eonia (greek mythology)

06. zeus' main and side hoes

Zeus was a womaniser, there was no doubt in it. He had 7 wives, and countless mistresses throughout his marriages. The seven wives are;

1. Metis; his first wife, who died when he swallowed her whole. Mother of Athena. 

2. Themis; mother of Dike, the Horae and the Morai. Was abandoned by Zeus. 

3. Eurynome; mother of the 3 'Charites' (graces). Was abandoned by Zeus. 

4. Demeter; mother of Persephone. Was abandoned by Zeus. 

5. Mnemosyne; Mother of the 9 Muses. Abandoned by Zeus. 

6. Leto; Mother of Apollo and Artemis. Abandoned by Zeus. 

7. Hera; Mother of Ares, Hebe, Eileithyia, Eris and Hephaestus. 

He also had a few divine consorts, including his grandmother, and some of his daughters. And he had a SHIT TON of mortal lovers. 

Sometimes Zeus would change his form in order to seduce the woman that he was after. Once he turned himself into a swan for a woman named Leda. The woman was already married, but that didn't bother Zeus. And the children that she gave birth to were partly of Zeus and partly of her mortal husband. 

So, they were part divine and part mortal. Those children include: Helen (future wife of Menelaus, and lover of Paris of Troy), Clytemnestra, and the twins Castor and Pollux (immortalised as the constellation Gemini).

But out of all his mortal lovers, Europa might have been the one he loved the most, considering they had 6 children together. Minos (king of Minoan Crete), Rhadamanthus, Sarpedon, Alagonia, Carnus and Dodon. Europa was the daughter of King Agenor and Queen Telephassa of Tyre, and the hero Cadmus was her brother. 

Zeus had transformed into a white bull, and when Europe got on his back, not knowing who he was, he swam all the way to Crete, and there after some activities, he made her queen of the island, and gifted her many things. Later, he showed his love for her by imprinting onto the sky in the form of the bull that he first met her in, and that was the constellation of Taurus; the bull.