Hera (Godess)

### Symbol

Pomegranate, peacock feather, diadem, cow, lily, lotus, cuckoo, panther, scepter, throne, lion

## PERSONAL INFO

### Children

Angelos, Ares, Eileithyia, Enyo, Eris, Hebe, Hephaestus

### Sibilings

Poseidon, Hades, Demeter, Hestia, Zeus, Chiron

## Myths

### Birth and Marriage

The daughter of the Titans Cronus\* and Rhea, Hera was swallowed after birth by Cronus. Her siblings Demeter, Hades,Poseidon, and Hestia suffered the same fate. However, Rhea managed to save Zeus, the youngest brother. Later Zeus rescued his brothers and sisters by giving Cronus a potion that caused him to vomit them up. Some stories say that Hera was raised by the Titans Oceanus and Tethys; others claim that she grew up under the care of Temenus, who ruled the region of Arcadia in Greece.When Zeus and his brothers defeated the Titans and divided the universe among themselves, they gave nothing to their sisters. Hera was furious at being left out, and this anger persisted throughout her relationship with Zeus. According to some myths, Zeus seduced Hera while disguised as a cuckoo. Other tales say that he found her on an island and carried her away to a cave. Stories place their wedding at various sites: in the Garden of the Hesperides (the nymphs of the setting sun), at the top of Mount Ida in Anatolia (present-day Turkey), or on the island of Euboea in the Aegean Sea. Festivals commemorating the marriage took place throughout Greece.As the wife of Zeus, Hera bore him four children: Hephaestus, the god of fire and crafts; Ares, the god of war; Ilithyia, the goddess of childbirth; and Hebe, the cupbearer of the gods. Zeus and Hera often quarreled, and their arguments sometimes became fierce enough to shake the halls of Olympus, the home of the gods. Most of their arguments concerned Zeus's seduction of other women, but they also argued about the nature of love itself.In their most famous quarrel over love, Hera insisted that men received more sexual pleasure than women, while Zeus argued the opposite. In an attempt to end the dispute, Hera and Zeus agreed to consult Tiresias, a mortal who had been both male and female. Tiresias sided with Zeus, claiming that women had much greater pleasure than men. Enraged by his answer, Hera blinded Tiresias. Zeus compensated Tiresias for his loss of sight by giving him the gift of prophecy.

### Io and Argus

Io, a Naiad nymph, was one of the priestess and loved by Zeus. In order to avoid Hera, Zeus turned Io into a cow. Hera then requested the cow to be tied to an olive tree and guarded by an Argus. Zeus commanded Hermes to bring the cow back from the Argus. Hermes went to the Mycenae and slayed the Argus with a rock and escort Io away. Hera then dispatch a gadfly to torture Io driving her around Europe and Asia until finally she rests in the Nile river and gave birth to her son Epaphus.

### Other Punishments

Hera discovered the affair of Zeus and Semele and tricked the girl into asking Zeus to appear before her in his full glory. She did and was consumed by his fiery lightning .

Callisto was another of Zeus’ lovers who caught the wrath of Hera as she was turned into a bear and hunted by Artemis.

Hera sent the Sphinx to Thebes to punish Laius, its king, for the rape and murder of Chrysippus, a beautiful and innocent boy.

Achilles from drowning and sends Athene to calm Achilles before he angers Agamemnon

Cydippe, the priestess of Hera. One day, there was a problem with a cart and the ox refused to carry it further. Cydippe’s sons, two kind and hardworking boys, took the place of the ox and dragged the cart without any complaint. Cydippe, deeply devoted to Hera, asked the goddess to bless her sons for their help and general goodness of soul. Indeed, Hera did so, but in her own way. Both boys died in their sleep, peaceful and happy, during Hera’s festival. The goddess decided it was the highest reward, a peaceful death during her own festival, so the two boys will be forever remembered. It may seem like a strange reward, but it was considered the highest honour, so who knows?

## Personality

Hera - possesses an extroverted temperament and a focus on issue of outer world control/power. She represents goddess of marriage--concerned with partnership and her relationship as wife to a man. She faces life challenges regarding power, status and leadership. Hera belongs to the relationship-oriented ‘vulnerable’ goddess category, suffering humiliation by her god husband, Zeus. In fact, Zeus was her twin brother. He attempted, unsuccessfully, to court her so he disguised himself as a shivering little bird to obtain pity from her. His ruse worked, when she tenderly drew him to her breast, he returned to his true shape and raped her. She was shamed into marrying him. As her husband, he also shamed her by engaging in numerous extramarital sexual liaisons, further causing her humiliation. Hera had allegedly led a conspiracy against Zeus as an act of revenge.

## Cult

### Attica

On the way from Phaleron to Athens [in Attika] there is a temple of Hera with neither doors nor roof. Men say that Mardonios, son of Gobryas, [the Persian] burnt it. But the image there to-day is, as report goes, the work of Alkamenes So that this, at any rate, cannot have been damaged by the Persians.Hadrian [the Roman Emperor] constructed other buildings also for the Athenians: a temple of Hera and Zeus Panhellenios (Common to all Greeks).

