Cratos
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| Greek deities series |
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| Primordial deities | |
| Titans and Olympians | |
| Aquatic deities | |
| Chthonic deities | |
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In Greek mythology, Cratos was a son of Pallas and Styx, and he was the personification of strength and power. Cratos and his siblings, Nike ("victory"), Bia ("force") and Zelus ("zeal"), were all companions of Zeus. The name is derived from the common noun Κράτος, meaning "force', "strength" or "power". The spellings "Cratus" and "Kratos" are also used.
Cratos simply accepts Zeus's orders completely. Zeus's justice, for Cratus, is the only possible justice. Cratos cannot understand how someone might fail to hate an enemy of Zeus. He shows an absolute identification of a slave with his master, taking Zeus's thoughts as his thoughts and Zeus's orders as his maxims. Unlike Hephaestus and Oceanus, Cratos experiences no friendship or pity because he has no value system outside the one imposed on him by Zeus. In another strand of myth, Cratos is a Titan who binds Prometheus on order of Hephaestus.
[edit] Popular culture
- In the video game series God of War, Kratos is a Spartan warrior who is revealed to be a son of Zeus. Ironically, his videogame counterpart defies Zeus, and actually tries to overthrow him.
- In the final volume of the manga series Because I'm the Goddess, Cratos (mistranslated as "Clatos" in the English printing) appears as a smiling, gigantic brute whom Zeus orders to kill the goddess Pandora.
