Hera

The Queen of the Olympus (Art by Jacques Louis Dubois)

### Aliases

Juno, Hērē, Queen of Olympus, Regina, Queen of the Gods, Queen of Heaven, Lady of the Sky, Wife of Zeus, Goddess of Fidelity, Heavenly Mother, Sky Mother

## Physical Description

### Spirit of

Marriage, Women, Childbirth, Family, Faithfulness, Fidelity

## Relatives

### Siblings

Zeus, Hestia, Hades, Poseidon, Demeter, Chiron

### Offspring

Ares, Eileithyia, Enyo, Hebe, Hephaestus, Bellona, Typhaon, Curiosity

**Hera** is the sister-wife of Zeus and the Queen of the Dodekatheon worshiped by the ancient Greeks.

## Overview

Hera is the youngest daughter of Rhea and Cronus and the goddess of women and marriage. Her sacred animals are the cow, the lion, and the peacock. Hera is in charge of the proper arrangements of marriage. Together with Zeus, she conceived many children; Ares, the god of war, Hebe, the goddess of youth and the former cupbearer of the gods, and Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth.

## Appearance

Hera is often depicted as a majestic and solemn woman on a throne, with a polos atop her head. She sometimes holds a pomegranate in her hand.

## Personality

Hera is infamous for not only being jealous against Zeus’s lovers and illegitimate children, but also mortals who crossed her, such as Pelias and Paris. She also holds a rather great contempt and hatred towards Zeus to some degree, mainly because of his husband's infidelity, boastful arrogance, firm, and cruel rulership.

Although not been shown for most of the time, she still respect and love Zeus, for his heroism, sense of justice and responsibility. She co-rules Olympus to maintain it's prosperity and peace, and would resort's to violence if Olympus were to be threaten. She is still loyal and loving towards Zeus, to the point that every year she always maintain her beauty, elegance, maturity, and virginity (every year).

During the ancient times of Greece, she is shown to be quiet vindictive towards Zeus' mistresses and demigod children, but as time passes, she is shown to be accepting towards his other children. Examples are: Artemis, Apollo, Hermes, Athena, Perseus, Heracles, and many others. It also revealed that the reason why she married Zeus, is because she is the only goddess, strong and fierce enough to co-rule's Olympus along with Zeus to maintain it's power.

She is not accepting towards Zeus brash or nonsense reasons of killing or imprisoning Zeus' other wives and children. Her hate toward's Zeus' other wives and children are only a facade, to show her support to him. But in reality, she is secretly helping them along with the other gods and goddesses that does not agrees with his husband's methods, showing a motherly and benevolent side. For most of the time, she is shown to be stern and serious to some degree, but can be warm, loving, and compassionate towards the weak and earn her respect. She acts as a mother towards the younger gods, goddesses, demigods, and demigoddesses. She teach them how to act responsible and mature of handling things with a careful manner.

Being the patron goddess of motherhood and wedding, she is a protector of sacred marriage and it's good name. As she hates immoral affairs, infidelity, and sexual immorality. She is also one of the pagan deities to recognize that other than her protogenoi parents, there is still a Supreme Being that is an all-powerful enough to rule them, it also revealed that she learned from God her embodiment's true role and purpose, and that is to protect women in general and the sacredness of wedding.

## History

Out of jealousy of Zeus giving birth to Athena without her, Hera gave birth to Hephaestus without Zeus’s help. However, as he did not possess the typical attractiveness of a god, she threw him from Mount Olympus.

Hera was enraged with her husband’s infidelity and wasted no time in taking revenge against his lovers. One of Hera’s victims was the titaness Leto, who was cursed to be unable to give birth on any land. When Leto went to Delos to give birth to Apollo and Artemis, Hera forbade her daughter Eileithyia to allow Leto to give birth for another nine months. Semele was another one of Hera’s victims. She was tricked by the goddess into convincing Zeus to show his true form, which resulted in her being reduced to ashes. Callisto was another example of Hera’s wrath. She was turned into a bear and hunted by the goddess Artemis but was pitied by Zeus, who turned her into the constellation Ursa Major.

Hera was also the enemy of Heracles, one of the greatest Greek heroes. When he was lying in his cot, she sent two serpents to kill him but the demigod throttled both of them with his bare hands. When he reached adulthood, she forced him to descend into madness and kill his own family. Later, Hera did everything in her power to make his Twelve Labors as difficult as possible.

## Trivia

* Theologians have equated Hera with Uni.