Hera

File:Hera Prometheus CdM 542.jpg

Hera and Prometheus, tondo of a 5th-centurury plate from Vulci, Etruria

In the Olympian pantheon of classical Greek Mythology, Hera (IPA pronunciation: [ˈhiːrə]; Greek Ἥρα or Ἥρη) was the wife and older sister of Zeus. She was also called upon as the goddess of marriage, which could explain her oft-referenced jealousy at Zeus's frequent extramarital exploits. Her equivalent in Roman mythology was Juno. The cow and peacock are sacred to her.

Portrayed as majestic and solemn, she is often enthroned and crowned with the polos, the high cylindrical crown worn by several of the Great Goddesses. In her hand, Hera may bear the pomegranate, emblem of fertile blood and death and a substitute for the narcotic capsule of the opium poppy. Given her evidently lofty cultic status, her portrayal as a foolish and jealous shrew could be a later invention, aimed to discredit the her strength as a representation of female divinity. As Burkert notes, "in comparison with the high esteem of her cult, Hera seems to suffer something of a loss of status in Homer and to become almost a comic figure.

Her name

"The name of Hera, the queen of the gods, admits a variety of mutually exclusive etymologies; one possibility is to connect it with hora, season, and to interpret it as ripe for marriage." So begins the section on Hera in Walter Burkert, Greek Mythology In a note he records other scholars' arguments "for the meaning Mistress as a feminine to Heros, Master." Furthermore, A.J. van Windekens, in Glotta 36 (1958) pp 309-11, offers "young cow, heifer", which is consonant with Hera's common epithet boopis, "cow-eyed". E-ra appears in Mycenaean tablets. Thus, unlike some Greek gods, such as Zeus and Poseidon, Hera's name cannot be securely parsed as a Greek or Indo-European word. In aspects of her cult she seems to be a survival of a pre-Greek "great goddess" figure, comparable to the powerful female divinities of the Minoan pantheon, or of some unidentified pre-Greek ("Pelasgian") people.

Her early importance

Hera's importance in the early archaic period is attested by the large building projects undertaken in her honor. The temples of Hera in the two main centers of her cult, at Samos and in the Argolid, were the very earliest monumental Greek temples constructed, in the 8th century B.C.E.

Sometimes this devolved role is as clear as a simple substitution can make it. According to the Homeric Hymn III to Delian Apollo, Hera detained Eileithyia, to prevent Leto from going into labor with Artemis and Apollo, because the father was Zeus. The other goddesses present at the birthing on Delos sent Iris to bring her. As she stepped upon the island, the divine birth began. In the myth of the birth of Heracles, it is Hera herself who sits at the door instead, delaying the birth of Heracles until her protegé, Iphicles, has been born first.

At Olympia, Hera's seated cult figure was older than the warrior figure of Zeus that accompanied it. Homer expressed her relationship with Zeus delicately in the Iliad, in which she declares to Zeus, "I am Cronus' eldest daughter, and am honourable not on this ground only, but also because I am your wife, and you are king of the gods."[1] Though Zeus is often called Zeus Heraios ("Zeus, consort of Hera"), Homer's treatment of Hera is less than respectful, and in late anecdotal versions of the myths (see below) she appeared to spend most of her time plotting revenge on the nymphs seduced by her Consort, for Hera upheld all the old right rules of Hellene society and sorority.

Hera was born of Cronos and Rhea, and was abruptly swallowed after birth due to a prophesy that one of Cronos's children will take over his throne. Zeus was spared and when he grew older he saved all of his siblings, then killed Cronos with a lightning bolt.

File:Agrigento Tempio di Hera.jpg

The Temple of Hera at Agrigento, Magna Graecia

Cult

Hera was especially worshipped, as "Argive Hera" (Hera Argeia), at her sanctuary that stood between the former Mycenaean city-states of Argos and Mycenae, where the festivals in her honor called Heraia were celebrated. "The three cities I love best," the ox-eyed Queen of Heaven declares (Iliad, book iv) "are Argos, Sparta and Mycenae of the broad streets." Her other main center of cult was at Samos. There were also temples to Hera in Olympia, Corinth, Tiryns, Perachora and the sacred island of Delos. In Magna Graecia, the temple long called the Temple of Poseidon among the group at Paestum was identified in the 1950s as a second temple there of Hera.

