Lifting (mythology)

Wedding of Hebe and Heracles (Apulian vase picture)

Sculpture of the Hebe by Canova (1800–1805, Hermitage , Saint Petersburg )

Marble sculpture of the Hebe by Bertel Thorvaldsen

Sculpture der Hebe by Franz Machtl (Munich, 1893), Chicago , Illinois, USA

Hebe ( Greek  Ἥβη "youth") is the goddess of youth in Greek mythology , "the goddess with the rose cheeks". The Roman equivalent of Hebe is Iuventas .

myth

Hebe is the daughter of Zeus and Hera and the sister of Ares , Eileithyia and Hephaestus .

She is cupbearer of the gods and serves nectar and ambrosia . After an awkwardness, she is replaced by Ganymede . After the hero Heracles was burned and raised to Olympus , the gods gave him Hebe to wife. From him she has the children Alexiares and Aniketus .

Hebe had the power to give people a new youth. Thus, on Zeus 'command, she renewed the youth of Iolaos , Heracles' nephew.

Cult and representation

In Greece, Hebe was worshiped in the following places:

• together with Hera in Mantineia . The cult images of Hera, Athene and Hebe were works of Praxiteles .
• together with Hera in the Heraion of Argos , where her cult image made of gold and ivory - a work of Naukydes - stood next to the cult image of Hera.
• together with Herakles in Athens and Kos
• under the name Dia in Sikyon and Phleius . Pausanias also reports a cult of the Hebe in Phleius, where it was called Ganymeda after him. Her sanctuary is an asylum site and is associated with a festival called Kissotomoi (ivy cut).

Nothing of the cult images mentioned has survived. Hebe is often shown in her role as cupbearer on vase pictures. Her attribute is a jug from which she serves nectar to the gods. The figure is often winged, so it is not clear whether it is Hebe or Iris .

In modern times Antonio Canova , Bertel Thorvaldsen and Joseph Wackerle (Botanical Garden Munich) created sculptures of the Hebe.

See also

• Hebephilia
• Hebephrenic schizophrenia

literature

• AF Laurens:  Hebe . In: Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). Volume IV, Zurich / Munich 1988, pp. 458-464.
• Ludwig von Sybel : Hebe . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 1,2, Leipzig 1890, Sp. 1869–1871 ( digitized version ).

Web links

Commons : Hebe (Mythology)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Lifting the Theoi Project (Engl.)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hesiod Theogony 921; Homer Odyssey 11,601
2. ↑ Cicero De natura deorum 1.40
3. ↑ Diodorus 4.75
4. ↑ Homer Odyssey 11.605
5. ^ Libraries of Apollodorus 2.158
6. ↑ Ovid 's Metamorphoses 9.396ff
7. ↑ Pausania's description of Greece 8.9.2f
8. ↑ Pausanias 2.17.5
9. ↑ Pausania's description of Greece 1.19.3
10. ↑ Cornutus Theologiae Graecae compendium 31
11. ↑ Strabon Geographika 8.6.24
12. ↑ Pausanias 2.12.4, 2.13.3