Hera

Hera (in ancient Greek Ἥρα Hēra, or equivalently: Ἥρη Hērē in Ionian and Homeric Greek) is the wife and sister of Zeus in the Olympian pantheon of classical Greek mythology. Her equivalent in Roman mythology was Juno. She sacrificed the cow and later the peacock. Her mother was Rhea and her father Cronos.

Hera was known for her violent and vengeful nature, primarily against Zeus' mistresses and offspring, but also against mortals she crossed paths with, such as Pelias. Paris, who offended her by choosing Aphrodite as the most beautiful goddess of hers, thus earned her undying hatred.

Hera is depicted solemn, often enthroned and crowned with the polo (a tall cylindrical crown worn by several of the Great Goddesses), who may carry in her hand a pomegranate, a symbol of fertile blood and death, or a capsule poppy narcotic. Researcher Walter Burkert wrote in Greek Religion: "However, there are records of an earlier representation without icons, such as a column at Argos and a tablet at Samos.

Etymology

Burkert states: “The name of Hera, the goddess of marriage, admits of a variety of mutually exclusive etymologies; one possibility is to relate it to hora [ὡρα], 'season', and interpret it as ready for marriage". In a note, he records other researchers' arguments "about the meaning 'Lady' as feminine of Heros, 'Lord'". Linear B decipherer John Chadwick notes that "his name may be related to hērōs [ἡρως], 'hero', but this is of no help, as it is also etymologically obscure." AJ van Windekens proposes the meaning ' veal', which is consonant with his frequent epithet βοῶπις boôpis, 'with cow's eyes'. It wasit appears on Mycenaean tablets in Linear B.

Cult

Hera may have been the first deity to whom the Greeks dedicated a sanctuary with a roofed temple, at Samos around 801 BC. C. Later it was replaced by the Hereo, one of the largest Greek temples in history (the Greek altars of the classical era were in front of the temples, in the open air). Many successive temples were built on this site, so the evidence is somewhat confused and the archaeological dates uncertain. We know that the temple created by the sculptor and architect Reco was destroyed between 570 and 560 BC. C., being replaced by the temple of Polícrates between 540 and 530 a. C. In one of these temples there was a forest of 155 columns. There is also no evidence of slabs in this temple, suggesting that it was never completed or was open to the air.

Older shrines, the dedication of which is less certain, were of the Mycenaean type called "shrine houses".

Votive offerings have been discovered with the excavations of Samos, many of them from the end of the 8th and 7th centuries BC. C., and it has become clear that Hera was not simply a local Greek goddess of the Aegean: the Samos museum contains figures of gods, prayers and other votive offerings from Armenia, Babylon, Iran, Assyria and Egypt, testimony to the reputation that this sanctuary of Hera enjoyed and the large influx of pilgrims. Hera also owned the oldest temple at Olympia and two of the great temples from the 6th and 5th centuries BC. C. of Paestum.

Although the largest and oldest independent temple dedicated to Hera was the Hereus of Samos, on the Greek mainland she was especially worshipped, as 'Hera Argiva' (Hera Argeia), at her sanctuary situated between the ancient Mycenaean city-states of Argos and Mycenae, where festivals, the Hereas, were held in his honor. "Three are the cities that I love most," declared the ox-eyed celestial goddess:"Argos, Sparta and Mycenae, the one with wide streets". There were also temples dedicated to Hera at Olympia, Corinth, Tiryns, Peracora, and the sacred island of Delos. In Magna Graecia, two Doric temples to Hera were built in Paestum, around 500 and 450 BC. One of them, long called the "Temple of Poseidon", was identified in the 1950s as a second temple of Hera.

In Boeotia, the festival of the Greater Daedalus, consecrated to Hera, was celebrated in cycles of sixty years.

The importance of Hera in the most archaic period is attested by the large number of buildings erected in her honor. The temples of Hera in the two main centers of her worship, the Hereo of Samos and the Hereo of Argos in the Argolis, were the first monumental temples built by the Greeks, in the 8th century BC. c.