Greek altars of Classical times were always under the open sky. Hera may have been the first to whom an enclosed roofed temple sanctuary was dedicated, at Samos about 800 B.C.E. (It was replaced later by the Heraion, one of the largest Greek temples anywhere.) Earlier sanctuaries, whose dedication is less secure, were of the Mycenaean type called "house sanctuaries". Samos excavations have revealed votive offerings, many of them late 8th and 7th century, which reveal that Hera at Samos was not merely a local Greek goddess of the Aegean: the museum there contains figures of gods and suppliants and other votive offerings from Armenia, Babylon, Iran, Assyria, Egypt, testimony to the reputation which this sanctuary of Hera enjoyed and to the large influx of pilgrims— and a general reminder to us that Greek myths did not evolve in a cultural vacuum (Burkert 1998).

In Euboea the festival of the Great Daedala, sacred to Hera, was celebrated on a sixty-year cycle.

In Hellenistic imagery, Hera's wagon was pulled by peacocks, birds not known to Greeks before the conquests of Alexander: Alexander's tutor, Aristotle, refers to it as "the Persian bird." The peacock motif was revived in the Renaissance iconography that unified Hera and Juno, and which European painters have kept familiar to us (Seznec 1953). A bird that had been associated with Hera on an archaic level, where most of the Aegean goddesses were associated with "their" bird, was the cuckoo, which appears in mythic fragments concerning the first wooing of a virginal Hera by Zeus.

Her archaic association was primarily with cattle, as a Cow Goddess, who was especially venerated in "cattle-rich" Euboea. Her familiar Homeric epithet boôpis, is always translated "cow-eyed", for, like the Greeks of Classical times, we reject its other natural translation "cow-faced" or at least "of cow aspect". A cow-headed Hera, like a Minotaur would make a dark demon of fear. But on Cyprus, very early archaeological sites contain bull skulls that have been adapted for use as masks (see Bull (mythology)).

The pomegranate, an ancient emblem of the Great Goddess (see Pomegranate), remained an emblem of Hera: many of the votive pomegranates and poppy capsules recovered at Samos are made of ivory, which survives burial better than the wooden ones that must have been more common. Like all goddesses, Hera may be displayed wearing a diadem and be veilhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hera&action=submited.

Roman copy of a Greek 5th century Hera of the "Barbarini Hera" type (Museo Chiaramonti)

Hera and her children

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, Hebe, Eris (the goddess of discord) and Eileithyia (goddess of childbirth). Hera was jealous of Zeus' giving birth to Athena without recourse to her (actually with Metis), so she gave birth to Hephaestus without him. Zeus and/or Hera herself were then disgusted with Hephaestus' ugliness and threw him from Mount Olympus. As another alternative version, Hera gave birth to all of the children usually accredited to her and Zeus together, alone by beating her hand on the Earth, a solemnizing action for the Greeks, or by eating lettuce.

Hephaestus gained revenge against Hera for rejecting him by making her a magical throne which, when she sat on it, didn't allow her to leave it. The other gods begged Hephaestus to return to Olympus to let her go but he repeatedly refused. Dionysus got him drunk and took him back to Olympus on the back of a mule. Hephaestus released Hera after being given Aphrodite as his wife.

Hera, the nemesis of Heracles

Hera was the stepmother and enemy of Heracles, the hero who, more than even Perseus, Cadmus or Theseus, introduced the Olympian ways in Greece (Ruck and Staples 1994). When Alcmene was pregnant with Heracles, Hera tried to prevent the birth from occurring by tying Alcmene's legs in knots. She was foiled by Galanthis, her servant, who told Hera that she had already delivered the baby. Hera turned her into a weasel.

While Heracles was still an infant, Hera sent two serpents to kill him as he lay in his cot. Heracles throttled a single snake in each hand and was found by his nurse playing with their limp bodies as if they were child's toys. The anecdote is built upon a representation of the hero gripping a serpent in each hand, precisely as the familiar Minoan snake-handling goddesses had once done. "The picture of a divine child between two serpents may have been long familiar to the Thebans, who worshiped the Cabeiri, although not represented as a first exploit of a hero".

