Hera, the queen of the Olympian deities, is the goddess of women, marriage, family, and childbirth. She is patron of marriage but also of jealous wives, for her marriage to Zeus is anything but a model of fidelity. In her jealousy over Zeus's many dalliances with other goddesses and mortal women, Hera has often acted violently. She was also known as Juno in Rome.
Hera's clerics preside at weddings, typically offering stern admonitions to the bridegroom to remain faithful to his new wife. They also officiate at ceremonies installing elected officials or crowning kings.
Vestments
Hera's clerics wear blue or purple tunics and leather sandals.
Temples
Hera has grand temples located in major cities, but she is not very popular elsewhere.
Hera advocates looking out for number one, and she is not shy about advocating underhanded means to accomplish one’s goals. She is a sneak, a spy, and a plotter, and many of her followers are proud to be the same. Power, she says, is never freely given—it must be taken. Although Hera has some definite leanings toward evil, she has many good-aligned followers and clerics who emphasize her more positive aspects as a protective and nurturing deity. She is also the patron of nobility and government.
Hera typically appears as a tall and noble. She is portrayed as majestic and solemn, often enthroned, and crowned with the polos (a high cylindrical crown worn by several of the Great Goddesses), Hera may hold a pomegranate in her hand, emblem of fertile blood and death and a substitute for the narcotic capsule of the opium poppy. Hera is commonly seen with the animals she considers sacred including the cow, lion and the peacock.
Hera is one of the six children of the Titans Cronus and Rhea, and is thus Zeus's sister as well as his wife. She fought valiantly against the Titans at Zeus's side, but her importance has waned with every new deity or hero that Zeus sires with someone else.
