The techniques he had used to woo other goddesses did nothing to win Hera over. Click To TweetĪccording to later stories, Hera was not as receptive to her brother’s overtures as he would have liked. Hera had grown into a beautiful maiden, and Zeus decided that his sister would make the ideal queen. He had seduced many goddesses but did not wish to marry any of them. With his first wife gone, Zeus found himself eager for another. Rather than swallow his children, though, he swallowed his wife in the form of a fly. Like his father, Zeus received a prophesy that Metis would have a son that would someday overthrow his rule. Zeus married the Titaness Metis, who had helped him trick his father and free his siblings. They established their seat of power at Mount Olympus. When the Titanomachy, the great war between the Titans and the younger gods, had ended, Zeus and his peers were victorious. His brothers joined him in the fight, while most sources say his sisters were fostered by sympathetic Titans or nymphs. One of his first actions was to free his brothers, Hades and Poseidon, and sisters, Hera, Demeter, and Hestia, from their father’s stomach. When he grew to adulthood he returned to end his father’s tyrannical rule.

Only Zeus was spared this fate when his mother tricked Chronus into swallowing a rock instead. Like most of her siblings, she was swallowed by her father at birth to avoid the chance of any of his children growing strong enough to challenge him. Hera was one of the six children of the Titan king Chronus and his consort, Rhea. Although she was worshipped as a faithful wife and regal queen, the stories of Hera are filled with her attempts to get back at her husband and his mistresses.

The queen of Olympus was known for her jealousy, spite, and schemes. Her identity as Zeus’s wife was central to the Greeks, as well, but that didn’t mean they thought of Hera as mild-mannered! Outside of this role, it seems as though there are few stories about her at all. Hera, called Juno by the Romans, is best remembered as the wife of Zeus.

Zeus wife hera