Hera

Family: Olympian gods · Role: goddess · First appears: Apollodorus, Library 1.1

🌐 Also appears in: The Iliad (as Juno) · The Odyssey (as Juno) · The Aeneid (as Juno) · The Metamorphoses of Ovid (as Juno) · Greek Tragedy — The Same Myth, Three Voices (as Hera)

Hera was swallowed by Cronus at birth alongside Hestia, Demeter, Hades, and Poseidon, while Zeus was her sibling. “His firstborn Hestia he swallowed, then Demeter and Hera, and after them Pluto and Poseidon.” Zeus later married Hera and fathered Hebe, Ilithyia, and Ares with her. She also bore Hephaestus without intercourse with the other sex; another account names him as her child by Zeus, while Hesiod says she bore him without union with Zeus after quarrelling with him.

Hera was involved in conflicts surrounding Zeus and those connected to him. When Hephaestus came to her rescue while she was bound, Zeus cast him from heaven; he fell on Lemnos, where Thetis saved him. After Heracles took Troy, Hera sent a storm against him, and Zeus hung her from Olympus. Porphyrion attacked Hera and tried to force her, but Zeus struck him with a thunderbolt and Heracles killed him; Ephialtes wooed her, while Ixion fell in love with her and attempted to force her. Hera pursued Latona over the earth, cast Side into Hades for rivaling her beauty, and competed with Strife, Athena, and Aphrodite for the prize apple of beauty. She promised Paris a kingdom if he preferred her to all women.

Hera’s hostility toward Heracles included sending serpents to his bed and driving him mad through jealousy, after which he killed his children, went into exile, and was assigned ten labours serving Eurystheus. She arranged for Eurystheus to be born a seven-month child, and he later sacrificed Heracles’ cattle to Hera. Hera also raised the Hydra of Lerna and the Nemean lion, which she brought up to haunt Nemea as a plague to men, though Heracles overcame the lion. After being reconciled with Hera, Heracles married her daughter Hebe and joined the undying gods.