50 Fun Facts About Hera

Hera is the Greek goddess of what?

Marriage, women and family. Her own marriage was anything but peaceful: many of her best-known myths show her taking revenge on Zeus's lovers and their children.

Who are Hera's parents?

The Titans Cronus and Rhea. That makes her Zeus's sister as well as his wife, and in the Iliad she pulls rank on him on both counts, as Cronus's eldest daughter and as his queen.

What did Hera's father do to her at birth?

Swallowed her whole. He had been warned that one of his own children would overthrow him, and Hera stayed in his belly until Zeus tricked him into vomiting his sons and daughters back up.

In the Iliad, which goddess raised Hera in the house of Oceanus after her mother handed her over?

Tethys. Hera's tale that she is off to visit her old foster mother and end the couple's long quarrel is the cover story she tells while plotting to seduce Zeus.

Which fruit is Hera sometimes shown holding in ancient Greek art?

A pomegranate. Pausanias saw one in the hand of her great gold-and-ivory temple statue, but refused to explain it, saying its story was a holy mystery.

Into what bird did Zeus transform himself to seduce Hera?

A cuckoo. In one telling he came to her through a storm as a shivering little bird, and revealed himself only once she had taken pity and sheltered it against her.

The poet Callimachus wrote that Zeus loved Hera passionately for how long?

300 years. One surviving line of his Aetia says so, and in the Iliad, too, the pair first slept together in secret, without their parents knowing.

What did Gaia give Zeus and Hera as a wedding present?

The apples of the Hesperides. In one telling Hera so admired the golden fruit that she had the tree planted in her own garden, then set a dragon to guard it when the nymphs kept picking the apples.

Which god was Hera said to have produced on her own, without Zeus?

Hephaestus. In Hesiod she bore him alone in anger after Zeus produced Athena from his own head, and in one telling she then threw the lame child out of Olympus.

Which monster did the Homeric Hymn to Apollo say Hera bore by herself in anger at Zeus?

Typhaon. Furious that Zeus had produced Athena alone, she struck the ground and prayed for a son stronger than he was, then handed the creature to the she-dragon of Delphi to rear.

Which Greek city, with its great sanctuary the Heraion nearby, had Hera as its patron goddess?

Argos. In the Iliad she names it first among the three cities she loves best, then tells Zeus he may destroy all three whenever he likes, so long as Troy falls.

Which Aegean island claimed to be Hera's birthplace and built her one of the earliest great Greek temples?

Samos. Herodotus called its later Heraion the largest temple known to him, yet a single column is all that still stands of it today.

What happens at the ruins of Hera's temple at Olympia before every modern Olympic Games?

The Olympic flame is lit. The ritual looks ancient but is not: the torch relay was devised for the 1936 Berlin Games, and the ancient Olympics had nothing like it.

Who competed in the Heraean Games held every four years at Olympia?

Young girls in a footrace. Pausanias says they ran with their hair loose, tunics above the knee and the right shoulder bare, on a track a sixth shorter than the men's.

Which sister of Hera swore an oath to stay a virgin for ever?

Hestia. Hera took a different path: she was said to bathe every year in the spring of Kanathos, at Nauplia, and become a virgin again.

Homer's common epithet for Hera, boōpis, means what?

Cow-eyed. It was praise, not an insult: the word joins the Greek for cow and eye, and Homer uses it of women with large, beautiful eyes.

Which priestess of Hera was turned into a heifer and guarded by Argus Panoptes?

Io. In one telling it was Zeus who turned her into a white cow to hide the affair, and Hera, not fooled, asked for the animal as a gift and set her watchman over it.

What did Hera do with the hundred eyes of the slain Argus?

Set them in the peacock's tail. In Ovid's telling Hermes had to lull every one of those eyes to sleep with his pipe music before he could cut off the watchman's head.

Which insect did Hera send to sting Zeus's lover, by then a cow, all the way to Egypt?

A gadfly. Its Greek name, oistros, also meant anything that drives a creature mad, and it survives in the English words oestrus and oestrogen.

What did Hera trick Semele into demanding of Zeus?

That he appear in his true form. In Ovid she came disguised as Semele's old nurse; Zeus, bound by his oath on the Styx, arrived in thunder and lightning, and the sight destroyed her.

What had the nymph Echo done to make Hera curse her voice?

Distracted her with chatter. Echo kept Hera talking while the nymphs lying with Zeus slipped away, and Hera, seeing through it, left her able only to repeat the last words she heard.

In Ovid's telling, a furious Hera turned Zeus's lover Callisto into which animal?

A bear. When Zeus lifted her into the sky as the Great Bear, Hera asked the sea gods never to let her bathe in their waters, which is why that constellation never sets.

Which Libyan queen, robbed of her children by Hera, became a monster that hunted other people's children?

Lamia. Greek mothers and nurses went on using her name to frighten children into behaving, and Zeus was said to have given her eyes she could take out and put back.

Hera turned a boastful queen of the Pygmies into which bird, which her people fought ever after?

A crane. In one telling she kept flying back to see her baby son, and the Pygmies took up arms and drove the bird away, which is how the war began.

What did Zeus shape into a double of Hera to trap the lustful Ixion?

A cloud. In one telling Ixion bragged of sleeping with Hera, so Zeus bound him to a wheel that turns for ever, and from his union with the cloud came the race of centaurs.

Why did Hera strike Tiresias blind?

He sided with Zeus on which sex enjoys love more. Having lived as both man and woman, he said women enjoy it far more; Zeus could not undo the blinding, so he made up for it with the gift of prophecy.

