Juno, a pagan goddess whom the Greeks call H'ρή, and this name was applied to several places that were consecrated to her.

Juno , according to the fable, was the daughter of Saturn and Rhea, sister and wife of Jupiter, and consequently queen of the gods. She herself put it quite well:

Ast ego quæ divum incedo regina, Jovisque

Et soror et conjux.  [1]

No one is unaware of all that concerns her birth, her education, her marriage with Jupiter, their unhappy household, her jealousy, her acts of violence against Callisto and the nymph Thalia; her management of the wedding, childbirth, and natural accidents of women; the three children, Hebe, Mars, and Vulcan, whom she conceived in extraordinary fashion; the manner in which she avoided the pursuits of Ixion; the subject of her wrath against Paris and her cruel acts of vengeance on that subject, which continued for so long against the Trojans and the pious Aeneas. Finally, we know that she made the wise decision to protect the Romans by favoring that series of their victories which was to make them masters of the world, and which Jupiter had predicted.

The goddess’s love affair with Jason did not create as much scandal as her other adventures; yet, except for some variation in the narrative, Pindar, Servius, Hyginus, Apollonius of Rhodes, and Valerius Flaccus did not omit it.

The supposed secret which she had received to recover her virginity by washing in the fountain Canathus in the Peloponnese has been only too much embroidered by our modern writers. Pausanias says only that the Argives told this tale, and based it on the practice of their ceremonies into the mysteries of the goddess.

But what interests us very much, as philosophers and critics, is that, of all the deities of paganism, there have been none whose following was greater, more solemn, and more widespread. The depiction of Juno ’s acts of vengeance, which echoed endlessly through the theatres, inspired so many fears, alarms, and so much respect, that nothing was overlooked to obtain her protection, or to appease such an awesome goddess when she was thought to have been offended.

Every kind of religious honors rendered to her in Europe spread into Africa, into Asia, Syria, and Egypt. Everywhere there were temples, altars, and chapels dedicated to Juno ; but she was so venerated in Argos, in Samos, in Stymfalia, in Olympia, in Carthage, and in Italy, that we must make a long pause at the portrait that history offers of her, concurrently with poetry.

The Argives claimed that the three daughters of the river Asterion had fed the sister and wife of Jupiter. One of these three daughters was named Euboea; her name was given to the mountain on which appeared from afar the temple of Juno , the architect of which had been Eupolemus. Its founder was Phoroneus, son of Inachus, a contemporary of Abraham, or nearly so.

Upon entering the temple, says Pausanias, one sees seated on a throne a statue of the goddess, of extraordinary size, all in gold and ivory. She wears on her head a crown terminated by the Graces and the Hours; she holds in one hand a pomegranate, and in the other a scepter, at the end of which is a cuckoo.

The spectators’ eyes then turned to the representation in marble of the history of Biton and Kleobis, two brothers commendable for their piety toward their mother, and who deserved heroic honors. Also preserved in this same temple was the most ancient simulacrum of Juno , which was in wild pear wood.

The temple’s vestibule presented to the eyes the statues of all the goddess’s priestesses, so respected in Argos that the years were tallied by the years of their vocations. These priestesses were charged with covering the deity’s altar with a certain grass that grew along the Asterion. The water they used for the sacrifices and secret ceremonies was taken from the Eleutherios fountain, and it could not be taken from anywhere else. The commentators of Pindar tell us of the games which the Argives held in honor of Juno .

The Samians boasted that the queen of the gods had been born on their island, that she had been raised there; that even her marriage with Jupiter had been celebrated in the temple which was consecrated to her, and so celebrated throughout the world. Here is what M. de Tournefort says about it after his stay there. [3]

At about 500 feet from the sea, and at almost the same distance from the river Imbrasus, towards Cape Cora, are the ruins of the famous temple of Juno , protector of Samos. The most learned Papas of the island still know this place by the name of the temple of Juno . The Samian Menodotus, quoted in Athenaeus as the author of a book that treats all the curiosities of Samos, asserts that this temple was the fruit of the talents of Caricus and the nymphs, for the Carians were the first possessors of this island.

Pausanias says this work was attributed to the Argonauts who had brought a statue of the goddess from Argos to Samos, and that the Samians maintained that Juno was born on the banks of the river Imbrasus (whence its name of Imbrasia ), and under one of those trees which we call agnus castus ; [4] this growth of agnus castus was long displayed out of veneration in the temple of Juno .

