Zeus vs Jupiter

 Zeus vs Jupiter

Zeus and Jupiter were both two of the most powerful gods ever conjured up by the ancient, one form ancient Greece and one from ancient Rome, However these two gods both came from similar polytheistic and cultural views and have much more in common than people usually think.

Originally the ancient Greeks came up with an ingenious new cultural system they named Hellenism, this Hellenic culture was created on the basis of polytheism (religion within which are many deities), and these many deities were commonly known as the Greek pantheon. However there was only one god who took precedence over all of the others and this was Zeus (King of the gods lord of the skies). Zeus was modelled after the Greek people and their cultural system, due to this he was the most worshipped of all the Greek deities and was the most powerful of the gods.  He was commonly depicted holding a lightning-bolt and being pulled in a chariot by 4 pure white horses one of the highest of honours. The Hellenistic ideologies created him this way to perhaps show the power and strength of the Greek people and their culture

This polytheistic religion lasted more than a thousand years before the ancient Greek civilisation was destroyed by a new up and coming power, the Romans. By the final defeat of the Greeks at Corinth in 146 B.C the Roman empire covered much of southern Europe as well as Northern Africa, However even after the fall of the Greek empire the Romans adopted their Hellenistic culture and their gods to some extent. Although renamed and with a slightly different mythology, Zeus’ Roman counterpart Jupiter still represented the Roman people in the same way. Jupiter was seen in ancient Rome as a divine embodiment of their core values as well as showing their strength and power as a nation.

In a comparison respect Zeus and Jupiter were both used as a godly embodiment of the culture they represented as well as its people so in essence Zeus and Jupiter both had the same reason for their status as well as the fact that the Polytheistic views of the Hellenistic culture took root in both the ancient Greek and Roman civilisations with similar results.