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Joan V. O'Brien, The Transformation of Hera: A Study of Ritual, Hero, and the Goddess in the Iliad. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 1994. Pp. 248. Illustrations. ISBN 0-8476-7807-5. $56.00 (cloth). ISBN 0-84767808-3. $22.95 (paper).
The characterization of Hera in the Iliad is paradoxical. In her interactions with Zeus she appears as the quintessential scheming wife, lonely in despair over her husband's many infidelities, but her Homeric epithet Argeia points to her powerful role in Argos as protector of both the citadels and the heroes who defend them. In an insightful investigation into the paradoxical image of Hera, O'Brien examines archaeological material from the earliest cult sites of Hera and the themes associated with Hera in early myth in order to understand how Hera came to be transformed from a mighty chthonic goddess, whose origins lie in the Mycenaean potnia, to the Archaic divine protectress of heroes...