Hera was the queen of the gods in the Greek pantheon. The wife of Zeus, she was the queen of the 12 Olympians. She was widely worshipped by the ancient Greeks, even if she is less well-known today than Aphrodite and Athena. She was known as Juno among the Romans.
Hera Basilis – Queen of the Olympians
Hera was one of the six children of the Titans Cronus and Rhea alongside Poseidon, Hades, Demeter, Hestia, and Zeus. Fearing that his children would overthrow him as he himself had overthrown his father Uranus, Cronus swallowed each of his children. Only Zeus, the youngest, was spared by the machinations of his mother Rhea.
As an adult, Zeus got vengeance on Cronus. First, he forced his father to vomit up his siblings, and then led them in a war against the Titans. The Olympians won and threw the Titans into Tartarus. They took up rulership of the heavens and earth, with Zeus as their king.
Zeus, who according to some sources had been married six times before, and according to others had never been married before but had many lovers and children, fell in love with his sister Hera and was determined to marry her. The stories are inconsistent about whether this was a love match, or Zeus wooed her, potentially under false pretenses.
One famous story suggests that Zeus turned himself into a cuckoo bird, and when Hera caught him to keep as a pet. He took advantage of their closeness to transform himself again and seize hold of her, refusing to let go until she agreed to marry him.
Their marriage feast reportedly lasted three hundred years and they were gifted the magical apples that granted eternal youth as a wedding gift by Gaia, the mother earth goddess.
Together Zeus and Hera had at least two children include Ares, the god of war and one of the Olympians, Hobe, the goddess of youth, who was considered a cupbearer of the gods rather than an Olympian but was nevertheless prominent in mythology.
Hera is also the mother of Hephaestus, the smith god, though in some stories he is the son of Zeus, and in other Hera had him alone because she was annoyed that Zeus gave birth to Athena on his own.
Hera Gamelios – Goddess Presiding Over Marriage
It was believed that sacrificing to Hera could ensure a happy marriage, and she was principally defined by her marriage to Zeus, but theirs does not always seem to have been a happy one.
Many of her stories deal with Zeus’ infidelity and her seeking revenge on him, his lovers, and his illegitimate offspring. As just a few examples, because Zeus had so many lovers, when Hera discovered that Leto was pregnant by Zeus, she convinced the nature spirits to prevent her from giving birth anywhere under the sun. Only when Poseidon eventually took pity on her was she able to give birth to the twins Apollo and Artemis on the island of Delos.
Similarly, when Zeus impregnated Semele, the daughter of the king of Themes, she disguised herself as the princess’ nurse and persuaded Semele to convince Zeus to show her his true form. She made him swear by the Styx to give her whatever she wanted, and when he swore, she said that he wanted to see his true form. He was forced to reveal it to her despite knowing that the sight could kill her. She burst into flames at the vision and Zeus retrieved the fetus Dionysus and carried him to term in his own thigh.
Despite her stories representing her as a woman scored, she always appears as a dignified and matronly figure. She is the goddess of women, especially in terms of their established place in society, blessing weddings and protecting women during childbirth. Her name probably derives from the Greek word “hora,” which means season, and suggests that she is ripe, or in season, for marriage.
Heracles – Glory of Hera
Probably the most famous of Zeus’ illegitimate sons was Heracles, whose name actually means “glory of Hera”, despite the fact that she hated him.
According to Homer, when Alcemene was about to give birth to Heracles, Zeus announced that on that day one of his children would be born who would rule all those around him. An angry Hera got him to swear to that, and then descended to Argos where she ensured that Eurystheus, another son of Zeus, was born at just seven months, just before Heracles. Eurystheus became the king of Tiryns, one of the three Mycenean strongholds.
But Hera was not done, sending two snakes to kill the infant, but he killed the snakes with is bare hands. Later Zeus tricked Hera into suckling the boy. When she realized, she ripped her breast away and milk spurted into the heavens, creating he Milky Way.
When Heracles reached adulthood, Hera sent him mad, causing him to kill his family, which led to him taking on his famous labors to redeem himself. It was Hera who assigned Heracles to labor for his half-brother King Eurystheus. She then tried to make the labors set him more difficult. When he fought the Hydra, se sent a crab to bite his feet and distract him and she set the Amazonians against him. According to one story, as a result of her actions, Heracles shot Hera in the right breast with a triple-barbed arrow that caused her pain for the rest of her life.
Nevertheless, Heracles was successful in his endeavors and eventually earned a place among the gods. He apparently befriended Hera after protecting her from being raped by the giant Porphyrion. It was after this that he seemed to become Hera’s man.
Hera Pheresbios – The Life-Giving Goddess
Hera was also a fertility goddess often called on in childbirth and sometimes treated as a goddess of the earth, overlapping with Gaia. This is despite her treatment of Zeus’ illegitimate children even her treatment of her own son Hephaestus.
Apparently, Hephaestus was born lame, and in her shame, Hera threw him off Mount Olympus. Raised on hearth, he developed a talent for blacksmithing while in exile. Hephaestus knew the truth about his parentage and wanted revenge on his unkind mother. He made her a stunning gold throne, which strapped her down and trapped her the moment she sat in it. While the gods begged him to let her go, Hephaestus refused. He did eventually free her in exchange for the hand of either Aphrodite or Athena in marriage, depending on the story.
Hera Eileithya – Hera of Argos
Hera was worshipped throughout the ancient Greek world, though her cult was strongest in the Argolis region, including Argos, Tiryns, Corinth, Sicyon, Epidaurus, and Hermione. Of all the temples at Olympia, Hera’s was the oldest, and she may be the first deity to have received an enclosed roofed temple, at Samos in 800 BCE.
Hera’s marriage to Zeus was the main theme of most of her festivals, suggesting that she represented the feminine factor that held families together, especially legitimate royal families. At the Daedala fire festival in Boeotia, puppets of Zeus and Hera were purified and married. But at Corinth, the Heraia festival was more like a mourning festival with seven boys and seven girls with shorn heads wearing black garments to perform sacrifices for the goddess.
Hera rode in a chariot killed by peacocks, birds not known to the Greeks before the conquests of Alexander the Great, even though Hera is an ancient goddess. She was also associated with the cow, an animal linked to fertility in many cultures, such as in the case of the Egyptian goddess Hathor.
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