Heré
(Ionic,
Ἧρη, and in Attic,
Ἧρα: the name is often connected with the Latin
hĕra; but on this, see Curtius, p. 119). In Greek mythology, the queen of
heaven, eldest daughter of Cronus and Rhea, sister and lawful consort of Zeus. According to
Homer, she was brought up in her youth by Oceanus and Tethys. But every place in which her
worship was localized asserted that she was born there, and brought up by the Nymphs of the
district. She is said to have long lived in secret intimacy with Zeus before he publicly
acknowledged her as his lawful consort. Her worshippers celebrated her marriage (
ἱερὸς γάμος) in the spring time. In the oldest version of the story
it took place in the Islands of the Blessed, on the shore of the Ocean stream, where the
golden apple-tree of the Hesperides sprang up to celebrate it. But this honour, too, was
claimed by every place where Heré was worshipped. According to one local story,
Zeus obtained the love of Heré by stealth, in the form of a cuckoo.
Heré seems originally to have symbolized the feminine aspects of the natural
forces of which Zeus is the masculine representative. Hence she is at once his wife and his
sister, shares his power and his honours, and, like him, has authority over the phenomena of
the atmosphere. It is she who sends clouds and storms, and is mistress of the thunder and
lightning. Her handmaids are the Horae or goddesses of the season, and Iris, the goddess of
the rainbow. Like Zeus, men worship her on mountains, and pray to her for rain. The union of
sun and rain, which wakes the earth to renewed fertility, is symbolized as the loving union of
Zeus and Heré. In the same way a conflict of the winds is represented as the
consequence of a matrimonial quarrel, usually attributed to the jealousy of Heré,
who was regarded as the stern protectress of honourable marriage. Hence arose stories of Zeus
illtreating his wife. It was said that he scourged her, and hurled Hephaestus from heaven to
earth when hurrying to his mother's assistance; that in anger for her persecution of his son
Heracles, he hung her out in the air with golden chains to her arms and an anvil on each foot
(
Il. viii. 400). There were also old legends which spoke of
Heré allying herself with Athené and Poseidon to bind Zeus in
chains. Zeus was only rescued by the giant Aegaeon, whom Thetis called to his assistance. The
birth of Athené was said to have enraged Heré to such a pitch that she
became the mother of Typhon by the dark powers of the infernal regions. In fact, this constant
resistance to the will of Zeus, and her jealousy and hatred of her consort's paramours and
their children, especially Heracles, become in the poets a standing trait in her character.
In spite of all this, Homer represents her as the most majestic of all the goddesses. The
other Olympians pay her royal honours, and Zeus treats her with all respect and confides all
his designs to her, though not always yielding to her demands. She is the spotless and
uncorruptible wife of the king of Heaven; the mother of Hephaestus, Ares, Hebé, and
Ilithyia, and indeed may be called the only lawful wife in the Olympian court. She is,
accordingly, before all other deities the goddess of marriage and the protectress of purity in
married life. She is represented as of exalted but severe beauty, and appears before Paris as
competing with Aphrodité and Athené for the prize of loveliness. In
Homer she is described as of lofty stature, large eyes (
βοῶπις), white arms (
λευκώλενος), and beautiful
hair. On women she confers bloom and strength; she helps them, too, in the dangerous hour of
childbirth. Her daughters Hebé and Ilithyia personify both these attributes.
In earlier times Heré was not everywhere recognized as the consort of Zeus; at
the primitive oracle of Dodona, for instance, Dioné occupies this position. The
Peloponnesus may be regarded as
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Head of Heré. (Naples. Supposed to be from a Statue by Polyclitus.)
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the earliest seat of her worship, and in the Peloponnesus, during the Homeric
period, Argos, Mycenae, and Sparta are her favourite seats. Of these, according to the poet,
she is the passionate champion in the Trojan War. In later times the worship of
Heré was strongly localized in Argos and Mycenae. At Argos she took the same
commanding position as Athené at Athens, and the year was dated by the names of her
priestesses. Between these cities, at the foot of Mount Euboea, was
situated the Heraeum (
Ἡραῖον), a temple held in great
honour. (See
Heraea.) At Corinth she was the goddess
of the acropolis. At Elis a garment was offered her every five years by sixteen ladies chosen
for the purpose, and maidens held a race in her honour on the race-course at Olympia. Boeotia
had its feast of the
Daedala (q. v.); Samos its large and splendid temple,
built by Polycrates. The cuckoo was sacred to her as the messenger of spring, the season in
which she was wedded to Zeus; so were the peacock and the crow, and among fruits the
pomegranate, the symbol of wedded love and fruitfulness. Hecatombs were offered to her in
sacrifice, as to Zeus.
In works of art she is represented as seated on a throne in a full robe, covering the whole
figure. On her head is a sort of diadem, often with a veil; the expression of the face is
severe and majestic, the eyes large and wide open, as in the Homeric description. The ideal
type of Heré was found in the statue by Polyclitus in the temple at Argos. This was
a colossal image, in gold and ivory, representing the goddess on her throne, her crown adorned
with figures of the Graces and the Seasons, a pomegranate in one hand, and in the other a
sceptre with the cuckoo on the top. The Farnese Heré at Naples, and the Ludovisi
Iuno in Rome, are copies of this work. The Romans identified Heré with their own
Iuno (q.v.).