### Corintha

[Peirander, an historical despot of Korinthos,] made a proclamation that all the Korinthian women should come out into the temple of Hera. They then came out as to a festival, wearing their most beautiful garments, and Periander set his guards there and stripped them all alike, ladies and serving-women, and heaped all the clothes in a pit, where, as he prayed to Melissa [his dead wife], he burnt them Here [on the Akrokorinthos of Korinthos], too, is the temple of Hera Bounaia set up by Bounos the son of Hermes. It is for this reason that the goddess is called Bounaia.

### Sicyon

The sanctuary] of Hera [near Sikyon was made] by Adrastos. I found no images remaining in either . . . A little farther away from the sanctuary of Hera founded by Adrastos is a temple of the Karneion Apollon. Only the pillars are standing in it; you will no longer find there walls or roof, nor yet in that of Hera Prodromia (Pioneer). This temple was founded by Phalkes, son of Temenos, who asserted that Hera guided him on the road to Sikyonl.

### Argos

The temple of Hera Antheia (Flowery ) is on the right of the sanctuary of Leto [in the city of Argos], and before it is a grave of women. They were killed in a battle against the Argives under Perseus, having come from the Aegean Islands to help Dionysos in war.Fifteen stades distant from Mykenai [in Argolis] is on the left the Heraion (temple of Hera). Beside the road flows the brook called Water of Freedom. The priestesses use it in purifications and for such sacrifices as are secret. The sanctuary itself is on a lower part of Euboia. Euboia is the name they give to the hill here, saying that Asterion the river had three daughters, Euboia, Prosymna, and Akraia, and that they were nurses of Hera. The hill opposite the Heraion they name after Akraia, the environs of the sanctuary they name after Euboia, and the land beneath the Heraion after Prosymna. This Asterion flows above the Heraion, and falling into a cleft disappears. On its banks grows a plant, which also is called Asterion. They offer the plant itself to Hera, and from its leaves weave her garlands. It is said that the architect of the temple was Eupolemos, an Argive. The sculptures carved above the pillars refer either to the birth of Zeus and the battle between the gods and the Gigantes, or to the Trojan war and the capture of Ilium. Before the entrance stand statues of women who have been priestesses to Hera and of various heroes, including Orestes. They say that Orestes is the one with the inscription, that it represents the Emperor Augustus. In the fore-temple are on the one side ancient statues of the Kharites (Graces), and on the right a couch of Hera and a votive offering, the shield which Menelaus once took from Euphorbos at Troy. The statue of Hera is seated on a throne; it is huge, made of gold and ivory, and is a work of Polykleitos. She is wearing a crown with Kharites (Graces) and Horai (Seasons) worked upon it, and in one hand she carries a pomegranate and in the other a sceptre. About the pomegranate I must say nothing, for its story is somewhat of a holy mystery. The presence of a cuckoo seated on the sceptre they explain by the story that when Zeus was in love with Hera in her maidenhood he changed himself into this bird, and she caught it to be her pet. This tale and similar legends about the gods I relate without believing them, but I relate them nevertheless. By the side of Hera stands what is said to be an image of Hebe fashioned by Naukydes; it, too, is of ivory and gold. By its side is an old image of Hera on a pillar. The oldest image is made of wild-pear wood, and was dedicated in Tiryns by Peirasos, son of Argos, and when the Argives destroyed Tiryns they carried it away to the Heraion. I myself saw it, a small, seated image. Of the votive offerings the following are noteworthy. There is an altar upon which is wrought in relief the fabled marriage of Hebe and Herakles. This is of silver, but the peacock dedicated by the Emperor Hadrian is of gold and gleaming stones. He dedicated it because they hold the bird to be sacred to Hera. There lie here a golden crown and a purple robe, offerings of Nero. Above this temple are the foundations of the earlier temple and such parts of it as were spared by the flames. It was burnt down because sleep overpowered Khryseis, the priestess of Hera, when the lamp before the wreaths set fire to them. Khryseis went to Tegea and supplicated Athena Alea. Although so great a disaster had befallen them the Argives did not take down the statue of Khryseis; it is still in position in front of the burnt temple.

### Sparta

On the hill [in the city of Sparta] a temple of Hera Argia (Of Argos), set up, they say, by Eurydike, the daughter of Lakedaemon and the wife of Acrisios the son of Abas. An oracular utterance caused to be built a sanctuary of Hera Hyperkheiria (she whose hand is above ) at a time when the Eurotas was flooding a great part of the land. An old wooden image they call that of Aphrodite Hera. A mother is wont to sacrifice to the goddess when a daughter is married.The Lakedaemonians [of Sparta] are the only Greeks who surname Hera Aigophagos (Goat-eater), and sacrifice goats to the goddess. They say that Herakles founded the sanctuary and was the first to sacrifice goats, because in his fight against Hippokoon and his children he met with no hindrance from Hera, although in his other adventures he thought that the goddess opposed him. He sacrificed goats, they say, because he lacked other kinds of victim.

### Olympia

The altar of Olympic Zeus is about equally distant from the Pelopion [at Olympia] and the sanctuary of Hera, but it is in front of both . . . It has been made from the ash of the thighs of the victims sacrificed to Zeus . . . There is an ashen altar of Hera Samia (of Samos) not a bit grander than what in Attika the Athenians call ‘improvised hearths'.

## Refrences

1. ↑ http://www.mythencyclopedia.com/Go-Hi/Hera.html Myths and legends
2. ↑ http://www.theoi.com/Summary/Hera.html
3. ↑ https://www.ancient.eu/Hera/