Chapter 2 - In the Cities

Summary

This chapter deals with local narrative traditions and the ritual acts associated with local sanctuaries (to the extent to which these can be fruitfully investigated) of Hera, whose cult titles Teleia and Basileia echo how she is portrayed in the archaic epic poetry. This is notably the case at Argos, Samos, and Perachora, where important sanctuaries of the goddess are located outside the city centre, but also in Olympia, ‘the Olympus on earth’, where the first monumental temple of the Panhellenic sanctuary of Zeus is associated with her. Her cults in Plataia, Delos, Lesbos, Corinth, Athens, and western Greece shows how her roles of spouse and sovereign overlap and to some extent come to be confused because of her complex relation to Zeus. This relation is crucial to understanding the expectations of Hera’s worshippers, although in a certain number of places the connection with Zeus is not made fully explicit.