Hera

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**Hera** (Ancient Greek Ἥρα, *Hḗra*) is the Greek goddess of women, marriage, family and childbirth, queen of the Olympian gods.

## Overview

She is the sister and wife of Zeus, the youngest daughter of Cronus and Rhea, sister to the gods Hestia, Demeter, Hades and Poseidon, half-sister to Chiron, and mother to the gods Ares, Hephaestus, Eileithyia, Eris, Enyo and Hebe.

As wife of Zeus, she is the queen of Olympus and maintains her status as the goddess of marriage, but Hera herself ironically has the infamously worst marriage presented in Greek mythology yet. Zeus never remained faithful to Hera, instead he would often desert their marriage bed to sleep with mortal women and immortal goddesses alike, fathering several gods (like the majority of the younger generation of the twelve Olympians) and demigod heroes. Hera, jealous in nature, would often punish and torment the women who had slept with her husband, as well as the bastard children they had. A prime example is Heracles.

Her Roman equivalent is the goddess Juno.

## Miscellaneous Myths

### The Theogony

    Cronus heard a prophecy that he was fated to be overthrown by one of his children, so each time his wife Rhea would give birth, he would swallow the baby immediately; Hera, the third-born child and daughter of Cronus and Rhea, suffered this fate. It would not be until years later that she and her siblings Hestia, Demeter, Hades and Poseidon were rescued by their youngest brother Zeus who slipped Cronus a poison that made him throw up. Hera and her brothers and sisters sided with Zeus against the Titans, a war over which they were victorious. Zeus then became king of the cosmos, and married Hera, who had two sons, Ares and Hephaestus.

### Niobe

    When Hera discovered that Leto was pregnant and that Zeus was the father, she forbade Leto from giving birth on the mainland, on any island, or anywhere under the sun. Eventually Leto found the floating island of Delos, which was neither mainland nor a real island, and so she as allowed to give birth to her children there. Hera kidnapped Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth, to prevent Leto from going into labor.

Either way, the birth of Leto's twins could not be postponed; Leto gave birth first to Artemis, and then nine whole days later, to Apollo.

### Io

    Hera saw a lone thundercloud and raced down in an attempt to catch Zeus with his newest conquest. Zeus saw her coming and transformed his new consort Io into a little snow-white cow. However, Hera was not fooled and demanded that Zeus give her the heifer as a present. Zeus could not refuse his queen without drawing suspicion so he had to give her the beautiful heifer.

    Once Io was given to Hera, she tied her to a tree and sent her servant Argus to keep Io separated from Zeus. Argus was a loyal servant to Hera and he has immense strength and one hundred eyes all over his body. It was not possible to go past Argus since he never closed more than half his eyes at any time. Zeus, afraid of Hera's wrath, could not personally intervene, so to save Io, he commanded Hermes to kill Argus, which he does by lulling all one hundred eyes into eternal sleep.

    When Hera learned of Argus' death, she took his eyes and placed them in the plumage of the peacock, her favorite animal, accounting for the eye pattern in its tail and making it the vainest of all animals. Hera, furious about Io being free and the death of Argus, sent a Fury to sting Io as she wandered the earth. Eventually Io made it to Egypt, the Egyptians worshiped the snow-white heifer and named her the Egyptian goddess Isis. Hera permitted Zeus to change Io back into her human form, under the condition that he never look at her again. Io, the goddess-queen of Egypt, then bore Zeus' son as the next king.

### Heracles

Hera is the stepmother and enemy of Heracles. The name Heracles means "Glory of Hera". Hera's wrath against Zeus' son continues and while Heracles is still an infant, Hera sends two serpents to kill him as he lay in his cot. Heracles throttles the snakes with his bare hands and was found by his nurse playing with their limp bodies as if they were a child's toy.

One account of the origin of the Milky Way is that Zeus had tricked Hera into nursing the infant Heracles: discovering who he was, she pulled him from her breast, and a spurt of her milk formed the smear across the sky that can be seen to this day. Unlike any Greeks, the Etruscans instead pictured a full-grown bearded Heracles at Hera's breast: this may refer to his adoption by her when he became an Immortal. He had previously wounded her severely in the breast.

When Heracles reached adulthood, Hera drove him mad, which led him to murder his family and this later led to him undertaking his famous labours. Hera assigned Heracles to labour for King Eurystheus at Mycenae. She attempted to make almost each of Heracles' twelve labours more difficult. When he fought the Lernaean Hydra, she sent a crab to bite at his feet in the hopes of distracting him. Later Hera stirred up the Amazons against him when he was on one of his quests. Hera sent a gadfly to bite the cattle, irritate them and scatter them. Hera then sent a flood which raised the water level of a river so much that Heracles could not ford the river with the cattle.

