The King of the Gods of the Greek Pantheon was the strongest being of his time, everyone was afraid of incurring his wrath and tried to please him as much as they could. With that said, was there anyone that Zeus was afraid of? Did the strongest God fear anyone?
Zeus may be the most powerful being during his time but he was afraid of the Titan avenger, Typhoeus, the Primordial Nyx, and his two sons who were never born. All were powerful beings and had the potential to overthrow the King of the Gods which put fear in him.
The saying goes that if you think you can do something well, someone out there can probably do it better. Zeus was the strongest being in the world but that doesn’t make him undefeatable. Some beings were powerful enough to make even the King of the Gods fear them.
Typhoeus, The Titan Avenger
Typhoeus was the serpentine child of Gaia, the Primordial God that represented mother earth. He was created for the sole purpose of avenging the Titans who had fallen in the Great Titanomachy to the Olympians and banished into the depths of Tartarus.
When the Olympians had won the war, they punished the Titans for the loss and even dissected Cronus into pieces to prevent any retaliation. Though Gaia helped the Olympians overthrow the Titans, she was very unhappy with the way that her children were being treated.
The cruelness of Zeus forced Gaia to create a giant monster that was powerful enough to defeat Zeus and bring justice to the Titans. Not long after Typhoeus was born, he was given to Python, another serpentine child of Gaia, to nurture before he was powerful enough to show himself.
Not long after, Typhoeus came out of hiding and challenged the Gods for supremacy among the cosmos. He was so terrifying that the Olympians fled their homes to the deserts of Egypt, where they transformed into animals to hide from the Titan.
Athena called Zeus out for his cowardice which forced the God to respond to the Titan’s challenge. Typhoeus fought the Titan valiantly and even managed to severely damage him, but ultimately Zeus lost the battle and Typhoeus disabled him and placed him in a guarded cave.
Zeus eventually recovered from his injuries thanks to the help of his son, Hermes, and came back to bury the Titan once and for all. Though Zeus had won the battle, it was the first time he felt fear as there was a being strong enough to take the God of Thunder down.
The Unborn Children of Zeus
These powerful children never came to be but their potential existence alone was enough to force the God to try and change his fate. We may never know who they are but we do know the stories behind these powerful children.
When Zeus wedded his first wife, Metis, he was given a prophecy that she would give birth to a child powerful enough to overthrow the King of the Gods. Fearing for his life, Zeus quickly turned Metis into a fly and swallowed her whole, keeping her in his head.
From then on, Metis would forever reside in Zeus’ head but little did he know that she was already pregnant with a child of Zeus. Eventually, Zeus’ head would feel so much pain that he asked his son, Hephaestus, to cleave his head open with an axe.
The Goddess of Wisdom, Athena, was born from his head after it had split open, and she was fully clad in armor, ready for battle. Though she wasn’t the child prophesied, as the prophecy stated a son, she was still a very powerful Goddess by her own right.
The other child that was supposed to be born was the child of Zeus and the sea-nymph, Thetis. Zeus and his brother had fallen in love with the beauty of the nymph and both desired to take the nymph for themselves.
Prometheus would then step forward and tell the Gods that this marriage would come with great consequences. A child would be born powerful enough to overthrow the father, and this deterred both Gods from making a move.
Zeus wedded Thetis to the mortal king, Peleus, to prevent the prophecy from surfacing. Eventually, Achilles was born, who was indeed more powerful than his father ever was, immortalized as the greatest warrior in all of Greece.
Nyx, The Primordial Goddess of The Night
Before the Titans, who were predecessors of the Olympians, took power over the realm, it was ruled by the Primordial Gods who predate the universe itself. Nyx, the Primordial Goddess of the Night, was born to Chaos, the void state that predates the creation of the universe.
Though the records are sparse and she is rarely mentioned in mythology, Nyx was a very powerful entity. People believed that the Primordial Goddess of the Night, Nyx, was so powerful that she could easily defeat Zeus.
We can’t prove just how powerful Nyx is due to the records being lost in time, but a gauge of her children is enough to give us a good guess. Notable children of Nyx are Hypnos, the God of Sleep, Thanatos, the God of Death, and Moros, the personification of Doom.
Hypnos controlled the sleep of all beings, Gods included and was powerful enough to put anyone to sleep. Once, Hera used Hypnos to put Zeus into a deep sleep so that she could tie him to the bed, preventing him from stopping the coup against him.
Thanatos was the God of Death and the twin brother of Hypnos. He was specifically the God of nonviolent death but that does mean anything when it comes to the power he holds.
He was powerful enough to wrestle Hercules, the most powerful of Zeus’ children. Moros was the very essence of doom itself and would have brought an end to the world if left untouched.
The only saving grace was the hope left at the bottom of Pandora’s box which unleashed all the evils onto the earth. If Nyx’s children had such powers in their grasp, imagine the power of Nyx herself as the Primordial Goddess of the Night.
Conclusion
There weren’t many that could shake Zeus out of his boots but there certainly were beings powerful enough to make it happen. He might have been the most powerful being during his time but he was, by no means, completely undefeatable.
Typhoeus was so powerful and terrifying that every God in the Greek Pantheon fled Mount Olympus to hide in the deserts of Egypt. He was even capable enough to defeat the King of the Gods once before being defeated after the God had recovered.
The two unborn children of Zeus may never be known but they were certainly powerful enough to instill fear into the King of the Gods. He was so afraid of them that he prevented their births entirely to preserve himself on his seat in Mount Olympus.
The last being that Zeus feared was the Primordial Goddess of the Night, Nyx. Though she is sparsely mentioned in any text, she was believed to be a very powerful deity as she predated the creation of the universe itself.