Pausanias also proves the antiquity of this temple by that of the statue of the goddess, which was from the hand of Smilis, a sculptor from Aegina, a contemporary of Daedalus. Relying on Menodotus, of whom we have just spoken, Athenaeus does not forget a famous miracle that took place when the Tyrrhenians wanted to take the statue of Juno : they could never sail until they had set her back on land, a marvel that made the island more famous and more visited.

The temple in question here was burned by the Persians, and its ruins were still admired; but no time was lost in rebuilding it, and it was filled with such wealth that no room could be found for the paintings and statues. Verres, on his return from Asia, did not fear the fate of the Tyrrhenians: he had no scruple about pillaging that temple and taking its finest pieces with him, nor did pirates better spare this edifice in the time of Pompey.

Strabo calls it a great temple, not only filled with paintings, but all the galleries were adorned with very ancient pieces. It was no doubt among such pieces that the famous painting had been displayed that represented the first loves of Jupiter and Juno in such a natural manner that Origen could not resist reproaching the Gentiles for it.

In addition, there was in the temple of Juno in Samos a court designed for statues, among which were three colossal statues from the hand of Myron, placed on the same base. Mark Anthony had had them taken away, but Augustus gave those of Minerva and Hercules back to the Samians, and was content to send that of Jupiter to the capitol, to be placed in a basilica which he had built.

Of so many lovely things from the Samian temple of Juno , M. de Tournefort found, at the end of the last century, nothing but two sections of columns and a few bases of an exquisite marble. Just a few years before, the Turks, imagining that the tallest of them was filled with gold and silver, tried to fell it with cannon balls which they fired from their galleys. The balls broke apart a few drums, damaged the others, and displaced half of them.

The floor plan of this edifice, which according to Herodotus was the second wonder of Samos, the most spacious temple he had seen, can no longer be recognized, and without him we would not know the name of the architect: it was a Samoan named Rhaecus .

We must not rely on the representation of this temple found on antique medals, because on them they often represented various temples having the same form, as for example the temple of which we speak and the one in Ephesus, which likely were not of the same design. [5]

Pausanias, whom I quote often, mentions three temples of Juno in the city of Stymfalia in Arcadia: the first was called the temple of Juno the girl, the second the temple of Juno the wife, and the third the temple of Juno the widow. These three temples were erected to her by Temenus, and the last was built when the goddess went, it was said, to retire to Stymfalia after her divorce from Jupiter.

This queen of the gods also received the greatest honors in Olympia. In this last city there were sixteen ladies assigned to the games celebrated there to her glory every five years, and in which a peplum was consecrated to her, a sort of sleeveless robe embroidered with gold. Three classes of girls descended onto the grounds of the olympic games, contended for the prize of the race, and were almost the only contestants. The victors received as reward an olive crown.

Carthage, the famous capital of a vast empire, was held to be Juno ’s favorite city. Vergil was not using the tools of his art when he said, speaking of this ancient African city, the rival of Samos on this occasion.

His testimony, based on tradition, is supported by Herodotus, Ovid, Apuleius, and Silvius Italicus. The latter, depicting Juno ’s attachment for the city of Carthage, declares in three fine verses that she preferred it to Argos and Mycenae.

If we go on to Italy, we will find that before the existence of Rome Juno already enjoyed a temple in Falere in Tuscany. It was like the one in Argos, and according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, they observed there the rite of the Argives.

However, the conquerors of the world had barely emerged from a den of thieves. Their young city was scarcely raised upon its foundations before Tatius, a colleague of Romulus, established there the worship of the queen of heaven. Numa Pompilius, hoping in his turn to win the favors of that supreme deity, had a new temple to her erected, and by an expressly made law forbade every debauched woman to enter there or even touch it.

Under the reign of Tullus Hostilius, the pontiffs consulted about the expiation of involuntary murders raised two altars, and practiced there the ceremonies they deemed appropriate to purify the young Horace, who had just killed his sister. One of these altars was consecrated to Juno and the other to Janus.

Tarquinius Superbus devoted to her the temple of the capitol in common with Jupiter and Minerva, and just after the capture of Veii, Camillus built for her one of her own on the Aventine Hill. In a word, the daughter of Saturn and Rhea saw so many temples erected solely for her in all the quarters of Rome that she could no longer doubt the extraordinary veneration in which the Romans held her.

So does Vergil (and it is one of the most beautiful parts of his Aeneid) ingeniously introduce Jupiter announcing to his wife that it would come to pass that the descendants of Aeneas would serve her more devoutly than all the other peoples of the world, provided she was willing to desist in her persecutions, to which the ambitious goddess happily consented.