### Medea

Once, Hera disguised herself as an old woman that Jason gladly helped cross a river, thus earning her favour. In his following adventures, Jason ever had Hera's help; when he arrived in Colchis and was asked to compete a series of impossible tasks by King Aeetes in order to win the golden fleece, Hera ordered Eros to make Medea, Aeetes' sorceress daughter, fall head over heels in love with Jason so that she would help him accomplish the tasks with her help of her magic.

However, years later Jason fell out of Hera's favour when he decided to set his wife Medea aside in favour of a Corinthian princess. Hera, being the goddess of marriage and women, was displeased with Jason's act of betrayal. After Medea killed their sons and Jason called upon the gods to avenge him, Medea points out that they're much more likely to punish him; Zeus hates oath-breakers and Hera sides with mistreated wives; Jason might as well be the only thing they ever agreed on.

### Aphrodite

All the gods and goddesses as well as various mortals were invited to the marriage of Peleus and Thetis (the eventual parents of Achilles) and brought many gifts. Only Eris, goddess of discord, was not invited and was stopped at the door by Hermes, on Zeus' order. She was annoyed at this, so she threw from the door a gift of her own: a golden apple inscribed with the word καλλίστῃ (*kallistēi*, "To the fairest"). Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena all claimed to be the fairest, and thus the rightful owner of the apple.

The goddesses quarreled bitterly over it, and none of the other gods would venture an opinion favoring one, for fear of earning the enmity of the other two. They chose to place the matter before Zeus, who, not wanting to favor one of the goddesses, put the choice into the hands of Paris, a Trojan prince.

After bathing in the spring of Mount Ida where Troy was situated, they appeared before Paris to have him choose. The goddesses undressed before him, either at his request or for the sake of winning. Still, Paris could not decide, as all three were ideally beautiful, so they resorted to bribes. Hera offered Paris political power and control of all of Asia, while Athena offered wisdom, fame, and glory in battle, and Aphrodite offered the most beautiful mortal woman in the world as a wife, and he accordingly chose her. This woman was Helen, who was, unfortunately for Paris, already married to King Menelaus of Sparta. The other two goddesses were enraged by this and through Helen's abduction by Paris, they brought about the Trojan War.

### Dionysus

When Hera learned that Semele, daughter of King Cadmus of Thebes and Harmonia, the goddess of harmony, was pregnant by Zeus, she disguised herself as Semele's nurse and persuaded the princess to insist that Zeus show himself to her in his true form. When he was compelled to do so, having sworn by Styx, his thunder and lightning destroyed Semele. Zeus took Semele's unborn child, Dionysus and completed its gestation sewn into his own thigh. In his adolescence, Hera drove Dionysus temporarily insane only to be cured by Rhea.

In another version of Dionysus' origins, Hera sent the Titans to rip the baby apart, who was called Zagreus and was the son of Zeus and Persephone, the heir meant to succeed his father eventually. Zeus rescued the heart; or, the heart was saved by Athena. Zeus used the heart to recreate Dionysus and implant him in the womb of Semele.

### Perseus

Hera was uncharacteristically fine with Perseus, a bastard son of her husband's, being on he sacred garden.

### Aphrodite's Affair

    Hera is briefly mentioned by Red when explaining one version of the origins of Aphrodite and Hephaestus's marriage. The story involves Hephaestus trapping Hera in her throne, only to let her out of it if he gets to marry Aphrodite.

## Zeus' lovers and bastards

Hera was known to take great offence every time her husband Zeus would cheat on her and father children on other women. Some of Hera's punishments include:

* Alcmene and her son Heracles; Hera first kidnapped Eileithyia, making Alcmene's labour hard. Later she drove Heracles mad, making him murder his family, and would often try to sabotage his twelve labours.
* Io; placed her under the guard of Argus, then sent a Fury to torment her throughout the entire Mediterranean.
* Leto; forbade Leto from giving birth anywhere, then kidnapped Eileithyia, goddess of childbirth, so Leto could not get into labour.
* Semele and her son Dionysus; tricked her into asking Zeus to appear to her in his true form, which killed her; at some point drove Dionysus mad.
* Zagreus (son of Persephone); sent the Titans to dismember the newborn baby, who was later reborn as Dionysus.

## Physical Appearance

Hera is a bright yellow-coloured goddess. As the queen of gods, she wears a crown upon her voluminous hair. When disguised as a mortal, her eyes remain golden, and sometimes her hair as well, depending on occasion.

## Appearances

The Iliad

Perseus

Niobe

Heracles

Dionysus

The Theogony

Aphrodite

Hermes

The Zodiac

Medea

Aphrodite's Affair (cameo)