes Leto as "dark-gowned" and

9088-405: The donkeys away, but two of his sons proceeded with the sacrifice anyway. Apollo, enraged, drove the donkeys mad which then began to devour the entire family. Leto and Artemis felt sorry for Clinis, his third son and his daughter, who had done nothing to deserve such fate. Apollo allowed his mother and sister to save those three, and the goddesses changed them into birds before they could be killed by

9216-525: The donkeys. In Crete lived a poor couple, Galatea and Lamprus. When Galatea fell pregnant, Lamprus warned her that if the child turned out to be female, he would expose it. Galatea gave birth while Lamprus was away, and the infant proved indeed to be a girl. Galatea, fearing her husband, lied to him and told him it was a boy instead whom she named Leucippus ("white horse"). But as the years passed, Leucippus grew to be an exceptionally beautiful girl, and her true sex could no longer be concealed. Galatea fled to

9344-580: The enemies of Apollo and Artemis for attempting to cause harm to their mother. One of the monsters that came across Leto was the dragon Python , which lived in a cleft of the mother-rock beneath Delphi and beside the Castalian Spring . Once Python knew that Leto was pregnant to Zeus, he hunted her down with the intention to harm her, and once he could not find her, he returned to Parnassus . An epigram from 159 BC seems to imply that Python in particular wanted to rape Leto. According to some, Python

9472-429: The fountain. In the story of Niobe , Queen Niobe boasts of being a better mother than Leto due to having given birth to a greater number of children than the goddess. Leto then asks her twin children to avenge her, and they respond by shooting all of Niobe's sons and daughters dead as punishment. In another myth, the gigantic Tityos attempts to violate Leto, only for him to be slain by Artemis and Apollo. Usually, Leto

9600-571: The goat Amalthea. He also refers to the Kouretes "rais[ing] a great alarum", and in doing so deceiving Cronus, and relates that when the Kouretes were carrying the newborn Zeus that the umbilical cord fell away at the river Triton. Hyginus , in his Fabulae , relates a version in which Cronus casts Poseidon into the sea and Hades to the Underworld instead of swallowing them. When Zeus is born, Hera (also not swallowed), asks Rhea to give her

9728-621: The goddess of marriage and family, queen of the gods and the wife of Zeus, figured it out, she pursued her relentlessly. The Homeric Hymn 3 to Apollo is the oldest extant account of Leto's wandering and birth of her children, but it is only concerned with the birth of Apollo, and treats Artemis as an afterthought; in fact the hymn does not even state that Leto's children are twins, and they are given different birthplaces (he in Delos, she in Ortygia ). The first to speak of Leto's children being twins

9856-489: The gods who are not his natural children address him as Father, and all the gods rise in his presence." He was equated with many foreign weather gods , permitting Pausanias to observe "That Zeus is king in heaven is a saying common to all men". Zeus's symbols are the thunderbolt , eagle , bull , and oak . In addition to his Indo-European inheritance , the classical "cloud-gatherer" ( Greek : Νεφεληγερέτα , Nephelēgereta ) also derives certain iconographic traits from

9984-400: The gods' battle, Hermes here represents reason and rationality ( λόγος , "logos") as opposed to Leto, who stands in for forgetfulness ( λήθη , "lethe", perhaps a wordplay on Leto's name). After Orion 's sight was restored, he met with Artemis and Leto and joined them in hunting, where he bragged about being such a great hunter he could kill every animal on earth, angering Gaia who sent

10112-513: The gods, give them to humans, and was subsequently chained in the Caucasus with an eagle feasting on his liver each day for punishment) from his eternal torment. Zeus, moved by Artemis and Leto's tears and Apollo's words, agreed instantly and commanded Heracles to free Prometheus. When Apollo killed the Cyclopes in revenge for Zeus slaying his son Asclepius , a gifted healer who could bring

