CHAPTER VIII - THE CULT-MONUMENTS OF HERA

Summary

We may believe that all the important centres of the worship of Hera possessed a temple-image, though this is not always recorded. But only very few of the ideas which we have found in this religion appear to have been definitely expressed in specially characteristic monuments. The record of these, so far as it is explicit, shows that she was usually represented as the wedded wife of Zeus, the goddess who cherished the lawful union of men and women; and this accords with the main idea of the cults and with her general character in Greek legend. Her earliest dyaXixara or symbols were, like those of most Greek divinities, aniconic and wholly inexpressive. A stock cut out from the tree was her badge at Thespiae²⁵, her first sacred emblem at Samos was a board⁹⁶, at Argos a lofty pillar in the primitive period⁹⁶. And of most of the earliest images mentioned by Pausanias and other writers, nothing significant is told us. The most interesting is the archaic image of Hera, a ξόανoν or wooden statue, carved by Smilisa for the temple in Samos, probably about the middle of the seventh century B.C.⁹⁷ This supplanted an older idol, and retained its place in the island, worship down to the latest period.