Ancient importance of Hera

In the Temple of Hera at Olympia, the traditional cult image of Hera was older than the accompanying warrior image of Zeus. Homer described his contentious relationship with Zeus in the Iliad, in which Hera declares to Zeus: "I too am a deity, our lineage is the same, and cunning Cronus fathered me the most venerable, by my lineage and by bearing the name of wife." yours, yours who reigns over all immortals." Although Zeus is often called Zeus Hereo, 'Zeus [consort] of Hera', Homer's treatment of her is disrespectful, and in later anecdotal versions of the myths (see below) Hera was shown spending most of her time plotting revenge against the nymphs and/or or mortals seduced by her husband, for she upheld all the correct old rules of Hellenic society and sisterhood.

Matriarchy

There has been considerable research, since that of Johann Jakob Bachofen in the mid-19th century, into the possibility that Hera, whose early importance in Greek religion is firmly established, was originally the goddess of a matriarchal people, presumably earlier inhabitants of Greece. to the Hellenes. From this point of view, her role as goddess of marriage established the patriarchal bond of her own subordination: her resistance to Zeus's conquests is presented as "jealousy" and forms the main theme of the literary anecdotes that follow. they curtailed the ancient cult of her.

To the detriment of this theory, however, is the statistical fact that strict matriarchies (that is, a society in which women are the only gender with power) do not appear in historical or modern cultures.

For his part, Burkert noted that both Hera and Demeter had many attributes characteristic of the ancient Great Goddess.

The young Hera

Hera was best known as the matron goddess, Hera Teleia, but she also presided over marriages. In myth and cult, fragmentary references and archaic customs of the sacred marriage of Hera and Zeus are preserved, and at Plataea there was a Callimachus sculpture of Hera seated as a bride, as well as the matron Hera standing.

Hera was also worshiped as a virgin: there was a tradition in Stymphalus (Arcadia) according to which there was a triple altar to Hera the Virgin, the Matron and the Separated (Χήρη Chḗrē, 'widow' or 'divorced'). In Argolis, the temple of Hera at Hermione, near Argos, was dedicated to Hera the Virgin; and at the Fountain of Canatus, near Nauplia, Hera renewed her virginity annually, in unspeakable rites (arrheton).​

Emblems of Hera's Presence

In Hellenistic imagery, Hera's chariot was drawn by peacocks, birds unknown to the Greeks before the conquests of Alexander the Great, whose tutor, Aristotle, refers to them as "Persian birds." The peacock motif resurfaced in Renaissance iconography that unified Hera and Juno, and which European painters focused on. The bird that had been associated with Hera in the earliest times, where most of the Aegean goddesses were Related to "his" bird was the cuckoo, which appears in mythological fragments about the first courtship of a virginal Hera by Zeus.

Her archaic association was primarily with cattle, as a Cow Goddess who was especially worshiped in "cattle-rich" Euboea. In Cyprus, very old archaeological sites have been found containing bull skulls that were adapted to be used as masks (see "sacred bull"). His familiar Homeric epithet βοῶπις boôpis is often translated as 'cow-eyed'. In this respect, Hera bears some resemblance to the ancient Egyptian deity Hathor, a maternal goddess associated with cattle also depicted in her origins as a cow goddess.

The pomegranate, an ancient emblem of the Great Goddess, remained a symbol of Hera: many of the votive pomegranates and poppy capsules recovered from Samos are made of ivory, which survives burial better than the wood, from which the pomegranates must have been made. more common. Like all goddesses, Hera can be represented wearing a diadem and a veil.

Epithets

Hera bore various epithets in mythological tradition, including:

• Αἰγοφάγος Aigophágos, 'goat-eating' (among the Lacedaemonians);
• Ἀκραῖα Akráia, 'of the heights';
• Αλέξανδρος Alexander, 'the one who saves the warrior' (as worshiped at Sition);
• Ammonia Ammonia;
• Argéia , 'de Argos';
• Kingdom Basíleia, 'reina';
• Βουναία Bounáia, 'of the tumulus' (in Corinth);
• Βοῶπις Boṓpis, 'cow-eyed' or 'cow-faced';
• Λευκώλενος Leukṓlenos, 'the white-armed one';
• Παῖς Pais, 'girl' (in her role as a virgin);
• Virgin Parthénos, 'virgen';
• Τελεία Teleia (as goddess of marriage);
• Χήρη Chḗrē, 'widow';
• Χρυσόθρονος chrysothronos, 'The One of the Golden Throne'.

