Hera (lady) In Greek mythology pre- Hellenic goddess later said to be the wife of Zeus, sister of Demeter Hades Hestia Poseidon and Zeus. In Roman mythology she is called Juno. Her four children by Zeus are Hephaestus Hebe Ares and Ilithyia (Eileithyia). She was the daughter of Cronus and Rhea according to Hesiod’s Theogony (454). Hera’s main function was as goddess of marriage and the sexual life of women. In many Greek myths she always appears at odds with her wandering husband Zeus constantly persecuting his numerous mistresses and their children. Like Zeus she was swallowed at birth by her father Cronus and rescued by Zeus who later in the form of a cuckoo seduced her. Hera is portrayed in Greek and Roman art as a large majestic woman fully clad wearing a diadem (in Greek archaic art sometimes a polos). Among her attributes are the crow the cuckoo the peacock (because she set the 100 eyes of the all-seeing Argus in its tail) and the pomegranate (symbol of fruitfulness). Hera was worshipped throughout Greece. Her most famous temples were at the Heraeum at Nemea in the Argolid the great temple on the island of Samos and the temple at Olympia. At her Greek festival the Heraia a shield was given as the prize in an athletic contest. Her most common Homeric epithet is “ox-eyed” and she is also known as Parthenia referring to her role as a bride. In Spenser’s poem Epithalamion he asks for the goddess’s blessing on his marriage. Hera also appears in Tennyson’s Oenone.