Hera in Greek Mythology: Queen of the Gods and Marriage

Hera was the queen of the Greek gods, the sister and wife of Zeus, and the goddess of marriage, wives and childbirth. A daughter of the Titans Cronus and Rhea, she ruled Olympus at Zeus's side and was worshipped at some of the greatest temples in Greece. In myth she is best known for her fury at her husband's affairs — a fury she aimed less at Zeus than at his lovers and their children, above all Heracles.

Hera quick facts

What is Hera the goddess of?

Hera is first of all the goddess of marriage. Her cult title Teleia, "the fulfilled" or "the one who brings to completion," tied her to the wedded wife, and the sacred marriage of Hera and Zeus was celebrated in her cult. She also watched over childbirth, together with her daughter Eileithyia, the goddess who attends women in labour.

Her worship was grander than her role as the jealous wife suggests. Herodotus called her temple on Samos the largest temple he knew, and at Olympia her temple is older than the great temple of Zeus beside it. Pausanias says that the Heraia, a footrace for unmarried girls, was held there in her honour.

At Argos her cult told its own stories. Pausanias reports that Zeus first courted her disguised as a cuckoo, which is why the cuckoo sat on her scepter in Polykleitos' famous statue, and that she bathed each year in the spring Kanathos near Nauplia to become a maiden again.

What are Hera's powers?

Hera's powers are those of a queen who cannot overpower her husband, so she works through others and through cunning:

• Control over childbirth. Through Eileithyia, she can speed up or delay a birth — a power she turns against Leto and Alcmene.
• Command over nature. In Iliad Book 18, she sends the unwilling sun down early to end a day of battle. In Book 19 she gives Achilles' horse Xanthus a human voice.
• Storms and madness. She drives Heracles off course with a storm and, in Euripides' Heracles, sends Madness to strike him.
• Persuasion and seduction. In Iliad Book 14, she borrows Aphrodite's embroidered band, which holds the power of desire, and seduces Zeus so the god of sleep can put him under.
• Patronage. In the Odyssey, the Argo passes the deadly rocks only because Hera loved Jason.

For how her powers measure against the other Olympians, see Greek gods and their powers.

Why was Hera so jealous?

Because she was the goddess of marriage married to the least faithful husband in Greek myth. She could not defeat Zeus, so her anger fell on his lovers and children:

The sources do not always blame Hera. In Ovid, Juno herself turns Callisto into a bear. In Apollodorus' Library, Zeus does it to hide the girl from Hera, and Hera then persuades Artemis to shoot the animal. When Hermes kills Argus, Ovid adds that Hera set his hundred eyes in the tail of her peacock.

Why did Hera hate Heracles?

Heracles was living proof of Zeus's affair with the mortal Alcmene, and Hera persecuted him from before he was born. In Iliad Book 19, Agamemnon tells the story: Zeus swore that a child of his blood born that day would rule all around him, so Hera held back Alcmene's labour and brought on the early birth of Eurystheus instead. Eurystheus became king, and Heracles had to serve him and perform his labours.

Her attacks continued throughout his life. In Pindar's first Nemean ode, she sends two snakes to his cradle, and the baby strangles them. In Iliad Book 15, she drives his ship off course with a storm, and Zeus reminds her that he punished her by hanging her from the sky with anvils tied to her feet. In Euripides' Heracles, she sends Madness to drive him to kill his own wife and children.

Yet the story ends in reconciliation. Hesiod's Theogony and the Odyssey both say that after his death Heracles lived on Olympus as the husband of Hera's daughter Hebe. Hyginus' Astronomica even records a version in which milk spilled from Hera's breast, when Hermes set the infant Heracles there to nurse, became the Milky Way.

What did Hera do in the Trojan War?

She fought for the Greeks, and her motive was the Judgment of Paris. When Hera, Athena and Aphrodite disputed which of them was most beautiful, the Trojan prince Paris was asked to judge. In Euripides' Trojan Women, Hera offers him rule over Asia and Europe, Athena command of a Trojan army to conquer Greece, and Aphrodite the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen. He chose Aphrodite. The Iliad only alludes to the contest near its end, saying Paris insulted the two goddesses who came to him.

