The impact of the Panhellenic mind set and Homeric reconstructions of the Iliad has nearly completely crystallized the modern view of Hera into a figure the ancients never really considered. Her life was far different from that of the modern interpretation which is often based in Homeric poem rather than actual thought and practice.
The Panhellenic social mind set was based in subordination that needed a general metaphoric patriarchy which a retheologized Olympic family could offer. In doing so, the Panhellenic myths were the first step in setting Zeus upon his throne and, in turn, the male as the head of household.
Before Hera was retheologized near Argeia to better fit into her new mythic position we can look to the temples in both Samos and the Delian Heraion where admittedly very little of the mythological lore still exists, however many of the votive offerings to the temples do. Of which are figures of wild animals including: sphinxes, lions, griffins, birds and others that stand in contrast to something befitting the newly cased Olympian Queen and lends more to her original role as a nature goddess and mistress of wild animals as she was in the Mycenaean past.
Athena would later be gifted another of Hera’s original roles as the goddess of the shield and citadel. Most likely a new Athenian sphere of influence due to her Iliadic functioning as Hera’s agent and Hera’s battle Goddess in Argolic myth that transferred over into the Panhellenic myths. Since Athena was the daughter of Zeus the new position subordinated the sphere of influence over war to her father, increasing his own influence and supporting the masculine drive of mortal society.
However the reconstructions may have developed the Mycenaean view of Hera still persisted in many areas and held her as the goddess of untamed animal life, war, and the house, as well as a Spring Goddess of general fertility still worshiped at her tree and bathing in the river, who had the power of life and death over “heroes” - those who won fame from Hera.
Still, as time went on and people began to sway to the new theology, Hera began to lose her power bit by bit. The time when this really began to take hold in Greek consciousness is still shrouded in mystery. Slowly Hera’s connection with the natural world, her sovereignty over life, her influence in war, and her association with tree and river cults began to diminish as she was forced into the suppressive role as a goddess of domestication, subservient to her would be husband. A mortal theme that would last for thousands of years in western culture and is sadly still purported by the majority of writings regarding Hera today.
All of the evidence suggest that Hera was once the dominant Goddess of the pre-Olympian age. Her Hekatombaia that was celebrated in the Archaic Heraion was a New Year’s festival that presented her as the Goddess of Spring and new life, mistress of wild animals, and tamer of the untamed come winter and death; offering context to her non-Homeric description: teleia - “fulfiller”. There is no real evidence beyond the Iliad that suggest Hera as the subservient wife of Zeus or that the two figures had any connection what so ever within the mortal social sphere or in worship.
The sin of the Homeric patriarchy is that it has empowered one sex at the expense of the other. In order for the male to take the role of dominance all of the feminine influences had to be suppressed. Which, above all others, included Hera because she was the dominate feminine with an unprecedented power over her male counterpart in the Pre-Panhellenic world.
Hera was Queen long before Zeus was King. That fact could not be allowed to hold if men were to take full control over hearth and home. It’s a theme that has lasted to the modern age. Even the theology of Christianity has dominant male themes and “tames” the power of women.
Yet, in spite of the mortal habit of reflecting their social whims upon the Gods as a way of justifying their animalistic behavior, Hera remains untamed. She did not yield to servitude or suppression even in the Iliadic myths or in the light of her most often portrayed personification.
In the eyes of mortals Hera may not be commonly viewed as the seasonal mistress of wild animals, the bringer of new life, a goddess of the shield (war) and citadel, or the protector of the home. But the truth will forever outshine their confabulations and misrepresentations that serve only their petty whims. Whims that are easily cast aside once one travels a little deeper into the murk.
