Descent Legends: Greece
The Mythological and Historical Hera
The Mythological Hera
Hera, daughter of Cronus and Rhea, was born on the island of Samos and raised in Arcadia. The seasons were her nurses.
After banishing his father Cronus, Zeus sought our his twin sister, Hera, at Knossus in Crete. He courted her unsuccessfully for a prolonged time. She took pity on him only when he adopted the disguise of a bedraggled cuckoo, and tenderly warmed him at her breast. He then resumed his true shape and ravished her. She was thus shamed into marriage with him. After the wedding, to which all the gods brought gifts, Hera and Zeus honeymooned for three hundred years on the island of Samos.
Hera bathes regularly in the spring of Canathus and, thus, renews her virginity. Hera was equal to Zeus in only one way: she could bestow the gift of prophecy. Peeved by his infidelities, she often humiliated him through various schemes.
The Historical Hera
Long before the Indo-European Hellenes came down from the north to occupy the land and islands of Greece, a Mediterranean race, speaking a language different from the Hellenes, occupied Greece. The older race, which we call Minoan and Early Helladic, had customs and codes of conduct different from those of the incoming Hellenes. The older culture was, for example, matriarchal. Society was built around the woman; even on the highest level, where descent was on the female side. A man became king by a formal marriage and his daughter succeeded. Therefore the next king was the man who married the daughter.
The great goddess was supreme. Though she was known by different names around the Mediterranean, she had no regular husband, but her mate was ritually killed every autumn. He was resurrected every spring, coming back to the goddess in the form of a new y selected young king. The lover of the goddess was a lover-god often associated with some bird. (e.g., Leada and the swan, Athena and the owl, Europa and the eagle.)
Until the Northerners arrived, religion and custom were dominated by the female, and the goddess (Hera means lady in ancient Greek) was supreme. When the Hellenes came down, beginning between 2200 and 2100 B.C., this must have seemed quite different from their simpler sky gods, a divine heavenly family which reflected the pattern of their own domestic life.
With the subjugation of the indigenous Mediterranean people of Greece by the Hellenes, the Great Mother, Hera, became the wife of the invading Hellenes' god, Zeus.
After the fusion of the two peoples she was established above all as the goddess of marriage, married life, and the home. Marriage was the great social stabilizer. Hera's Sacred Marriage to Zeus was annually commemorated at Argos, her chief sanctuary, and at other important sanctuaries.
By the union of Zeus and Hera, marriage was first sanctioned by divine example. Marriage was now more than a tribal custom, it had become dignified as a rite and sanctified as a sacrament.