One of the most revered goddesses of antiquity was the power-hungry beauty Hera. The Romans knew her as Juno, the goddess of marriage and legitimate children. Goddess Hera - in mythology, the character is ambiguous and quite complex. She was highly revered as a powerful and omnipotent goddess of marriage, and at the same time, Homer, in his Iliad, presented her as a cruel, vengeful, and very grumpy wife.
Goddess Hera is the sixth legal wife of the great Thunder Zeus, the ruler of Olympus and the father of revered gods and great heroes. The daughter of Kronos and Rhea, she was absorbed by her father after birth, like the rest of her four brothers and sisters. By the time Zeus defeated the Titans and occupied Olympus, Hera had grown up as a beautiful young girl. But she was modest, led a correct lifestyle and did not look at men. With its beauty, purity and inaccessibility, it attracted the attention of a thunderer. Zeus was distinguished by his indomitable passion and was known as a great seducer and rapist. His first victim was his own mother, Rhea, who forbade him to marry. Falling into a rage, he caught up with her in the form of a snake and seized power. Therefore, do not be surprised that he liked his sister. But the goddess Hera was in no hurry to yield to him, in every possible way avoiding his close attention. Then Zeus resorted to another trick, knowing that the maid of goodness desired by him with his heart, he turned into a small weak bird. Hera leaned over and picked her up. To warm a frozen bird, she placed it on her chest. It was then that Zeus and took his true guise, rushed to the poor confused goddess. But all his attempts to master her power were unsuccessful. She resisted until he vowed to marry her.
According to myths, their honeymoon lasted as long as three hundred years. But as soon as it ended, Zeus returned to his vicious, erratic way of life. Hera, the goddess of clean and strong marriage ties, could not endure the numerous betrayals of her husband and sent all her anger to her lovers and their illegitimate children. Of course, as a woman, she shifts all her resentment not to her husband, but to others. She responds to the pain of a scolded marriage with fury and action, and not with the depression typical of Persephone, Demeter, or Aphrodite. It is excessive revenge that allows her to feel strong, not rejected.
The goddess Hera had several children, but she did not give birth to any of them from her husband. After the birth of Athena, whose only parent Zeus became, she in revenge gave birth to Hephaestus, the god of fire and blacksmithing. But, compared to the beautiful and perfect Athena,
Hephaestus was a weak baby with a disfigured foot. In a fit of anger, Hera threw him from Olympus to the foot of the mountain. This is far from the only story related to the vengeful malice of the supreme goddess. She wanted to kill Dionysus, sent madness to his teacher. She laid two snakes in the bed for the newborn Hercules. Hera turned the unfortunate nymph Callisto, seduced by Zeus, into a big dipper and tried to persuade her son to kill her.
This is how the goddess Hera seemed to the ancient Greeks; photos of surviving statues can be seen in many galleries. On them, the great patroness of marriage and childbearing looks like a beautiful, stately and proud woman, with such greatness who endured all the insulting adventures of her loving spouse.
