weapon

Thunderbolt of Zeus

By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.

Description

The Cyclopes' keraunos

Hesiod's Theogony has Zeus free the Cyclopes Brontes, Steropes, and Arges from Tartarus; they repay him with the thunderbolt, the weapon of the Titanomachy. Homer's Zeus uses the keraunos as weather and as the last word in a quarrel: a repeated strike, not a unique named sword in a vault. Pindar and later painters give the bolt wings and a handle. Cult at Olympia and Dodona reads lightning as Zeus's sign. No Greek shrine claimed to keep the original forge-piece; the bolt is the king's function in epic.

Primary Sources

“They gave Zeus the thunder and the glowing thunderbolt and lightning, and in return he set them free from their bonds.”
Hesiod, Theogony(c. 700 BCE)

Powers & Abilities

Lightning SummoningAbsolute DestructionWeather Control