Hera Tattoo Meaning, Designs and Placement Ideas

The myth of Hera

Hera (Juno to the Romans) was a daughter of Cronus and Rhea, swallowed by her father at birth and later freed by Zeus. She became Zeus’s wife and queen of the gods. Pausanias records a local story that Zeus courted her by turning into a cuckoo, which she picked up and held to her breast before he showed his true form.

She was the goddess of marriage, women and childbirth. Her children included Ares, Hebe, the goddess of youth, and Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth. Hesiod says she bore Hephaestus on her own, without Zeus, in anger after he produced Athena from his head.

Her marriage was famously stormy. Zeus had affair after affair, and Hera’s anger usually fell on the women and their children. She sent snakes into the cradle of the infant Heracles, whose name means “glory of Hera”. She tricked Semele, the mother of Dionysus, into asking to see Zeus in his true form, which burned her to ash. She hounded Leto from land to land and set Argus to guard Io.

Hera did not simply suffer, though. In the Iliad she borrows Aphrodite’s embroidered band, seduces Zeus and puts him to sleep so the Greeks can gain ground at Troy. When he wakes, he reminds her that he once hung her from the sky with anvils tied to her feet. Their marriage was a power struggle between two rulers, and Hera never stopped fighting for her position.

Her great temples at Argos and on the island of Samos were among the oldest and largest in Greece.

Giving a Hera tattoo color and dignity

The peacock’s blues, greens and golds look striking in neo-traditional color or soft color shading, and they help set Hera apart from the black and grey portraits of other goddesses. If you prefer black ink, the eye spots on the feathers still read well in dotwork or fine-line.

To make the figure clearly Hera rather than a generic queen, include at least two of her attributes: the peacock, the pomegranate, the tall polos crown or the scepter. Ask for a calm, upright posture and a direct gaze. Greek art shows her as a mature, composed woman, never a young girl, and that steady presence is what gives the design its weight.