Hera's anger is relentless in the epic. In Book 4, she offers Zeus her three favourite cities — Argos, Sparta and Mycenae — to destroy whenever he likes, as long as Troy falls. In Book 14, she seduces Zeus on Mount Ida so that Poseidon can help the Greeks while her husband sleeps.

Euripides' Helen turns her role upside down. There, Hera, furious over the Judgment, gives Paris a phantom Helen made of air, while the real Helen sits out the war in Egypt. The whole Trojan War is fought over an illusion that Hera created.

Who are Hera's children?

Hesiod names three children of Hera and Zeus: Hebe, the goddess of youth; Ares, the god of war; and Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth. The trouble starts with Hephaestus.

• Hephaestus. In Hesiod's Theogony, Hera bears him on her own, without Zeus, in anger at her husband — right after Zeus has produced Athena from his own head. In Homer, Hephaestus is the son of both.
• Typhaon. The Homeric Hymn to Apollo has Hera, angry over Athena's birth, bear the monster Typhaon by herself. Hesiod makes the similar monster Typhoeus a child of Gaia and Tartarus.

Even Homer cannot agree on how Hephaestus fell from Olympus. In Iliad Book 1, he recalls that Zeus threw him out for siding with Hera, and he fell all day before landing on Lemnos. In Book 18, it was Hera who threw him out because he was lame, and the sea goddesses Thetis and Eurynome saved him. Pausanias reports his revenge: Hephaestus sent his mother a golden throne that trapped her, and only Dionysus could get him drunk enough to come back and free her.

In the sources

Hera's stories come from Hesiod's Theogony; Homer's Iliad and Odyssey; the Homeric Hymn to Apollo; Pindar's Nemean odes; Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound; Euripides' Heracles, Trojan Women and Helen; Herodotus; Apollonius' Argonautica; Apollodorus' Library; Pausanias; Hyginus; and, as Juno, Ovid's Metamorphoses and Virgil's Aeneid, where she persecutes the Trojan Aeneas.

The sources disagree on several points:

• Who raised Hera? In Iliad Book 14, she says Oceanus and Tethys brought her up while Zeus was fighting Cronus. Pausanias reports the Argive belief that her nurses were the three daughters of the river Asterion.
• Who threw Hephaestus from Olympus? Zeus in Iliad Book 1; Hera in Book 18.
• Hephaestus' father. Zeus in Homer; nobody in Hesiod.
• Was Helen ever at Troy? Yes in the Iliad; no in Euripides' Helen, where Hera sent a phantom. Herodotus heard from Egyptian priests that Helen stayed in Egypt, with no phantom involved.
• Who turned Callisto into a bear? Hera in Ovid; Zeus in Apollodorus.

In popular culture

• Disney's Hercules (1997). Hera is Hercules' loving mother. In the myths, his mother is the mortal Alcmene, and Hera is his greatest enemy.
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians. In Rick Riordan's sequel series, The Heroes of Olympus, The Lost Hero (2010) turns on Hera's imprisonment and her secret swap of two demigods between the Greek and Roman camps. Her controlling, family-obsessed character is close to Homer's.
• Blood of Zeus (Netflix, 2020). Hera's jealousy over Zeus's son Heron drives the main conflict. Heron is an invention of the series, but her pattern of attacking Zeus's children comes from the Heracles myth.
• God of War III (2010). Kratos kills Hera. No ancient myth kills her; the Olympians are deathless.

Keep exploring

Hera's story is a family story. Read about her husband in Who Was Zeus?, her brothers in Poseidon in Greek mythology and Hades in Greek mythology, and the son she bore alone in Hephaestus in Greek mythology. Compare all the Olympians in Greek gods and their powers, or find out whether you are more Hera or Athena with the Which Greek God Are You? quiz.