Who's Who Greek Myth: Hera: Goddess of marriage & family

Sister of Zeus, Hera was also his legal wife. Ares, god of war was perhaps the most remarkable of her four children.

Though goddess of marriage and the family, Hera was a jealous and vengeful wife (not surprising, considering the excessive philanderings of Zeus, and his fathering of numerous children).

Her vengeance was wrought upon the many mistresses of her husband and their offspring as well. She prevented Leto from giving birth, forcing her to wander about endlessly when the moment for the birth came (see Apollo). She changed Io into a cow and sent a gadfly to sting her.

When Semele was pregnant with Dionysos, Hera made her long to see Zeus in all his glory, and she was burned up by his brilliance.

Kallisto, mother of Arkas, she turned into a bear and sent Artemis to kill the beast. She was even harsh with her own children, persecuting Herakles from the moment of his birth.

Hera was possibly a later version of the mother goddess inherited from the earlier inhabitants of Argos, in the Peloponnese.

According to legend, she had renewed her virginity annually by bathing in the spring of Kanathos, near Nafplio, in the same region. Hera is worshipped in both Samos, where the grand temple known as the Heraion was dedicated to her, and in Crete.

The pomegranate was sacred to Hera, symbolizing fertility, the same fruit also associated with the abduction of Persephone by Hades, and with the goddesses Athena and Aphrodite.

Hera is also associated with the cuckoo, one myth relating the summoning of a downpour by Zeus, during which a cuckoo fell at Hera's feet. Holding it to her body to warm it, the cuckoo turned into Zeus, who then lay with her.