Edward Ernest Sikes

“ So, although the warlike character of Hera was not elsewhere prominent, she assumed a militant aspect in her two chief cities; a festival called the Shield (ἀσπίς, in Pindar ἀγὼν χάλκεος) was part of the Argive cult, and there was an armed procession in her honour at Samos. The city-goddess, whether Hera or Athena, must be chief alike in peace and war.
The cow was the animal specially sacred to Hera both in ritual and in mythology. The story of Io, metamorphosed into a cow, is familiar; she was priestess of Hera, and was originally, no doubt, a form of the goddess herself. ”

“ This intimate relation with women has been held a proof that Hera was originally a moon-goddess, as the moon is often thought to influence childbirth and other aspects of feminine life. But Hera’s patronage of women, though undoubtedly ancient, is not necessarily primitive. Further, the Greeks themselves, who were always ready to identify Artemis with the moon, do not seem to have recognized any lunar connexion in Hera.
Among her particular worshippers, at Argos and Samos, Hera was much more than the queen of heaven and the marriage-goddess. ”

“ In her general cult Hera was worshipped in two main capacities: (1) as the consort of Zeus and queen of heaven; (2) as the goddess who presided over marriage, and, in a wider sense, over the various phases of a woman’s life. Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Ars rhet. ii. 2) calls Zeus and Hera the first wedded pair, and a sacrifice to Zeus τέλειος and Hera τελεία was a regular feature of the Greek wedding. Girls offered their hair or veils to Hera before marriage. ”