The honors which Juno received in other Italian cities were scarcely less capable of satisfying her. She was served under the title of sospita , savior, with singular devotion in Lanuvium, on the Appian way. The consuls in Rome were even required at the beginning of their consulship to pay homage to Lanuvian Juno . There was a great treasure in her temple, from which Augustus took large sums, promising to pay interest, and being quite sure he would never keep his promise. It is believed that this temple was founded by the Pelagians, natives of the Peloponnese; and this sentiment is supported by the fact that the Lanuvian Juno is called by Aelianus Juno Argolica .

However that may be, we owe to Cicero, in his writings on the nature of the Gods, book I, chap. xxix , the pleasure of knowing what the goddess wore. Cotta says to Velleius, “your tutelary Lanuvian Juno never presents herself to you, even in a dream, without her goatskin, her javelin, her little shield, and her pumps pointed up in front.”

But the temple of Lacinian Juno , which could be seen six miles from Crotone, is even more famous in history. We should not be surprised at the variety of opinions about its founder and the occasion of its foundation: in all times men have invented a thousand fables of this kind; it is agreed, and this is enough, that it surpassed by its full length the largest temple in Rome. It was covered in marble tiles, some of which were transferred to the capital in the year of its foundation 579, to cover the temple of equestrian Fortune that Quintus Fulvius Flaccus was having built.

As that censor perished miserably, the senate, in an act of piety and justice, had the tiles taken back to the same place they had been taken from. Hannibal did not carry out his intention of removing a golden column from that fine temple. Servius, Pliny, and Livy recount several miraculous things which were said to happen in this place; but Livy believed none of it, for he adds: “they always attribute a few miracles to these sorts of sites, especially when they are famous for their wealth and sacredness.” For once this remark comes from an historian who thinks.

Besides, we could not reflect on the worship of Juno in so many countries and with such pomp without attributing something to the advantage of her sex. Every woman who governs a state with distinction is generally more honored and more respected than a man of equivalent authority. Peoples have transported this earthly custom to heaven. Jupiter was considered as a king, and Juno as an ambitious, proud, jealous, vindictive queen, implacable in her anger, in addition sharing the government of the world with her spouse, and attending all his councils.

A man of genius of the last century thought that the excess of adorations into which Christians have fallen towards the saints and the virgin Mary, as much in England as elsewhere, came from the same source. Erasmus himself claimed that the custom of hailing the holy virgin from the pulpit after the exordium of the sermon was against the example of the Ancients, and that it would be better to imitate them.

To the title of queen which Juno held, and to her quality as a woman, which increased her celebrity, we shall add, as complement of prerogatives, the direction-in-chief she was given over all marriages and their natural sequels: illi vincla jugalia curæ , says Vergil.  [9] See his commentators: they will point you to a hundred similar passages, and explain to you the epithets jugalis, pronuba, populonia, ζυγία, γαμήλια, παράνυμφος , etc., which have been attached to the wife of Jupiter because of her supervision of all matrimonial engagements.

She had further, in this capacity, particular surnames based on the fact that she presided over the conduct of newlyweds, the house of their husbands, the anointing by the fiancée of the jamb of her spouse’s door, and finally, over the help she provided that spouse to undo the chastity belt. You will find these sorts of surnames in these Latin words, from a prayer to this goddess of marriage: Iterducam, domiducam, unxiam, cinctiam, mortales puellæ debent in nuptias convocare, ut earum itinera protegas, in optatas domos ducas, et quum postes ungent, faustum omnem affigas, et cingulum ponentes in thalamis, non relinquas. This hymn is in Martianus Capella, de Nupt. Philol., book II.  [10] I dare not indicate the other epithets which were given to Juno to ask her assistance in the nuptial bed; the chastity of our language, and the respect we owe to modesty, oblige me not to utter them.

Let us say merely that Roman superstition was so great that there were women who honored Juno while pretending to comb and adorn her, and holding the mirror up to her statues; for it was proverbial that “hairdressers always present a mirror to Juno ”: vetemus speculum tenere Junoni , exclaims Seneca. Other women inspired by different passions went to sit near Jupiter in the capitol in the hope of having that god as their lover.

I should like to know the manner in which the August goddess of heaven was represented in all the various roles in which she was cast. Indeed, in considering her only under the titles of pronuba, opigena, februa, fluonia , or as officiating, sometimes at marriages, sometimes at childbirths, sometimes at the natural accidents of the fair sex, it seemed she ought to be dressed differently in each of these various ceremonies.

A majestic matron, holding the pike or the scepter in her hand, with a radial crown on her head and her favorite bird lying at her feet, clearly designated the sister and wife of Jupiter; but, for example, the crescent placed on her head likely was a sign of the goddess Mena, in other words the influence Juno had over the sex every month.