Mythological events

Birth

Hera was the daughter of Rhea and Cronus, and was swallowed at birth by Cronus due to a prophecy that one of her children would take the throne from her. Zeus was saved thanks to a plan devised by Rhea, who wrapped a stone in swaddling clothes and gave it to Cronus in her place. Meanwhile, Zeus was taken to a cave in Crete. Metis later gave Cronus a concoction that caused him to regurgitate the other five Olympians: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon, as well as the stone.

Children and love affairs

Hera presides over the correct preparations for marriage and is the archetype of the union in the marriage bed, but she does not stand out as a mother. To unite with Hera, Zeus was said to have taken the form of a cuckoo. The legitimate descendants of this union are Ares (god of war), Hebe (goddess of youth), Ilithyia (goddess of childbirth), Hephaestus (blacksmith god) and possibly Enyo, a war goddess responsible for the destruction of cities and assistant to Ares. The latter is confused by some authors, including Homer, with Eris (goddess of discord), who was actually the daughter of Nix (goddess of the night). She can also be considered the daughter of Zeus and Hera to Angelos.

Some authors consider that Hephaestus is the son only of Hera, but not of Zeus. According to this myth, Hera was jealous that Zeus gave birth to Athena without resorting to her, so she fathered Hephaestus without him. Hera was then disgusted with Hephaestus' limp and therefore imperfection, so she expelled him from Olympus. Alternatively, in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo Pythius Hera had Typhon in revenge for Athena's birth, hitting her hand on the ground so that Gaea would grant her wish. Hera gave the creature to the dragon Python to raise.

Hephaestus took revenge on Hera for rejecting him by making a magical throne for her that, when she sat down, would not let her get up from it. The other gods begged Hephaestus to return to Olympus to free her but he repeatedly refused. Dionysus got him drunk and took him back to Olympus on the back of a mule. Hephaestus freed Hera after receiving Aphrodite as her wife.

Hera as Heracles' enemy

Hera was the stepmother and enemy of Heracles, whose name means 'glory of Hera' in her honor. Heracles is the hero who, even more than Perseus, Cadmus or Theseus, introduced the Olympian habits in Greece.When Alcmene was pregnant with Heracles, Hera asked her daughter Ilithyia to prevent him from being born by crossing her legs. Her plans were foiled by Galantis, Alcmene's servant, who deceived Ilithyia who had already brought the child into the world. Ilithyia transformed her into a weasel.

When Heracles was still an infant, Hera sent two snakes to kill him as he slept in his cradle. Heracles strangled a snake with each hand and his nurse found him amusing himself with their limp bodies as if they were toys. This anecdote begins with a representation of the hero holding a snake in each hand, just as the familiar Minoan goddesses had once done. "The image of a divine child between two serpents may have been very familiar to the Thebans, who worshiped the Cabiri, although it was not depicted as a first feat of a hero." She later turned the Amazons against him when he was in one of your tasks.

One account of the origin of the Milky Way tells that Zeus had tricked Hera into suckling the infant Heracles. Upon discovering who this was, he withdrew it from his chest, and a stream of his milk formed the stain that crosses the sky. Unlike the Greeks, the Etruscans depicted an adult, bearded Heracles at Hera's breast, which may allude to her adopting him when Heracles became immortal. Heracles had earlier seriously wounded him in the chest.

Hera commissioned Heracles to work for King Eurystheus of Mycenae. She attempted to make nearly all of the twelve Labors of Heracles more difficult than they already were.