10240-453: The gods. Zeus, enraged at Prometheus's deception, prohibited the use of fire by humans. Prometheus, however, stole fire from Olympus in a fennel stalk and gave it to humans. This further enraged Zeus, who punished Prometheus by binding him to a cliff, where an eagle constantly ate Prometheus's liver, which regenerated every night. Prometheus was eventually freed from his misery by Heracles . Now Zeus, angry at humans, decides to give humanity

10368-409: The herb himself, before having Athena summon Heracles . In the conflict, Porphyrion , one of the most powerful of the Giants, launches an attack upon Heracles and Hera; Zeus, however, causes Porphyrion to become lustful for Hera, and when he is just about to violate her, Zeus strikes him with his thunderbolt, before Heracles deals the fatal blow with an arrow. In the Theogony , after Zeus defeats

10496-443: The intervention of the Moirai and Themis ; he instead transforms them into various species of birds. According to the Theogony , after Zeus reaches manhood, Cronus is made to disgorge the five children and the stone "by the stratagems of Gaia, but also by the skills and strength of Zeus", presumably in reverse order, vomiting out the stone first, then each of the five children in the opposite order to swallowing. Zeus then sets up

10624-459: The island of Samos beforehand; to conceal this act, she claimed that she had produced Hephaestus on her own. According to another scholiast on the Iliad , Callimachus , in his Aetia , says that Zeus lay with Hera for three hundred years on the island of Samos. According to a scholion on Theocritus ' Idylls , Zeus, one day seeing Hera walking apart from the other gods, becomes intent on having intercourse with her, and transforms himself into

10752-431: The jar and released all the evils, which made mankind miserable. Only hope remained inside the jar. When Zeus was atop Mount Olympus he was appalled by human sacrifice and other signs of human decadence. He decided to wipe out mankind and flooded the world with the help of his brother Poseidon . After the flood, only Deucalion and Pyrrha remained. This flood narrative is a common motif in mythology. The Iliad

10880-474: The lap of Leda , subsequently seducing her, while in Euripides's lost play Antiope , Zeus apparently took the form of a satyr to sleep with Antiope . Various authors speak of Zeus raping Callisto , one of the companions of Artemis , doing so in the form of Artemis herself according to Ovid (or, as mentioned by Apollodorus, in the form of Apollo ), and Pherecydes relates that Zeus sleeps with Alcmene ,

11008-460: The location of the marriage is in the land of the Knossians , nearby to the river Theren, while Lactantius attributes to Varro the statement that the couple are married on the island of Samos. There exist several stories in which Zeus, receiving advice, is able to reconcile with an angered Hera. According to Pausanias, Hera, angry with her husband, retreats to the island of Euboea, where she

11136-467: The milk of the she-goat Amalthea , while the Kouretes guard the cave and beat their spears on their shields so that Cronus cannot hear the infant's crying. Diodorus Siculus provides a similar account, saying that, after giving birth, Rhea travels to Mount Ida and gives the newborn Zeus to the Kouretes, who then takes him to some nymphs (not named), who raised him on a mixture of honey and milk from

11264-520: The monster a chance to wrap him in his coils, and rip out the sinews from his hands and feet. Disabled, Zeus is taken by Typhon to the Corycian Cave in Cilicia, where he is guarded by the "she-dragon" Delphyne . Hermes and Aegipan , however, steal back Zeus's sinews, and refit them, reviving him and allowing him to return to the battle, pursuing Typhon, who flees to Mount Nysa; there, Typhon

11392-424: The myth of Semele and her son Dionysus , another story of a mortal woman who bore an important son for Zeus and was punished by Hera for that. Yet at the same time Hesiodic tradition makes her the daughter of two Titans, elder gods, and one of Zeus' first seven wives. Leto's peculiar mythology and ontology has led to suggestions that she might be a composite of two figures, an immortal goddess who bore Artemis , and