What does the name Heracles mean?

Glory of Hera. The name honours his worst enemy: in Diodorus's telling he was renamed as a baby, after strangling the two snakes she sent, because her attack had won him his first glory.

How did Hera cheat the unborn Heracles of a throne Zeus had promised him?

She had a rival born first. Zeus swore that the descendant of Perseus born that day would rule, so Hera held back Heracles and hurried out Eurystheus at seven months, the king who later set his labours.

In myth, Hera's spilt milk made the Milky Way, and the drops that fell to earth became which flower?

The lily. Tintoretto painted both halves of the story, but the bottom third of his canvas, where the lilies grew, was later cut away, so only the stars survive.

Which creature bit Heracles's foot during his fight with the Hydra and was set among the stars by Hera?

A crab. Heracles killed it on the spot and went on to finish the Hydra, and Hera's reward for her fallen helper is why the zodiac has a crab, the constellation Cancer.

Which daughter did Hera give Heracles as his bride once he became a god and the two made peace?

Hebe. The goddess of youth had been cupbearer to the gods, and the wedding sealed the peace: the man Hera had hounded all his life ended up as her son-in-law.

Whom did Hera detain on Olympus to stop Leto giving birth to Apollo?

Eileithyia. In the Homeric Hymn Hera kept the goddess of childbirth in the dark while Leto laboured nine days and nights, until the other goddesses sent Iris to call her away behind Hera's back with the promise of a golden necklace.

Which uninvited goddess threw the golden apple that Hera, Athena and Aphrodite all claimed?

Eris. The apple was marked 'to the fairest', and since no god dared choose between the three, Zeus handed the judging to a Trojan prince, Paris.

Who helps Hera seduce Zeus and put him to sleep in Book 14 of the Iliad?

Aphrodite and Hypnos. She borrows the love goddess's charm on a false pretext, then bribes the god of sleep with one of the Graces as his bride, so the Greeks can rally while Zeus dozes.

What did Jason lose while carrying a disguised Hera across a river?

A sandal. In one telling Hera was testing men's kindness as an old woman, and the missing sandal marked Jason as the man an oracle had warned King Pelias about.

What did Hera offer the Trojan prince Paris if he judged her the fairest goddess?

Kingship over many lands. Paris took Aphrodite's bribe of Helen instead, and the two losers, Hera and Athena, turned on Troy and backed the Greeks throughout the war.

What is the name of Hera's Roman counterpart?

Juno. Rome struck its coins beside the temple of Juno Moneta, and that title of hers is where English gets the words 'money' and 'mint'.

Which of these Olympian gods was a son of Zeus and Hera?

Ares. There was little love lost: in the Iliad Zeus calls the war god the most hateful of all the Olympians and blames his unbending temper on his mother.

How is Hera usually crowned in ancient art?

With a polos or diadem. The polos is a tall cylindrical crown, and the veil that often hangs behind it is there for a reason: it marks the queen of the gods as the bride of Zeus.

In which ancient script is Hera's name first attested, on tablets from Pylos and Thebes?

Linear B. Nobody could read the script until 1952, when the architect Michael Ventris showed it was an early form of Greek, and on a Pylos tablet Hera is already named beside Zeus.

Who bore Heracles and was, Diodorus says, the last mortal woman Zeus slept with?

Alcmene. Zeus came to her in the shape of her absent husband and made the night three times its length, wanting, Diodorus says, not romance but the mightiest son he could father.

What did Hera inflict on Heracles that made him kill his own children?

A fit of madness. In the usual telling the oracle then sent him to serve King Eurystheus as penance, which is how Hera's attack led to the twelve labours.

Whose murdered children were honoured with yearly rites at Hera's sanctuary in Corinth?

Medea. Euripides has her bury her sons in Hera's precinct and found the rites herself, but in another telling it was not their mother who killed them: the Corinthians stoned the boys, and the mourning was their penance.

In the Iliad, what does Hera turn on the river Scamander to save Achilles from drowning?

Fire. She has the smith god burn the plain and boil the river in its bed until Scamander begs for mercy and swears never again to help the Trojans.

The nymph who snubbed Zeus and Hera's wedding by staying home became which animal?

A tortoise. In Servius's telling Hermes threw the nymph Chelone's riverside house into the water and made her carry her home on her back for ever; her name is the Greek word for tortoise.

What happened to the wooden bridal image at the end of the Daedala festival for Hera?

It was ritually burned. The rite replayed a trick: Zeus staged a wedding to a veiled wooden doll to make the estranged Hera jealous, and when she tore off its wrappings she was delighted and made peace.

Why did Hera hate Pelias, the king who sent Jason after the Golden Fleece?

He killed a woman at her altar. Pelias cut down Sidero, his mother's cruel stepmother, in Hera's own precinct and went on slighting the goddess, so she backed Jason to bring him down.

Which brothers did Hera reward with death in their sleep for pulling their mother's cart to her festival?

Cleobis and Biton. Their proud mother had prayed for the best gift a mortal can receive, and Solon later told King Croesus the story to show that no one should be called happy until he is dead.

At Stymphalus Hera was worshipped as Girl, as Wife and, after she walked out on Zeus, as what?

Widow. With an immortal husband she could hardly be one, so the locals explained it: she had quarrelled with Zeus and come home to Stymphalus alone, and the title marked the time she spent apart.

In the Iliad, how did Zeus once punish Hera for sending a storm against Heracles?

Hung her from the sky. Zeus reminds her how he bound her wrists with a golden chain, tied an anvil to each foot, and hurled down any god who tried to set her free.