| “ | Careful, boy. If you wish to continue to provoke my ire I'll be happy to demonstrate how "vindictive and petty" I can truly be. | „ |
| ~ Hera |
| “ | How would you feel knowing that the individual whom you call 'husband' has not only forced himself upon you when you reject his advancements but has bedded multiple mortal women, through trickery and deception might I add, throughout his lifetime and produced bastard offspring that carry his divinity? How would you feel knowing that you cannot lay a hand on him due to his power and authority? What can you do? Nothing. And I can do nothing but take my vengeance and wrath upon those whom he bedded. That is what I live with. For thousands of years I have shared a bed and a throne with that. I am the goddess of marriage and women...that's all I wanted to be...that's all I... | „ |
| ~ Hera explaining her frustration and disgust towards Zeus and his libidinous acts |
Hera, also known as Juno, is the wife and one of three sisters of Zeus in the Olympian pantheon of Greek mythology and religion. Her chief function was as the goddess of women and marriage. The cow, lion and the peacock were considered sacred to her. Hera's mother is Rhea and her father Cronus.
Appearance[]
Portrayed as majestic and solemn, often enthroned, and crowned with the polos, Hera may bear a pomegranate in her hand, emblem of fertile blood and death and a substitute for the narcotic capsule of the opium poppy. Hera was also known for her jealous and vengeful nature against Zeus' lovers and offspring, but also against mortals who crossed her, such as Pelias. Paris also earned Hera's hatred by choosing Aphrodite as the most beautiful goddess.
Overview[]
Hera presides over the right arrangements of the marriage and is the archetype of the union in the marriage bed, but she is not notable as a mother. The legitimate offspring of her union with Zeus are Ares (the god of war), Hebe (the goddess of youth), Eris (the goddess of discord) and Eileithyia (goddess of childbirth).
Hera is the goddess of marriage and childbirth rather more than of motherhood, and much of her mythology revolves around her marriage with her brother Zeus. She is charmed by him and she seduces him; he cheats on her and has many children by other goddesses and mortal women; she is intensely jealous and vindictive towards his children and their mothers; he is threatening and violent to her.
History[]
Background[]
Hera is the daughter of the Titan king Cronus and his wife, and sister, Rhea. Cronus was fated to be overthrown by one of his children; to prevent this, he swallowed all of his newborn children whole, including Hera, until Rhea tricked him into swallowing a stone instead of her youngest child, Zeus. Zeus grew up in secret and when he grew up he tricked his father into regurgitating his siblings, including Hera. Zeus then led the revolt against the Titans, banished them, and divided the dominion over the world with his brothers Poseidon and Hades.
Marriage with Zeus[]
Zeus implies their marriage was some sort of elopement, as they lay secretly from their parents. Helios states that contrary to belief, their "marital meeting" was sordid. When Hera was heading toward Mount Thornax alone, Zeus created a terrible storm and transformed himself into a cuckoo bird who flew down and sat on her lap. When Hera saw him, she covered him with her cloak. Zeus then transformed back and took hold of her; because she was refusing to sleep with him due to their mother, he promised to marry her.
In one account, Hera refused to marry Zeus and hid in a cave to avoid him; an earthborn man named Achilles convinced her to give him a chance, and thus the two had their first sexual intercourse. A variation goes that Hera had been reared by a nymph named Macris on the island of Euboea, but Zeus stole her away, where Mt. Cithaeron, in the words of Plutarch, "afforded them a shady recess". When Macris came to look for her ward, the mountain-god Cithaeron drove her away, saying that Zeus was taking his pleasure there with Leto. Hera was jealous of Zeus' birth to Athena without recourse to her, so she gave birth to Hephaestus without him, though in some stories, he is the son of her and Zeus. Hera was then disgusted with Hephaestus' ugliness and threw him from Mount Olympus.
Bane of Heracles[]
Hera is the stepmother and enemy of Heracles. When Alcmene was about to give birth to Heracles, Zeus announced to all the gods that on that day a child by Zeus himself, would be born and rule all those around him. Hera, after requesting Zeus to swear an oath to that effect, descended from Olympus to Argos and made the wife of Sthenelus (son of Perseus) give birth to Eurystheus after only seven months, while at the same time preventing Alcmene from delivering Heracles. This resulted in the fulfilment of Zeus's oath in that it was Eurystheus rather than Heracles.