When Heracles fought the Lernaean Hydra, he sent a crab to peck at its feet in hopes of distracting it. When Heracles stole Geryon's cattle, he wounded Hera in the right breast with a three-pronged arrow: the wound was incurable and left Hera in constant pain, as Dione tells Aphrodite in the Iliad. Hera then sent a horsefly to sting cattle, irritate them and disperse them. Hera then caused a flood that raised the level of a river so high that Heracles could not ford it with his cattle. Heracles piled stones in the river to make the water shallower. When he managed to reach the court of Eurystheus, the cattle were sacrificed to Hera.

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

As Heracles sailed back from Troy, Hera sent a tempest against him. In retaliation, Zeus hung Hera on Olympus with gold chains and anvils tied to her feet.

Some myths hold that Hera ultimately befriended Heracles for saving her from Porphyrion, a giant who tried to rape her during the Gigantomachy, and even gave him his daughter Hebe as his fiancée. Whatever myth was fabricated to explain an archaic depiction of Heracles as 'Hera's man', it was considered adequate by the builders of the Hereus at Paestum, who depicted Heracles' deeds in bas-relief.

Hera's jealousy

Eco

According to Ovid's Metamorphoses, for a long time a nymph named Echo had the job of distracting Hera from Zeus's adventures by talking to her incessantly. When Hera discovered her deception, she condemned Echo to speak only the words of others (hence our modern word "echo").

Leto, Artemis and Apollo

When Hera discovered that Leto was pregnant and that her husband, Zeus, was the father, she forbade Leto to give birth on 'mainland', meaning the mainland or any island in the sea. Leto found the floating island of Delos, which was neither the mainland nor a real island, and there she was able to give birth. As a gesture of gratitude, Delos was supported with four pillars. Later the island was dedicated to Apollo. Alternatively, Hera had kept Ilithyia, the goddess of childbirth, on Olympus to prevent Leto from giving birth. The other goddesses sent Iris to find her. It was when Ilithyia reached Delos that Leto went into labor. Some versions say that Artemis helped her mother give birth to Apollo for nine days. Another variant states that Artemis was born a day before Apollo, on the island of Ortigia,​​

In another version, Hera was said to have sent Python in pursuit of Leto. The Aquilon wind carried Leto to where Poseidon was, who saved her and covered the island of Ortygia with her waves while Leto gave birth to Apollo and Artemis. Later the island of Ortigia was called Delos and Apollo killed the Python snake to avenge his mother's sufferings.

Semele and Dionysus

When Hera learned that Semele, daughter of King Cadmus of Thebes, was pregnant by Zeus, she disguised herself as his nursemaid and persuaded her to ask Zeus to show himself in his true form. When he was forced to do so, her lightning and thunder killed her. Zeus took the child and completed its gestation by sewing it to his own thigh. Another version is that Hera convinced Semele to force Zeus to show himself in his real form. Unfortunately, she had to do what the princess wanted, having sworn by Styx.In another version, that of Orphism, Dionysus was originally the son of Zeus by Demeter or Persephone. Hera sent her Titans to tear the boy to pieces, whence he was named Zagreo ('quartered'). Zeus, or according to the source Athena, Rhea or Demeter, rescued the heart of Dionysus. Seyffert (1894) Zeus used the heart to recreate Dionysus and implant it in the womb of Semele, hence he is known as "the twice-born". Certain versions imply that Zeus fed Semele the heart to impregnate her.

See also Birth of Dionysus for other variants of this myth.

Io

Hera was about to surprise Zeus with her lover the Argive princess Io, which he managed to avoid by turning her into a beautiful white calf. However, Hera suspected her deception and asked Zeus to give her the calf as a gift, which he could not refuse.

When Hera received Io, she left her in the care of Argos Panoptes to keep her away from Zeus. He then ordered Hermes to kill Argos, who, disguised as a shepherd, managed to make all the hundred eyes of Argos fall asleep with boring stories, and then killed him with a stone, thus rescuing Io. In Ovid's interpolation, when Hera learned of Argos's death, she took her eyes and put them in the peacock's plumage, which explains the patterns on her tail. Hera then sent a horsefly to sting her, forcing her to to wander aimlessly around the world in the form of a cow. Io eventually reached the ends of the world, which the Romans believed to be Egypt, where she became a priestess to the Egyptian goddess Isis.

