As one of the Twelve Olympians alongside Zeus, the Greek god of the skies and the king of the gods, Zeus was afraid that Aphrodite's beauty would cause a war among the gods. He was afraid they would fight each other to win her love, and the war would be irreparable.
Aphrodite and Anchises
Zeus was angry at Aphrodite for making the gods, especially himself, fall in love with mortals and make fools of themselves pursuing them, so he caused Aphrodite to fall madly in love with Anchises.
Marriage to Hephaestus
Because many of the gods were in love with Aphrodite, Zeus was afraid that a great battle would break out over her. He arranged a marriage between her and the god Hephaestus. In some ways this was funny to the Greeks as Hephaestus was a lame and ugly god.
However, Zeus was afraid of Nyx, the goddess of night.
Nyx is older and more powerful than Zeus. Not much is known about Nyx. In the most famous myth featuring Nyx, Zeus is too afraid to enter Nyx's cave for fear of angering her.
Zeus settled the dispute by decreeing that Adonis would spend one third of the year with Aphrodite, one third with Persephone, and one third with whomever he chose.
II.
Aphrodite later and of her own volition had an affair with Zeus, but his jealous wife Hera laid her hands upon the belly of the goddess and cursed their offspring with malformity. Their child was the ugly god Priapos.
Zeus fell in love with Io and seduced her. To try to keep Hera from noticing he covered the world with a thick blanket of clouds. This backfired, arousing Hera's suspicions. She came down from Mount Olympus and begain dispersing the clouds.
However Zeus is then confronted with one final adversary, Typhon, which he quickly defeats. Now clearly the supreme power in the cosmos, Zeus is elected king of gods.
Hera was worshipped throughout the Greek world and played an important part in Greek literature, appearing most frequently as the jealous and rancorous wife of Zeus and pursuing with vindictive hatred the heroines who were beloved by him.
Before his marriage to Hera, Zeus consorted with a number of the female Titanes (and his sister Demeter). These liaisons are ordered by Hesiod as follows: (1) Metis; (2) Themis; (3) Eurynome; (4) Demeter; (5) Mnemosyne; (6) Leto.
As one of the Twelve Olympians alongside Zeus, the Greek god of the skies and the king of the gods, Zeus was afraid that Aphrodite's beauty would cause a war among the gods.
Of Aphrodite's mortal lovers, the most important were the Trojan shepherd Anchises, by whom she became the mother of Aeneas, and the handsome youth Adonis (in origin a Semitic nature deity and the consort of Ishtar-Astarte), who was killed by a boar while hunting and was lamented by women at the festival of Adonia.
APHRODITE WRATH : CLIO
16 (trans. Aldrich) (Greek mythographer C2nd A.D.) : "Aphrodite, furious with [the Mousa (Muse)] Kleio--who had chided her for loving Adonis--, caused her to fall in love with [a mortal] Magnes' son Pieros. As a result of their union she bore him a son Hyakinthos."
Zeus finally became enamored of the goddess who was to become his permanent wife — Hera.
Ganymede (or Ganymedes) was a young man from Troy. His beauty was unparalleled and for that reason, Zeus abducted and brought him to Olympus to serve as his cupbearer and lover. Ganymede's myth is an important step in the history of homosexuality.
Perhaps partly because of the strange circumstances of her birth, Athena is often cited as Zeus's favourite child. He also greatly admired her strength of character and fighting spirit. Some believe Athena was Zeus's first born child, which might, somewhat unfairly, suggest why he chose her as his favourite.
Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, heard about Psyche and her sisters and was jealous of all the attention people paid to Psyche.
In some versions of Greek mythology, Zeus ate his wife Metis because it was known that their second child would be more powerful than him. After Metis's demise, their first child Athena was born when Hephaestus cleaved Zeus's head open and the goddess of war emerged, fully grown and armed.
1. Apollo: Zeus' Best-Known Son. Of all the sons Zeus fathered, Apollo is perhaps the best known. Apollo was conceived during an illicit affair between Zeus and Leto (Zeus was married to Hera at the time), along with a twin sister named Artemis.
Weaknesses: Passionate over Persephone, the daughter of Demeter, whom Zeus promised to Hades as his bride. (Unfortunately, Zeus apparently neglected to mention it to either Demeter or Persephone.) Impulsive, favoring sudden, decisive actions.
Zeus' wife Hera was the mother of some of his offspring, and, as one might expect, her jealousy was legendary. It's not uncommon to read about her acts of revenge, not only against Zeus and his lovers, but also against the children who came from these relationships.
Impregnation by Zeus
Nonnus classifies Zeus's affair with Semele as one in a set of twelve, the other eleven women on whom he begot children being Io, Europa, Plouto, Danaë, Aigina, Antiope, Leda, Dia, Alcmene, Laodameia, the mother of Sarpedon, and Olympias.
Zeus was known in his time as much more than the father of the gods. He was also a womanizer, and as such, he fathered many, many offspring!
Zeus and Metis
His first and favorite lover was Metis, a Titan goddess and mother of Athena.