The Hera of Zeus: Intimate Enemy, Ultimate Spouse

Description

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.

Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge is a Professor at the College de France after having been a researcher at the F.N.R.S. (Belgium) and taught at the Universite de Liege. She is also the author of L'Aphrodite grecque (1994), Retour a la source. Pausanias et la religion grecque (2008), and Le Polytheisme grec a l'epreuve d'Herodote (2020). Gabriella Pironti is Director of Studies at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes of Paris (PSL) and member of the Centre ANHIMA. She is also the author of Entre ciel et guerre: figures d'Aphrodite en Grece ancienne (2007) and co-editor of two volumes on The Gods of Homer (2017 and 2021).