Hera

Hera, the Roman Juno, is the queen of heaven and the consort of Zeus — goddess of marriage, women, and the dignity of rule. Majestic and jealous, she pursues her husband's lovers and their children through countless myths, most famously hounding the hero Heracles, yet she remains the guardian of the marriage bond and of the social order it founds.

The Greeks heard in her name an echo of sovereignty and the seasons, and her great temples at Argos and Samos were among the oldest in Greece. Allegorizing readers took her, the bride of the sky-god, as the air or as the generative, life-giving power that the demiurgic intellect of Zeus informs and orders — the receptive consort to his active rule.

Epithets

• Teleia Τελεία — of fulfilled marriage
• Gamelia Γαμηλία — of weddings
• Basileia Βασίλεια — the queen
• Argeia Ἀργεία — of Argos, her chief cult city
• Boopis Βοῶπις — ox-eyed (Homeric)
• Parthenia Παρθενία — the maiden, ever-renewed
• Lucina Lat. — Juno who brings children to light