Zeus vs Jupiter

Roles

Both the Greek Zeus and the Roman Jupiter are the gods of the sky and thunder and both somewhat represent justice in some way, and both are married to Hera/Juno (who is also his sister), the goddess of marriage. Both are also said to be the siblings of Hera, Hades, and Poseidon/Juno, Pluto, and Neptune. So what I’m basically saying is that people don’t have that much creativity when it comes to gods. However, there are some notable differences between them. Whilst Jupiter stuck with his one partner Juno and had about 4 children, his Greek counterpart Zeus got a bit more sleazy and got it on with other women by shapeshifting, resulting in Zeus having about 29 children. So whilst Zeus might have more titles and is (arguably) more important which makes him win in the roles category, at least Jupiter managed to stay faithful.

Origins

Whilst Jupiter’s origin is a bit boring and murky, the only real origin I could find was that he was the twin of Juno and nursed by Fortuna (the goddess of fate/luck), Zeus’s origin is a bit cooler and weirder. His father was Cronus, a titan, who learned that one of his children would overthrow him so he did what any reasonable titan would do, he got his 5 children (Hades, Hestia, Hera, Demeter, and Poseidon) and swallowed them. A perfectly normal reaction if I’m being honest. But when Zeus was born Rhea (Cronus’s wife and the mother of the children he swallowed) replaced him with some rocks wrapped in a blanket and tricked Cronus into swallowing that rocks he thought was Zeus. When Zeus got older, he forced Cronus to disgorge the stones and the children from his stomach. To add salt the wound, he freed Cronus’s brothers from their dungeon, who in turn gave Zeus his signature lightning bolt. So yeah, Zeus wins with the cooler origin.

Interaction with Humans

Besides both of them being symbols of human justice and/or law, they also had temples made of them, prayed to, and demanded sacrifices. However, in mythology, Zeus is more of a douchebag to the humans. In the Greek mythology, when Prometheus (another titan) created Humans in Zeus’s likeness, Zeus made them remain mortal and had to worship the people of Mount Olympus. He also thought of them as subservient, and when Prometheus tricked him during a sacrifice, he took away the humans ability to use fire, and it would’ve stayed that way if Prometheus didn’t steal fire from the gods, resulting in his eternal torture. Probably the most Jupiter demanded of the humans is that all his sacrifices would be white (animals not humans). So overall, I believe Jupiter had better interactions with humans.

Who Wins?

Zeus.

Yeah ok but can you say why?

Now while Jupiter might have better morals than Zeus, Zeus has an arguably bigger role than Jupiter, has a much more interesting origin story, and while he might have been a douchebag, that only makes him for interesting as a god, showing that just because he might be the god of something, doesn’t mean that he’s a merciful god or even exempt from being a bad person. So in conclusion, while Jupiter could probably make more friends than Zeus, he still loses.

Thanks for reading, and have an electrifying day.