Zeus, first cause, prime mover; for what thing without Zeus is done among mortals?

The line is an invocation that frames Zeus as the ultimate origin and governing power behind human affairs. By calling him “first cause” and “prime mover,” the speaker attributes causality, order, and outcome to a single divine principle, implying that nothing in mortal life occurs outside Zeus’s agency. In Aeschylean drama, such language often underscores the tension between human responsibility and a cosmos ruled by divine justice (dikē): events may look like personal choices or political accidents, yet they unfold within a larger, Zeus-centered moral order. The rhetorical question intensifies the claim, turning piety into an argument about how the world works.