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. The Etruscans pictured a full-grown bearded Hercle (Heracles) at Hera's breast.

The Campana Hera, a Roman copy of a Hellenistic original (Louvre

Some myths state that Hera befriended Heracles for saving her from a giant who tried to rape her,and that she even gave her daughter Hebe as his bride. Whatever myth-making served to account for an archaic representation of Heracles as "Hera's man" it was thought suitable for the builders of the Heraion at Paestum to depict the exploits of Heracles in bas-reliefs (noted in this context by Kerenyi 1959, p 131).

The Twelve Labors

Hera assigned Heracles to labor for King Eurystheus at Mycenae. She attempted to make almost each of Heracles' twelve labors more difficult.

When he fought the Lernaean Hydra, she sent a crab to bite at his feet in the hopes of distracting him. To annoy Heracles after he took the cattle of Geryon, 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.

Eurystheus also wanted to sacrifice the Cretan Bull to Hera. She refused the sacrifice because it reflected glory on Heracles. The bull was released and wandered to Marathon, becoming known as the Marathonian Bull.

Hera's jealousies

Echo

For a time, a nymph named Echo had the job of distracting Hera from Zeus' affairs by leading her away and flattering her. When Hera discovered the deception, she cursed Echo to only repeat the words of others (hence our modern word "echo").

Leto and Artemis/Apollo

When Hera discovered that Leto was pregnant and that Zeus was the father, she banned Leto from giving birth on "terra-firma", or the mainland, or any island at sea. Leto found the floating island of Delos, which was neither mainland nor a real island and gave birth there. The island was surrounded by swans. As a gesture of gratitude, Delos was secured with four pillars. The island later became sacred to Apollo. Alternatively, Hera kidnapped Ilithyia, the goddess of childbirth, to prevent Leto from going into labor. The other gods forced Hera to let her go. Either way, Artemis was born first and then assisted with the birth of Apollo. Another version 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.

Callisto and Arcas

Hera also figures in the myth of Callisto/Arcas.

A follower of Artemis, Callisto took a vow to remain a virgin. But Zeus fell in love with her and disguised himself as Artemis in order to lure her into his embrace. Hera then turned Callisto into a bear out of revenge. Later, Callisto's son with Zeus, Arcas, nearly killed her in a hunt and Zeus placed them in the heavens. An alternate version: One of Artemis' companions, Callisto lost her virginity to Zeus, who had come disguised as Artemis. Enraged, Artemis changed her into a bear. Callisto's son, Arcas, nearly killed his mother while hunting, but Zeus or Artemis stopped him and placed them both in the sky as Ursa Major and Ursa Minor.

Another alternate version: Artemis killed Callisto in bear form, deliberately.

Semele and Dionysus

Dionysus was a son of Zeus by a mortal woman. A jealous Hera again attempted to kill the child, this time by sending titans to rip Dionysus to pieces after luring the baby with toys. Though Zeus drove the titans away with his thunderbolts, they had already managed to eat everything but the heart, which was saved, variously, by Athena, Rhea, or Demeter. Zeus used the heart to recreate Dionysus and implant him in the womb of Semele—hence Dionysus became known as "the twice-born". Certain versions imply that Zeus gave Semele the heart to eat to impregnate her. Hera tricked Semele into asking Zeus to show his true form, which killed her. But Dionysus managed to rescue her from the underworld and have her live on Mount Olympus.

See also Dionysus' birth for other variations.

Io

Hera almost caught Zeus with a mistress named Io, a fate avoided by Zeus turning Io into a beautiful white heifer. However, Hera was not completely fooled and demanded Zeus give her the heifer as a present.

Once Io was given to Hera, she placed her in the charge of Argus to keep her separated from Zeus. Zeus then commanded Hermes to kill Argus, which he did by lulling all one hundred eyes to sleep. Hera sent a gadfly to sting Io as she wandered the earth. Eventually Io was driven to the ends of the earth, [which the Romans believed to be] Egypt, where she became a priestess of the Egyptian goddess Isis.