11520-401: The nurses of Zeus. According to a fragment of Epimenides, the nymphs Helike and Kynosura are the young Zeus's nurses. Cronus travels to Crete to look for Zeus, who, to conceal his presence, transforms himself into a snake and his two nurses into bears. According to Musaeus , after Zeus is born, Rhea gives him to Themis . Themis in turn gives him to Amalthea, who owns a she-goat, which nurses

11648-406: The origin of the Greek name Λήδα Leda . Other scholars ( Kretschmer , Bethe , Chantraine , and Beekes ) have suggested a pre-Greek origin. In Mycenaean Greek her name has been attested through the form Latios , meaning "son of Leto" or "related to Leto" ( Linear B : 𐀨𐀴𐀍 , ra-ti-jo ), and Lato (Linear B: 𐀨𐀵 , ra-to ). Leto was identified from the fourth century onwards as

11776-434: The origin of the goddess and the meaning of her name. Older sources speculated that the name is related to the Greek λήθη lḗthē ( lethe , oblivion ) and λωτός lotus (the fruit that brings oblivion to those who eat it). It would thus mean "the hidden one". In 20th century sources Leto is traditionally derived from Lycian lada , "wife", as her earliest cult was centered in Lycia . Lycian lada may also be

11904-422: The pond. Leto turned them into frogs for their inhospitality, forever doomed to swim in the murky waters of ponds and rivers. Zeus Zeus ( / zj uː s / , Ancient Greek : Ζεύς ) is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion and mythology , who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus . His name is cognate with the first syllable of his Roman equivalent Jupiter . Zeus

12032-411: The presence of Dione, Rhea , Ichnaea , Themis and the sea-goddess Amphitrite . Only Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth, was not present; she, unaware of the situation, was with jealous Hera on Olympus. Her absence, which was preventing Leto from giving birth, kept her in labor for nine days. According to the Homeric hymn, the goddesses who assembled to witness the birth of Apollo were responding to

12160-483: The principal local mother goddess of Anatolian Lycia , as the region became Hellenized. In Greek inscriptions, the children of Leto are referred to as the "national gods" of the country. Her sanctuary, the Letoon near Xanthos , predated Hellenic influence in the region, however, united the Lycian confederacy of city-states. The Hellenes of Kos also claimed Leto as their own. Another sanctuary, more recently identified,

12288-401: The probable change in the position of the coast line since Classical antiquity . The complex is dominated by three 4/5th century BC temples. The central temple was dedicated to Artemis. The other two temples, which are Greek, were dedicated to at least one of the other Letoids. The nymphaeum (which supplied a source of fresh water), is early 2nd century or later. It occupied the site of

12416-416: The queen of gods had also deployed Ares and Iris to drive Leto away from anywhere she tried to settle in, so she would not give birth to her twins. Leto considered the island of Kos for a birthplace, but Apollo, still in the womb, advised his mother against giving birth to him there, saying Kos was fated to be the birthplace of someone else . He later urged his mother to go to Delos. Callimachus wrote that it

12544-591: The religious centre of Xanthos and the Lycian League . Inscriptions found at the site indicate that it was where Lycian rulers declared their decisions to the public. It was continuously occupied from the 8th century BC to the end of the Roman period of occupation. The site was dedicated to the worship of the Letoids—the Greek goddess Leto , and her twin offspring, Artemis and Apollo . According to

12672-424: The request of Apollo's mother, Leto , Zeus instead ordered Apollo to serve as a slave to King Admetus of Pherae for a year. According to Diodorus Siculus , Zeus killed Asclepius because of complains from Hades, who was worried that the number of people in the underworld was diminishing because of Asclepius's resurrections. The winged horse Pegasus carried the thunderbolts of Zeus. Zeus took pity on Ixion ,

12800-499: The responsibility of the Turkish Ministry of Environment and Urbanization. The Regional Conservation Council approved a Conservation Plan in 2006. The architecture influenced that of other Lycian cities such as Patara , Pınara , and Myra . Visually affected by greenhouses which surround it, Letton is also threatened by seasonal rising of the water table . The construction of water channels in 2006 acted to mitigate