Lamia

Lamia was a queen of Libya whom Zeus loved. Hera transformed her into a monster and killed her children. Or, alternatively, she killed her children and it was her pain that turned her into said monster. Lamia was cursed with the inability to close her eyes, so that she would always be obsessed with the image of her dead children. Zeus granted him the gift of being able to take her eyes out of her to rest, and then put them back on. Lamia was envious of other mothers and devoured her children.

Other myths in which Hera appears

Rebellion against Zeus

Hera, along with other Olympian gods, participated in a rebellion against Zeus in which they managed to bind him, but Thetis and Briareus came to Zeus's aid and the rebel gods no longer dared go ahead with the insurrection. As punishment, Zeus was hanged. Hera of heaven with her arms chained to gold rings and an anvil tied to each foot.

Gérana

Gérana was a queen of the pygmies who was worshiped as a goddess by her people, and came to boast of being more beautiful than Hera, Athena, Aphrodite and Artemis. As punishment, Hera transformed her into a crane and decreed that the descendants of this bird would be eternally at war with the pygmy people.

Cídipe

Cydipe, a priestess of Hera, was on her way to a festival in honor of the goddess. The oxen that pulled her cart were late and the children of Cídipe, Cleobis and Bitón, pulled the cart the entire way (45 furlongs: 8 km). Cídipe was impressed with her devotion to her and her goddess and asked Hera to grant the boys the best gift a god could give a person. Hera ordered the brothers to die in their sleep.

This honor bestowed on the young was later used by Solon as proof when he tried to convince Croesus that it is impossible to judge a person's happiness until he has died after a joyful life.

Tiresias

Tiresias was a priest of Zeus who, as a young man, found two mating snakes and beat them with a stick. He then he was 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 two mating snakes, hit them with his staff, and became a man again. Zeus and Hera asked him to decide the question with which sex, male or female, he experienced more pleasure in intercourse with her. Zeus claimed that he was like a woman, and Hera said that he was like a man. When Tiresias agreed with Zeus, stating that the woman receives nine-tenths of the pleasure, Hera blinded him. Since Zeus could not undo this curse, he granted Tiresias the gift of prophecy. An alternate and lesser-known version of the story tells that Tiresias was blinded by Athena after finding her bathing naked. Her mother, Chariclo, begged the goddess to undo her curse, but Athena was unable to do so and in return she granted him the gift of prophecy.

The golden fleece

Pelias had killed Sidero, who was mistreating his mother Tyre, in a temple dedicated to Hera, and the goddess hated him for it. Hera helped Jason on his journey to find the Golden Fleece he needed to take the throne of Iolcus from Pelias.

Metamorphosis of Haemo and Rhodope

In Thrace, King Hemo and Queen Rhodope were guilty of hubris by behaving like the gods themselves. Hera and Zeus transformed them into mountains: the king, in the Balkans; and to the queen, in the Rhodope mountains.

The Trojan War

Zeus organized a banquet to celebrate the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, but left Eris, the goddess of discord, out of the guest list, who after coming despite everything dropped a golden apple with the inscription καλλίστῃ, 'for the Prettier'. Three goddesses claimed the apple for themselves: Hera, Athena and Aphrodite. Zeus decided that Paris of Troy should decide who should be the legitimate owner of the apple. Each of the goddesses offered Paris a gift: Hera would grant him the rule of all of Asia and be the richest man, Athena the victory of all their combats and Aphrodite promised him the love of the most beautiful woman in the world: Helen. Paris chose Aphrodite, and then Helena left her husband, Menelaus. Thus would come the Trojan War.

In the war, Hera strongly supported the Achaeans against the Trojans. In the Iliad it is related how Hera saw her own son Ares fighting on the Trojan side and asked Zeus for permission to fight him and keep him away from the battlefield. In another passage, she seduced Zeus to distract him so that the Achaeans took the initiative in war. In another, he tries to favor Achilles in a fight in which he faces the Trojan Aeneas. On the other hand, in a confrontation that broke out between the gods themselves, he disarmed Artemis and struck her repeatedly with the bow.