Queen of Heaven, Goddess of Marriage and Family
Zeus’s sister and wife, Queen of Olympus. She presides over marriage while trapped in the least faithful marriage of all the gods — so she pours all her formidable will into revenge. Her ingenuity in hunting down rivals and Zeus’s illegitimate children fuels half the mythology.
Heracles was still in the cradle when Hera sent two serpents to kill him — the infant strangled both. Grown, he was struck with madness by her and killed his own wife and children, which drove him to the Twelve Labors as penance. The hero’s name means "glory of Hera" — perhaps the cruelest irony in all myth.
When Eris tossed a golden apple inscribed "for the fairest" into a wedding feast, Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite could not settle it. When the Trojan prince Paris was made to judge, Hera offered him "dominion over Asia." Passed over, she stood firmly with the Greeks for the whole Trojan War.
Zeus turned his lover Io into a heifer to hide the affair; Hera saw through it, demanded the animal, and set the hundred-eyed giant Argus to guard it day and night. After Hermes lulled and slew the giant, Hera set his hundred eyes into the peacock’s tail — which has been her sacred bird ever since.
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.
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