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 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

Unlike many Olympian deities (whose names are easily translatable), Hera's moniker is something of a linguistic enigma. As Burkert suggests: "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." Conversely, he also suggests that it could be a feminine version of Heros ("Master"), an etymology that would certainly support the goddess's high station. Another possibility is that her name is derived from "young cow, heifer," which is compatible with Hera's common epithet boopis, "cow-eyed". Thus, unlike some Greek gods, such as Zeus, Hera's name cannot be definitively parsed as a Greek or Indo-European word. This is compatible with the contested hypothesis perceived that list her as 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. Historically, the shrines to Hera in the two main centers of her cult (at Samos and in the Argolid) were among earliest monumental Greek temples constructed, and they were revered for their beauty and majesty. Indeed, Herodotus described the Heraion at Samos as "the largest Greek temple of his time."

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, where 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." The nature of their relationship is also attested to linguistically, as Zeus is often called Zeus Heraios ("Zeus, consort of Hera"). However, and in spite of the historical evidence, Homer's treatment of Hera is less than respectful, and in late anecdotal versions of many myths she appeared to spend most of her time plotting revenge on the nymphs seduced by her Consort (as noted above).

Cult

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

Hera was especially worshipped at the sanctuary that stood between the former Mycenaean city-states of Argos and Mycenae, where festivals in her honor called Heraia were celebrated. This relationship is commemorated in the Iliad, where the Queen of Heaven states: "The three cities I love best, are Argos, Sparta and Mycenae of the broad streets." While her other primary cultic center was on the island of Samos, there were also temples to Hera in Olympia, Corinth, Tiryns, Perachora and on the sacred island of Delos. In Magna Graecia, archaeologists recently discovered that a temple long ascribed to Poseidon is, in fact, a second temple to Hera.<source?>

Though Greek altars of classical times were always placed under the open sky, Hera may have been the first deity to whom an enclosed, roofed temple sanctuary was dedicated (at Samos (c. 800 B.C.E.)). This groundbreaking structure was eventually replaced by the Heraion, one of the largest Greek temples ever built. Archaeological excavations in Samos have revealed votive offerings, many from the 8th and 7th centuries B.C.E., 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 that this sanctuary of Hera enjoyed. Further, the pomegranate, an ancient emblem of the Great Goddess (see Pomegranate), also 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 may have been more common.<source? rephrase the concluding sentence?>

The cosmopolitan nature of the early cult of Hera is also evidenced in her iconographic representations. 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.

Her archaic association was primarily with cattle, and she was especially venerated in "cattle-rich" areas (such as Euboea). In this region, the festival of the Great Daedala, which was especially sacred to Hera, was celebrated following the prescribed sixty-year cycle. <source? expand!>

Mythological Accounts

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, so she decided to give birth to Hephaestus without him any male intervention. Unfortunately, the results were less than optimal and both Hera and Zeus were disgusted with Hephaestus' ugliness. So, they threw him from Mount Olympus. In an 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<reference? relevance?>

Hephaestus gained revenge following Hera's shameful rejection of him by making her a magical throne that adhered to her flesh and kept her prisoner. The repulsive god only relented when Hera promised to give him 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 When Alcmene was pregnant with Heracles, Hera tried to prevent the birth by tying Alcmene's legs in knots. However, she was foiled by Galanthis, the ailing mother's servant, who told Hera that she had already delivered the baby. Once she realized that she had been misled, Hera transformed the servant into a weasel.<source?>

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.<source?>

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

Conversely, 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 (the temple of Hera) at Paestum to depict the exploits of Heracles in bas-relief.

The Twelve Labors

Hera's antipathy to the hero did not end when he reached adulthood. In fact, the Queen of the Gods was seen to have convinced King Eurystheus at Mycenae to assign him the (near-impossible) Twelve Labors. Even worse, she kept trying to cause him to fail while while he was attempting to complete these tasks.<source?>

When Heracles 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.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.<source?>

Hera's jealousies

<condense into one paragraph?>

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.<reference?>

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.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Burkert, Walter. Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical. Translated by John Raffan. Oxford: Blackwell, 1985. ISBN 0631112413.
• 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.

• Cook, Arthur Bernard. "Who Was the Wife of Zeus? (Continued)." The Classical Review, Vol. 20, No. 8 (Nov., 1906), pp. 416-419
• Dillon, Matthew. Pilgrims and Pilgrimage in Ancient Greece. London; New York: Routledge, 1997. ISBN 0415127750.
• Farnell, Lewis Richard. The Cults of the Greek States (in Five Volumes). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907.
• Gantz, Timothy. Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993. ISBN 080184410X.
• Mikalson, Jon D. Ancient Greek Religion. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005. ISBN 0631232222.
• Palmer, L. R. The Interpretation of Mycenaean Greek Texts. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963.
• Parke, H. W. Festivals of the Athenians. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977. ISBN 0-8014-1054-1.
• Powell, Barry B. Classical Myth (Second Edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1998. ISBN 0-13-716714-8.
• Robertson, Noel. "Poseidon's Festival at the Winter Solstice." The Classical Quarterly (New Series), 34.1 (1984), pp. 1-16.
• Rose, H. J. A Handbook of Greek Mythology. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1959. ISBN 0-525-47041-7.
• Rutkowski, Bogdan. The Cult Places of the Aegean. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986. ISBN 0300029624.
• Ventris, Michael & Chadwick, John. Documents in Mycenaean Greek (Second Edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973. ISBN 0521085586.

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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