EARLY ATTRIBUTES

Hera is most closely associated with the Argive, the broad plain immediately south of Mycenae, and the Argive Heraion was a major temple and cult site through the Classical period. Her name is Indo-European, and is cognate to the Greek "Seasons" and the English "year." She may have been the consort of a year-god and may have been equated with a yearling cow (heifer); she kept some of her bovine characteristics for a long time (a regular epithet is "ox-eyed"). It is not clear how she became the sister/wife of Zeus; most likely it is another case of Zeus subsuming a powerful female. At Greece's oldest known cult site devoted to Zeus, Dodona, Hera's presence is notably absent. Next to Zeus' temple is a temple to Dione. In Greek the name is the feminine of Zeus, and is rooted in the Indo-European goddess Dan.

LATER DEVELOPMENTS

By Classical times, Hera had become the patron of marriage, and her marriage to Zeus was the heiros gamos, or "sacred marriage." She acquires the epithets "virgin," "wife," and "widow;" i.e., she symbolizes woman in general and the wife in particular. One aspect of her old role as year-goddess remained: annually she was said to take a ritual bath that renewed her virginity.