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This article is about the goddess. For the asteroid, see 103 Hera, and also 1 Ceres, which briefly bore the name Hera.
In the Olympian pantheon of classical Greek Mythology, Hêra the Great Goddess of pre- Hellene Minoan culture transmitted to the Greeks through Mycene and other city-states of the Mycenean culture, had been made into the wife and sister of Zeus. She then presided as goddess of marriage, the patriarchal bond of her own subordination. She had a long separate existence before she was incorporated, with considerable difficulty, into the pantheon dominated by Zeus. In late anecdotal versions of the myths (see below) she appeared to spend most of her time plotting revenge on the other women her husband consorted with. She was called Juno by the Romans.
Hera was especially worshipped at the formerly Mycenean city-state of Argos, where the Heraia , festivals in her honor, were celebrated. There were also temples to Hera in Olympia, Mycene itself, Sparta, PaestumPaestum is the classical Roman name of a major Graeco-Roman city in the Campania region of Italy. It is located near the coast about 85km. SE of Naples in the province of Salerno. Founded around the start of the 7th century BC by Greek colonists, and orig, CorinthCorinth or Korinth is a Greek city, on the Isthmus of Corinth, the original isthmus, the narrow stretch of land that joins the Peloponnesus to the mainland of Greece. To the west of the isthmus lies the Gulf of Corinth. Corinth is about 48 miles (78 km) w, TirynsTiryns is a Mycenaean site in the Peloponnesian peninsula in Greece. Tiryns was a hill fort with occupation ranging back seven thousand years. It reached its height between 1400 and 1200 BC. Its most notable features were its palace, its cyclopean tunnels, Perachora , SamosSamos ( Greek Σαμος) is an island in southeastern Greece in the Aegean Sea, near the coast of Turkey. It is located between the island of Chios to the North and the Dodecanese Islands to the South. Products include tobacco, w and DelosThe island of Delos ( Greek: , Dhilos , isolated in the centre of the roughly circular ring of islands called the Cyclades, near Mykonos, had a position as a holy sanctuary for a millennium before Olympian Greek mythology made it the birthplace of Apollo.
Hera's wagon was pulled by peacocks, one of her symbols, along with the crow, pomegranate, diadem, veil and cow. Her archaic association with cattle as a Cow Goddess led to an epithetLinguistics: An epithet (Greek epitheton is a descriptive word or phrase, often metaphoric, that is essentially a reduced or condensed appositive. Epithets are sometimes attached to a person's name, such as Richard the Lionheart or Alexander the Great''. boôpis ("cow-eyed" or "with big eyes", see epithets in HomerEpithets in Homer . A characteristic of Homer's style is the use of recurring epithets, such as the rosy-fingered dawn or swift-footed Achilles''. These epithets were metric stop-gaps as well as mnemonic devices for the aoidos (bard), both signs of the de).