The goddess Hera is represented in mythology as an irascible wife and imperfect mother in the face of a frivolous Zeus. Beginning with the Iliad, many narrative traditions depict her wrath, the infidelities of her royal husband and the persecutions to which she subjects his illegitimate offspring. But how to relate this image to the cults of the sovereign goddess in her sanctuaries across Greece? This book uses the Hera of Zeus to open up new perspectives for understanding the society of the gods, the fate of heroes and the lives of men. As the intimate enemy of Zeus but also the fierce guardian of the legitimacy and integrity of the Olympian family, she takes shape in more subtle and complex ways that make it possible to rethink the configuration of power in ancient Greece, with the tensions that inhabited it, and thus how polytheism works.
Preface by Fritz Graf; Introduction; Chapter I. On Olympus: Conjugal Bed and Royal Throne: 1. A kind of overture: Hera's characteristic epithets; 2. Ultimate spouse; 2.1. 'Sister and wife': family affairs; 2.2. The supreme beauty of the divine spouse; 2.3. Dios apatē and the erotic power of parthenia; 2.4. Marriage and sovereignty; 3. Intimate enemy; 3.1. The sovereign queen, eris and cholos; 3.2. In the midst of the battle: the mother of Ares; 3.3. The play of eris and the place of the queen; 4. Hera, between childbirth and filiation; 4.1. The problematic status of Hephaistos; 4.2. The mother of Eileithyia in action; 4.3. From the labour of Eileithyia to the filiation; 4.4. The jealousy of Hera and the children of Zeus; 5. The lineage and the nurse; 6. The queen's ultimate challenge: on the traces of a lost hymn? 6.1. The text; 6.2. From the wrath of Hera to a cosmic crisis; 6.3. The return of order and constructive eris; 6.4. From the intimate enemy to the ultimate spouse; 7. The Hera of Zeus in archaic poetry; Chapter 2. In the cities: Teleia and Basileia; 1. As a prelude: exclusive cult-titles; 2. Stymphalus and the Hera-cycle; 3. The Daidala of Plataia; 3.1. The goddess of Kithairon; 3.2. The narratives and the cycle; 3.3 The procession and the sacrifice; 3.4 Marriage, sovereignty, reconciliation; 4. The Goddess of Argos in her dwelling; 4.1. The Goddess of Argos, the Argive plain, and the city of Argos; 4.2. The traces of the cycle about the goddess between myths and rites; 4.3. Veils of marriage and a veiled marriage; 4.4. The sceptre, the cuckoo, the throne; 4.5. Hera and the sovereignty of Zeus; 5. The sovereign bride of Samos; 5.1. A grandiose temple in the middle of the Aegean; 5.2. In the shadow of the chastetree: birth, parthenia, separation, and return; 5.3. 'The glorious young bride of Zeus, queen of the island'; 5.4. Mistress of the island, offerings and donors; 6. From Olympus to Olympia; 6.1. Heaven on earth; 6.2 The archaic temple at the heart of the Altis; 6.3. Hera at the centre of the Olympian pantheon: the monuments; 6.4. Hera in the heart of the Olympian pantheon: taking control of the theogony; 6.5. The power of sovereignty: Olympios/Olympia; 6.6. The conjugal bed and the throne: Pelops and Hippodamia; 6.7. Competition, “synecism” and marriage: the Hēraia; 6.8. Return to the Heraion; 7. The Hera of Zeus and the Zeus of Hera; 7.1 Powers of accomplishment: Teleios-Teleia; 7.2. At Athens a hieros gamos and some sacrificial precautions; 8. The sovereign Queen: cult-title, ritual and topography; 8.1. When she is the 'Queen'; 8.2. Ascending toward the Kynthos at Delos; 8.3. The Basileia of Lesbos: new information from Sappho; 8.4. Hera at Perachora and the Bounaia of Corinth; 8.5. The sovereign queen of the Achaeans in the West; 9. From the city-cults to Olympus: return to Dios apatē; Chapter 3. From anger to glory: testing and legitimising: 1. Cholos: profiling an angry goddess; 2. Gaining access to Olympus; 3. Herakles, Hera and kleos; 3.1. The glory of Hera, glory by way of Hera; 3.2. 'Now she loves him…'; 3.3. Monster and trials; 3.4. Legitimation, wet-nursing, and marriage; 3.5. Hebe, daughter of Hera, and the hēbē; 4. Dionysus, 'the god who arrives…' on Olympus; 4.1. From the anger of the wife to the immortality of the son; 4.2. The throne of the queen: integration and re-integration; 4.3. Constructive antagonisms; 5. The fabrication of Olympus in images; 5.1. 'As if she were her daughter, too…'; 5.2. The wife of Zeus vis-à-vis Dionysus; 6. Heroic stakes and the crises of sovereignty; 6.1. From Laius to Oedipus; 6.2. From Pelias to Jason; 6.2.1. The kleos of the Argonauts; 6.2.2. The hybris of Pelias; Envoi.
Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge is a Professor at the Collège de France after having been a researcher at the F.N.R.S. (Belgium) and taught at the Université de Liège. She is also the author of L'Aphrodite grecque (1994), Retour à la source. Pausanias et la religion grecque (2008), and Le Polythéisme grec à l'épreuve d'Hérodote (2020). Gabriella Pironti is Director of Studies at the École Pratique des Hautes Études of Paris (PSL) and member of the Centre ANHIMA. She is also the author of Entre ciel et guerre: figures d'Aphrodite en Grèce ancienne (2007) and co-editor of two volumes on The Gods of Homer (2017 and 2021).
Reviews for The Hera of Zeus: Intimate Enemy, Ultimate Spouse
'This book is a valuable collection of aspects and details of Hera … this collection of Hera's actions and interactions well worth reviewing when considering the phenomenon of this goddess.' Patricia Johnston, Bryn Mawr Classical Review
