ut love legitimately reaches its fulfilment in marriage. After Aphrodite comes HERA (the Roman Juno), who, in the oldest mythology, is simply the wife of Zeus (or Jupiter), and the type and protector of marriage. Her espousals are represented at the festivals as the Sacred Marriage. [1] She must be the twin sister of Zeus, as well as his wife, that there may be a more perfect equality, and their union for the same reason must be from birth, and, were it possible, before birth. She is the only goddess who is legitimately and truly married, for Aphrodite is but the unwilling wife of Hephaistos, and bears him no children. Hence Hera wears a diadem and a bridal veil; her beauty is of a commanding type, through the large eyes and the imperious smile, as in the "Ludovisi Juno." Winckelmann says it is impossible to mistake a head of Hera. Athena commands like a princess; Hera, like a queen. Her name is connected with the AEolic erros, which signifies mastery, and it is identical with the Roman hera, or mistress.

But with all this effort to make her equal in rank to her husband, it is the equality of a queen, superior to all except her spouse, and yielding to him. The highest gods reverence Hera, but she reveres Zeus. His domestic relations, therefore, are a despotism tempered by scolding. The divine husband, having the essential power, is the more amiable of the two. Zeus, in Homer, cannot comprehend why his wife should so hate the Trojans, but he lets her have her way against his own preference. If he consults others without her knowledge, she censures him. When he avows his purpose in the very council of the gods, she reviles him, and says, "Do so, but all we the other gods do not approve"; and he says to her, presently, "Do as thou wilt, lest this contention be in future a great strife between thee and me." It seems a doubtful state of discipline. But if we will deify marriage, we must take the consequences.

Still there is a prevailing, grandeur and dignity in their relation. Margaret Fuller, who had so fine an instinct for the Greek symbolism, points out that on antique gems and bas-reliefs, in the meetings between god and goddess, "they rather offer to one another the full flower of being than grow together. As in the figures before me, Jupiter, king of gods and men, meets Juno, the sister and queen, not as a chivalric suppliant, but as a stately claimant, and she, crowned, pure, majestic, holds the veil aside to reveal herself to her august spouse."

Accordingly, when Zeus embraces Hera on Mount Ida, clothed in fascinations like those of Aphrodite, all nature is hushed, in Homer's description; the contending armies are still; before this sublime union, these tokens of reverence are fitting. The union of husband and wife -- a thing of levity or coarseness on common lips -- is transferred by Homer to a scene where all the solemnities of earth and air become but tributary to the divine meeting. And thus the symbols of the Holy Marriage interweave themselves with the associations and practices of the nation, and secure a religious dignity for the institution in the Greek mind.

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[1] Hieros gamos.