It is perhaps for the same reason that she was represented on the medals of Samos with some kind of bracelets that dangled from her arms to her feet, and supported a crescent; it may be also that these bracelets are not one of Juno ’s attributes, but a stylish ornament imagined under her name, because that goddess had invented the way of dressing and wearing one’s hair.

Tristan, in his observations on Callimachus, gave the type of a medal of the Samians, representing Juno with her chest largely bared. She is dressed in a robe that comes down to her feet, with a fairly tight belt, and the hem of the robe folded back made a sort of apron. The veil starts at the top of her head and comes down to the bottom of the robe, as did the scarves which our ladies were wearing at the start of this century.

Le reverse of a medal which is also in the cabinet of the king of France, and which M. Spanheim has engraved, [11] represents that veil all opened out, making two corners on the hands, one on the head, and another corner on the heels.

On one of the medals from the same collection, this goddess is coiffed with a rather pointed cap topped with a crescent. On other medals of M. Spanheim, we see a sort of basket serving as coiffure to Juno , dressed otherwise more or less like our Benedictine monks. The coiffure of Turkish women is very similar to that of Juno , and makes them appear very tall. This goddess had no doubt invented these advantageous head ornaments, which bows have since poorly imitated.

Nuptial, Gamelian Juno , or celebrant at marriages, wore a crown of galingale and some of the flowers we call everlasting flowers . It covered a small, very light basket that went to the crown of the head; that is perhaps the origin of the crowns that are still placed in the Levant on the heads of new brides, and the fashion has not entirely passed here when girls are married.

There are medals of Maximin on the reverse side of which is the temple of Samos with a Juno in a wedding dress, rather like those we have just mentioned, and having two peacocks at her feet, birds which, as we know, were consecrated to her, and which were raised around this goddess’s temple.

Sometimes a sparrow hawk or a gosling accompanies her statues; dittany, poppy, and pomegranate were the common plants which the Greeks offered to her and used to adorn her altars; finally, the victim commonly sacrificed to her was a female lamb; Vergil tells us this:

It is time to end this article on Juno ; but whatever its length, I have merely skimmed the surface of the history of this goddess, her worship, her temples, her altars, her attributes, her statues, and her medals. M. Bayle touches on yet another subject in his dictionary,  [12] which is consideration of the state of the heartaches that endlessly tyrannized this deity according to the popular system of pagan theology. Poets, theatres, statues, paintings, the monuments in temples offered a thousand proofs of the trials of her soul, depicting to everyone’s eyes her lofty, imperious, jealous humor, always preoccupied with revenge and never enjoying the full satisfaction of her successes. The pompous title of queen of heaven, her being seated on the throne of the universe, scepter in hand and diadem on her head, could not ease her sufferings and torments. Immortality even sealed it: for the hope of seeing one’s woes end one day with death is a consolation which we have in the here and now.

1. “But I, who walk proudly as queen of the gods, and both sister and wife of Jove.” Vergil, Aeneid , book I, 46–47.

2. “Nay, harsh Juno, who now in her fear troubles sea and earth and sky, shall change to better counsels and with me cherish the Romans, lords of the world, and the nation of the gown.” Trans. H. R. Fairclough, 1916.

3. Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (1656–1708) published his travels to the Levant (Relation d'un voyage du Levant) in 1717. The next several paragraphs are based on Tournefort. See the translation published the following year: A Voyage into the Levant (London, 1718), 1: 316-19.

4. Vitex agnus castus or chasteberry.

5. The passage from Tournefort ends here.

6. “This, ’tis said, Juno loved above all other lands, holding Samos itself less dear.”

7. “It was on these banks that Juno, who loved them more than Argos (or so all antiquity believed), more than the Mycenae of Agamemnon, where she so likes to live, wanted to give the fugitive Tyrians an eternal abode.” The Punic War , I, 26–28.

8. “Hence a race mingled with Ausonian blood shall rise, which by its piety you shall see exalted above men, above gods; nor shall any nation with equal zeal celebrate your honor. To these intimations Juno assents, and, filled with complacency, gave her mind a contrary bias.” Works of Virgil (New York, 1811), vol. 2.

9. Cui vincla jugalia curæ : “To whom the marriage bond is entrusted.” Aeneid , IV, 59.

10. De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii (On the Marriage of Philology and Mercury).

11. Doubtless Ézéchiel Spanheim (1629–1710), Genevan theologian and numismatist, who published besides numerous theological works Disputationes de usu et præstantia numismatum antiquorum (1664).

12. Pierre Bayle (1647–1706), Dictionnaire historique and critique (1697).