In Pausanias' recounting, Hera sent witches (as they were called by the Thebans) to hinder Alcmene's delivery of Heracles. The witches were successful in preventing the birth until Historis, daughter of Tiresias, thought of a trick to deceive the witches. Like Galanthis, Historis announced that Alcmene had delivered her child; having been deceived, the witches went away, allowing Alcmene to give birth. Hera's wrath against Zeus' son continues and while Heracles is still an infant, Hera sends two serpents to kill him as he lies in his cot. Heracles throttles the snakes with his bare hands and is 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. 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 all 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. When Heracles took the cattle of Geryon, he shot Hera in the right breast with a triple-barbed arrow: the wound was incurable and left her in constant pain, as Dione tells Aphrodite. Afterwards, 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. He piled stones into the river to make the water shallower. When he finally reached the court of Eurystheus, the cattle were sacrificed to Hera.
Apollo and Artemis[]
When Hera discovered that Leto was pregnant and that Zeus was the father, Hera kidnapped Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth, to prevent Leto from going into labor. Leto from giving birth on terra-firma, the mainland, any island at sea, or any place under the sun. Pitying the Titaness, Poseidon bribed Hera with a beautiful necklace nobody could resist and she finally gave in. Poseidon then guided Leto to the floating island of Delos, which was neither mainland nor a real island where Leto was able to give birth to her children. Afterwards, Zeus secured Delos to the bottom of the ocean. The island later became sacred to Apollo.
Either way, Artemis was born first and then assisted with the birth of Apollo. Some versions say Artemis helped her mother give birth to Apollo for nine days. Another variation states that Artemis was born one day before Apollo, on the island of Ortygia and that she helped Leto cross the sea to Delos the next day to give birth to Apollo. Later, Tityos attempted to rape Leto at the behest of Hera. He was slain by Artemis and Apollo.
Io and Argus[]
Io was a priestess of Hera at the Heraion of Argos. Zeus lusted after her, but transformed her into a heifer so to hide her from Hera but was discovered. Hera had Io tethered to an olive-tree and set Argus Panoptes (lit. 'all-seeing') to watch over her, but Zeus sends Hermes to kill him. Infuriated, Hera then sent a gadfly to pursue and constantly sting Io, who fled into Asia and eventually reached Egypt. There Zeus restored her to human form and she gave birth to his son Epaphus.
Judgment of Paris[]
A prophecy stated that a son of the sea-nymph Thetis, with whom Zeus fell in love after gazing upon her in the oceans off the Greek coast, would become greater than his father. Possibly for this reason, Thetis was betrothed to an elderly human king, Peleus son of Aeacus, either upon Zeus' orders, or because she wished to please Hera, who had raised her. 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.
Personality[]
Hera is known to be a headstrong and cunning Olympian. Being the only one of her sisters to wield a blade during the Titanomachy, she is confident, stubborn, and brace. Despite her reputation, Hera is a fair and just ruler of Olympus, usually being the voice of reason amongst her family's quarrels and when Zeus vents his frustrations towards her. She is also kind and compassionate to her followers but like most Olympians is intolerance of insubordination.
Hera seems to be a caring, polite, and sympathetic goddess, just like a mother should be. She pities lost children and offered to breastfeed them in ancient times, as she once did with an infant Heracles though she was unaware of his identity for a brief moment. However, according to her son Hephaestus, Hera only likes "perfect families". For example, she threw Hephaestus off Olympus for his deformation and kidnapped her daughter Eileithyia in order to stop the birth of Artemis and Apollo. She even outwardly expresses her dislike towards her own brother Hades with the feeling being mutual.
Hera is best known for her jealousy and anger towards Zeus's infidelity. She is extremely vindictive when she is wronged especially when she discovers Zeus's libido acts with mortal women or other goddesses to the point where she takes her frustrations out on his lovers and children as well. Hera's acts of vengeance are usually extreme as she mercilessly persecutes them and does everything in her power to make their lives as miserable as possible, even though many of them were coerced into the affair. This paints her as a villainous figure. Due to her belief that marriage should be faithful, Hera has great loathing for the mistresses and the illegitimate children of Zeus since they are all concrete evidence of her husband's infidelities. She is especially frustrated that she cannot direct her frustration out on Zeus himself.
Coupled with her vindictiveness, her wrath is also to be feared. She can look extremely intimidating when provoked to where Zeus himself is afraid of his wife when she is angry about his unfaithfulness. She can even easily turn against those whom she initially favored. However, over the years, her frustration towards Zeus reached a breaking point. Tired of Zeus taking her for granted, Hera strikes out on her own. She began acting more deceiving and cunning, convincing the other gods to side with her in a coupe against Zeus but this failed in the end. She only tried again with his son Invictus to where she even broke the sacred law of the Codex Divinus where no foreign pantheon is to intervene in their affairs.