#zeus gamelios and hera gamelia

[hermesmoly]

Something so hot about Zeus and Hera being the prime example of an imperfect marriage and is shown to have many issues and yet both have no problem obliterating any couple who dares to compare their marriage to theirs or calls their spouse their names or that they loved each other more than the King of the Gods loves His Queen, Goddess of Marriage

[thequeer07puss]

About Zeus and Hera’s shared epithets

The Divine Couple shares a couple (pun intended) of epithets under which they were worried, and I have a few words about them (some of them are my interpretation of them)

The main one that comes to mind is the Gamelios-Gamelia pair which means “of marriage”. This is the epithet under which the Divine Couple would be prayed under during marriage ceremonies. Alternatively, the epithets Zygios-Zygia (meaning roughly the “spouse”) would be used for the same purpose.

Another one is the Teleios-Teleia pair, with Hera mostly being known for Her Teleia epithet. Meaning “complete”, this epithet is a bit more obscure and location-specific, with it being tied to the Argian/Boeotian areas of Greece (Hera’s main cult centres), where She was worshipped in the Pais-Teleia-Chera cycle. The Teleios-Teleia epithets designate the divine couple as married, settled down, and hence “complete” in the establishment of the Ancient Greek homestead (or oikos).

Now, the difference (my interpretation here) between Gamelios-Gamelia and Teleios-Teleia pairs is that the former is specifically for marriage ceremonies while the latter is more for matters regarding the life of a complete Greek person (ie married and settled down in a homestead with children), which despite how vague this distinction sounds, was specific enough for the people of Argos and Epidaurus to be considered as epithets under which to worship the Divine Couple, enough to add two different months in their calendars (namely Teleos and Gamos), and I think that’s beautiful.