12928-400: The rightness of the birth are the great goddesses of the old order. Demeter was not present and Aphrodite was not either, but Rhea attended. The goddess Dione (her name simply means "divine" or "she-Zeus") is sometimes taken by later mythographers as a mere feminine form of Zeus (see entry Dodona ). If that was the case, she would not have assembled there. Then, on the ninth day, Eileithyia

13056-471: The site is the purport of an anecdote related by the 2nd century Greek historian Appian concerning Mithridates VI of Pontus , who was planning to cut down the trees in the sacred grove for his own purposes during his siege of Patara, but was warned against this sacrilege in a nightmare. The site remained active through the Roman period. It was Christianised by the construction of an basilical church. Archaeological finds at Letoon date to at least

13184-483: The site's ruins, most of which are located under the water table of the River Xanthos. The temple of Leto was successfully reconstructed in its original setting between 2000 and 2007 using original pieces found during excavations carried out since 1950s. As of 2004 , the stadium has not been located. In 1973, a stele was discovered at the site. The stele's inscription, dated to 337 BCE, features texts in

13312-494: The sole exception (besides Leto) is found in the Suda , a late Byzantine lexicon which recounts the story of Hera cursing a pregnant Aphrodite 's belly, leading to the birth of Priapus . Moreover, Leto's troubled childbirth bears resemblance to Alcmene 's, as both suffered painful extended labours due to Hera not allowing Eileithyia , the goddess of childbirth, to help them, and both stories overall are also thematically linked to

13440-488: The son born of Thetis would be mightier than his father, Thetis was married off to the mortal Peleus . Zeus was afraid that his grandson Asclepius would teach resurrection to humans, so he killed Asclepius with his thunderbolt. This angered Asclepius's father, Apollo , who in turn killed the Cyclopes who had fashioned the thunderbolts of Zeus. Angered at this, Zeus would have imprisoned Apollo in Tartarus. However, at

13568-547: The stone at Delphi , so that it may act as "a sign thenceforth and a marvel to mortal men". Zeus next frees the Cyclopes , who, in return, and out of gratitude, give him his thunderbolt, which had previously been hidden by Gaia. Then begins the Titanomachy , the war between the Olympians, led by Zeus, and the Titans, led by Cronus, for control of the universe, with Zeus and the Olympians fighting from Mount Olympus , and

13696-469: The sun. But Zeus then sent Boreas , the god of the north wind, to Leto, who brought her to Poseidon. Poseidon then raised high waves above Ortygia , shielding it from the light of the sun with a water dome; it was later called the island of Delos. There Leto, clinging to an olive tree, bore Apollo and Artemis after four days. According to the Homeric Hymn and the Orphic Hymn 35 to Leto , Artemis

13824-564: The supreme ruler of the cosmos, and weds his sister Rhea , by whom he begets three daughters and three sons: Hestia , Demeter , Hera , Hades , Poseidon , and lastly, "wise" Zeus, the youngest of the six. He swallows each child as soon as they are born, having received a prophecy from his parents, Gaia and Uranus, that one of his own children is destined to one day overthrow him as he overthrew his father. This causes Rhea "unceasing grief", and upon becoming pregnant with her sixth child, Zeus, she approaches her parents, Gaia and Uranus, seeking

13952-576: The temple of Leto, and prayed to the goddess to change Leucippus into an actual boy. Leto took pity in mother and child, and fulfilled Galatea's wish, changing Leucippus's sex into that of a boy's. To celebrate this, the people at Phaistos sacrificed to Leto Phytia during the Ecdysia ("stripping naked") festival in her honour. In one version, Leto, along with her daughter Artemis, stood before Zeus with tearful eyes while her son Apollo pleaded with him to release Prometheus (the god who had stolen fire from

