Hebe
Hebe
In Greek mythology, Hebe is the beautiful daughter of Zeus and Hera and a little less known than most of her other siblings due to a life practically devoid of scandalous escapades. She is the goddess of youth in its various forms—eternal youth, bridal youth, and renewed youth. She was the official cup bearer to Zeus and all other gods. It was her job to go around with a pitcher and make sure everyone received their share of nectar or ambrosia. Now she had a male counterpart known as Ganymede. They were not really rivals, strictly speaking, but when two people are employed on the same level, there’s bound to be a one-up-man-ship going on behind the scenes. Minor slip-ups can cause major upheavals and that’s what happened to Hebe.
Once while attending to the gods, Hebe literally slipped and fell. This may spell a bad day in the world of supermodels, but for a goddess it spelt doom. She was unceremoniously dismissed from her post, and guess who was elevated to the post of sole pitcher bearer. Ganymede was a Trojan boy kidnapped by Zeus while playing on Mount Ida, and now he got to fill the post left vacant by Hebe. This displacement is depicted in a sarcophagus where Ganymede is depicted as giving a drink to an eagle, while Hebe lies upon the ground, disgraced.
Once her stint as a career woman met with the glass ceiling, Hebe turned her attention to domestic bliss as the consort of the hero turned immortal, Heracles or Hercules. Born to Zeus and his mortal lover, Alcmene, Heracles had been at the receiving end of Hera’s vengeance right from the crib. But at the end of his strife-torn life, Zeus decide to bring him up to Mount Olympus and grant him immortality. Hebe’s mother, Hera called off her vendetta against the hapless hero once he was purged of the mortal element that was inherited from his mortal mother Alcmene. Hebe and Heracles had two sons Alexiares and Anicetus.
Hebe is also known to have very good relations with her mother, Hera and brother, Ares. Household chores such as escorting Hera to her chariot or drawing a bath for her brother after a hard day as the god of war and strife did not seem to unduly upset her goddess status. Being the goddess of youth, she is known to have granted the gift of youth to old Iolaus, Heracles’ charioteer, for the duration of their fight against Eurystheus.
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