Lamia

Lamia was a queen of Libya, whom Zeus loved. Hera turned her into a monster and murdered their children. Or, alternately, she killed Lamia's children and the grief turned her into a monster. Lamia was cursed with the inability to close her eyes so that she would always obsess over the image of her dead children. Zeus gave her the gift to be able to take her eyes out to rest, and then put them back in. Lamia was envious of other mothers and ate their children.

Gerana

Gerana was a queen of the Pygmies who boasted she was more beautiful than Hera. The wrathful goddess turned her into a crane and proclaimed that her bird descendants should wage eternal war on the Pygmy folk.

Other stories involving Hera

Cydippe

Cydippe, a priestess of Hera, was on her way to a festival in the goddess' honor. The oxen which were to pull her cart were overdue and her sons, Biton and Cleobis pulled the cart the entire way (45 stadia, 8 kilometers). Cydippe was impressed with their devotion to her and her goddess and asked Hera to give her children, the best gift a god could give a person. Hera ordained that the brothers would die in their sleep.

This honor bestowed upon the children was later used by Solon as a proof while trying to convince Croesus that it is impossible to judge a person's happiness until they have died a fruitful death after a joyous life (according to Herodotus' History, Book I).

Tiresias

Tiresias was a priest of Zeus, and as a young man he encountered two snakes mating and hit them with a stick. He was then transformed into a woman. As a woman, Tiresias became a priestess of Hera, married and had children, including Manto. After seven years as a woman, Tiresias again found mating snakes, struck them with her staff, and became a man once more. As a result of his experiences, Zeus and Hera asked him to settle the question of which sex, male or female, experienced more pleasure during intercourse. Zeus claimed it was women; Hera claimed it was men. When Tiresias sided with Zeus, Hera struck him blind. Since Zeus could not undo what she had done, he gave him the gift of prophecy. An alternative and less commonly told story has it that Tiresias was blinded by Athena after he stumbled onto her bathing naked. His mother, Chariclo, begged her to undo her curse, but Athena couldn't; she gave him prophecy instead.

Chelone

At the marriage of Zeus and Hera, a nymph named Chelone was disrespectful (or refused to attend). Zeus condemned her by turning her into a tortoise.

The Iliad

During the Trojan War, Diomedes fought Hector and saw Ares fighting on the Trojans' side. Diomedes called for his soldiers to fall back slowly. Hera, Ares' mother, saw Ares' interference and asked Zeus, Ares' father, for permission to drive Ares away from the battlefield. Hera encouraged Diomedes to attack Ares and he threw his spear at the god. Athena drove the spear into Ares' body and he bellowed in pain and fled to Mt. Olympus, forcing the Trojans to fall back.

The Golden Fleece

Hera hated Pelias for having murdered Sidero, his step-grandmother, in a temple to Hera. She later manipulated Jason and Medea to kill Pelias.

The Metamorphoses

In Thrace, as Ovid tells in Metamorphoses 6.87, Hera and Zeus turned King Haemus and Queen Rhodope into mountains, the Balkan (Haemus Mons) and Rhodope mountain chains respectively, for their hubris in comparing themselves to the gods.

See also

• Deception of Zeus

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Burkert, Walter, Greek Religion 1985.
• Burkert, Walter, The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age, 1998
• Graves, Robert, The Greek Myths 1955
• Kerenyi, Carl, The Gods of the Greeks 1951 (paperback 1980)
• Kerenyi, Karl, 1959. The Heroes of the Greeks Especially Heracles.
• Ruck, Carl A.P., and Danny Staples, The World of Classical Myth 1994
• Seznec, Jean, The Survival of the Pagan Gods : Mythological Tradition in Renaissance Humanism and Art, 1953
• Slater, Philip E. The Glory of Hera : Greek Mythology and the Greek Family (Boston: Beacon Press) 1968 (Princeton University 1992 ISBN 0-691-00222-3 ) Concentrating on family structure in 5th-century Athens; some of the crude usage of myth and drama for psychological interpreting of "neuroses" is dated.

External links

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Hera

• Theoi Project, Hera Hera in classical literature and Greek art
• The Samos Museum: cult objects recovered from the Heraion at Samos

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