14080-505: The threat, in the form of the potential mother, and so the "cycle of displacement" is brought to an end. In addition, the myth can be seen as an allegory for Zeus gaining the wisdom of Metis for himself by swallowing her. In Hesiod's account, Zeus's second wife is Themis , one of the Titan daughters of Uranus and Gaia, with whom he has the Horae , listed as Eunomia , Dike and Eirene , and

14208-609: The three Moirai : Clotho , Lachesis and Atropos . A fragment from Pindar calls Themis Zeus's first wife, and states that she is brought by the Moirai (in this version not her daughters) up to Olympus, where she becomes the bride of Zeus and bears him the Horae. According to Hesiod, Zeus next marries the Oceanid Eurynome , with whom he has the three Charites , namely Aglaea , Euphrosyne and Thalia . Zeus's fourth wife

14336-451: The twins, especially Apollo. Once Apollo and Artemis are born and grown, Leto withdraws, to remain a matronly figure upon Olympus, her part already played. Besides the myth of the birth of Artemis and Apollo, Leto appears in other notable myths, usually where she punishes mortals for their hubris against her. After some Lycian peasants prevented her and her infants from drinking from a fountain, Leto transformed them all into frogs inhabiting

14464-511: The two of them meet in a cataclysmic battle, before Zeus defeats him easily with his thunderbolt, and the creature is hurled down to Tartarus. Epimenides presents a different version, in which Typhon makes his way into Zeus's palace while he is sleeping, only for Zeus to wake and kill the monster with a thunderbolt. Aeschylus and Pindar give somewhat similar accounts to Hesiod, in that Zeus overcomes Typhon with relative ease, defeating him with his thunderbolt. Apollodorus, in contrast, provides

14592-530: The wife of Amphitryon , in the form of her own husband. Several accounts state that Zeus approached the Argive princess Danae in the form of a shower of gold, and according to Ovid he abducts Aegina in the form of a flame. In accounts of Zeus's affairs, Hera is often depicted as a jealous wife, with there being various stories of her persecuting either the women with whom Zeus sleeps, or their children by him. Several authors relate that Zeus sleeps with Io ,

14720-558: The world from further harm. In a satirical work, Dialogues of the Gods by Lucian , Zeus berates Helios for allowing such thing to happen; he returns the damaged chariot to him and warns him that if he dares do that again, he will strike him with one of this thunderbolts. Zeus played a dominant role, presiding over the Greek Olympian pantheon. He fathered many of the heroes and was featured in many of their local cults . Though

14848-406: The young Zeus, and Rhea gives Cronus a stone to swallow. Hera gives him to Amalthea, who hangs his cradle from a tree, where he is not in heaven, on earth or in the sea, meaning that when Cronus later goes looking for Zeus, he is unable to find him. Hyginus also says that Ida , Althaea, and Adrasteia , usually considered the children of Oceanus , are sometimes called the daughters of Melisseus and

14976-518: The young Zeus. Antoninus Liberalis , in his Metamorphoses , says that Rhea gives birth to Zeus in a sacred cave in Crete, full of sacred bees, which become the nurses of the infant. While the cave is considered forbidden ground for both mortals and gods, a group of thieves seek to steal honey from it. Upon laying eyes on the swaddling clothes of Zeus, their bronze armour "split[s] away from their bodies", and Zeus would have killed them had it not been for

15104-459: Was a child of Gaia, it was necessary that the ancient Delphic Oracle passed to the protection of the new god. Another one was the giant Tityos , a phallic being who grew so vast that he split his mother's womb and had to be carried to term by Gaia (the Earth) herself. He attempted to rape Leto near Delphi under the orders of Hera, like Python was, for having slept with Zeus, or alternatively he

