18 Zeus himself, according to Homer, listened to her counsels, and communicated his secrets to her rather than to other gods. The Homeric poems know nothing of all this, and we only hear, that after the marriage with Zeus, she was treated by the Olympian gods with the same reverence as her husband. 16 This marriage acts a prominent part in the worship of Hera under the name of ἱερὸς γάμος ( hieros gamos) on that occasion all the gods honored the bride with presents, and Gaea presented to her a tree with golden apples, which was watched by the Hesperides in the garden of Hera, at the foot of the Hyperborean Atlas. Her marriage with Zeus also offered ample scope for poetical invention, 12 and several places in Greece claimed the honor of having been the scene of the marriage, such as Euboea, 13 Samos, 14 Cnossus in Crete, 15 and Mount Thornax, in the south of Argolis. 10 Several parts of Greece also claimed the honor of being her birthplace among them are two, Argos and Samos, which were the principal seats of her worship. 8 The Argives, on the other hand, related that she had been brought up by Euboea, Prosymna, and Acraea, the three daughters of the river Asterion 9 and according to Olen, the Horae were her nurses. This simple account is variously modified in other traditions.īeing a daughter of Cronus, she, like his other children, was swallowed by her father, but afterwards released, 7 and, according to an Arcadian tradition, she was brought up by Temenus, the son of Pelasgus.

According to the Homeric poems, 6 she was brought up by Oceanus and Thetis, as Zeus had usurped the throne of Cronus and afterwards she became the wife of Zeus, without the knowledge of her parents. 3 Apollodorus, 4 however, calls Hestia the eldest daughter of Cronus and Lactantius 5 calls her a twin-sister of Zeus. Hera was, according to some accounts, the eldest daughter of Cronus and Rhea, and a sister of Zeus.

1 The derivation of the name has been attempted in a variety of ways, from Greek as well as oriental roots, though there is no reason for having recourse to the latter, as Hera is a purely Greek divinity, and one of the few who, according to Herodotus, 2 were not introduced into Greece from Egypt. Hera, probably identical with kera, mistress, just as her husband, Zeus, was called ἔρρος ( erros) in the Aeolian dialect.

A few ways the horae assisted aphrodite