15232-399: Was a son of Zeus and Europa , and that he was brought up by Apollo and Leto. Leto's introduction into Lycia was met with resistance. There, according to Ovid 's Metamorphoses , when Leto was wandering the earth after giving birth to Apollo and Artemis, she attempted to drink water from a pond in Lycia. The peasants there refused to allow her to do so by stirring the mud at the bottom of

15360-504: Was at Oenoanda in the north of Lycia. There was a further Letoon at Delos . Leto is exceptional among Zeus ' divine lovers for being the only one who was tormented by Hera , who otherwise only directs her anger toward mortal women and nymphs, but not goddesses, thus being treated more in line with mortal women than divine beings in mythology. Zeus had various affairs with goddesses like Themis , Nemesis , Dione , Thetis , Selene , Persephone , and more, which were never harmed by Hera;

15488-444: Was born first because first came the night, whose instrument is the moon, which Artemis represents, and then the day, whose instrument is the sun, which Apollo represents. Pindar however writes that both twins shone like the sun when they came into the bright light. Leto was threatened and assailed in her wanderings by ancient earth creatures that had to be overcome, chthonic monsters of the ancient earth and old ways, and these became

15616-569: Was born in Hyperborea and not in Kos. Both sisters captured Zeus's heart; first Leto, and then Asteria, who caught his attention after Leto had already been impregnated with his twins. Unlike Leto, Asteria did not reciprocate his love. In Homeric texts, Leto is shown standing next to Zeus in the absence of Hera almost in the manner of a married wife, and not just one mistress among the many. Hesiod describes Leto as "always mild, kind to men and to

15744-543: Was born on the island of Ortygia before Apollo was on Delos. Stephanus of Byzantium also states that Artemis was born before Apollo, however he claims that she was born at Coressus. According to a local tradition, Apollo was not born on Delos at all, but in Tegyra, a town in Boeotia , where he was worshipped as Apollo Tegyraeus. Servius , a grammarian who lived during the late 300s AD and early 400s AD, wrote that Artemis

15872-601: Was punished by having his liver being constantly eaten by two vultures in the Underworld . Leto fought alongside the other gods during the Gigantomachy , as evidenced from her depiction on the east frieze of the Pergamon Altar , fighting a Giant between her children Artemis and Apollo; None of the other Gigantomachy depictions includes Leto, although her presence is conjectured in one of the missing sections of

16000-402: Was raised, and Zeus, unable to resolve the situation, seeks the advice of Cithaeron, ruler of Plataea , supposedly the most intelligent man on earth. Cithaeron instructs him to fashion a wooden statue and dress it as a bride, and then pretend that he is marrying one "Plataea", a daughter of Asopus . When Hera hears of this, she immediately rushes there, only to discover the ruse upon ripping away

16128-485: Was sent by Hera herself to attack Leto, out of jealousy for having been preferred by Zeus and he knew of a prophecy that he would find death at the hands of Leto's unborn son. According to Clearchus of Soli , while Python was pursuing them, Leto stepped on a stone and, holding her son in her hands, cried ἵε παῖ ( híe paî , meaning "shoot, child") to Apollo, who was holding a bow and arrows. Apollo slew it but had to do penance and be cleansed afterward, since though Python

16256-544: Was sent for by the messenger goddess Iris , who persuaded her with a necklace and brought her to Delos. As soon as Eileithyia arrived, Apollo was finally allowed to be born, and was given ambrosia and nectar by Themis , rather than breastmilk. Preceding the myth of Apollo's birth, the preface of the hymn begins with the status quo that was then established, namely that Leto is now by the side of Zeus in Olympus, both proudly watching Apollo exercise his archery skills, and she

16384-406: Was simply overwhelmed with lust when he saw her. Tityos took hold of Leto and attempted to force himself on her, but she called out for her children, and Tityos was laid low by the arrows of Apollo and/or Artemis, as Pindar recalled in a Pythian ode. As he laid dying, his mother Gaia moaned over her slain son; Leto only laughed. For the crime of having tried to rape Leto, one of Zeus' mistresses, he

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