- Looks after
- Youth; cupbearer to the gods
- Roman name
- Juventas
- Often shown with
- Cup of nectar
Hebe
Ἥβη
Hebe is the daughter of Zeus and Hera, the goddess of youth, who pours nectar for the gods and marries Heracles.
Hesiod names Hebe, Ares and Eileithyia as the children of Zeus and Hera. Her name means youth in its prime. In the Iliad she serves the gods their nectar, and she helps Hera to harness her chariot.
When Heracles completed his labours and was taken up to Olympus, he was given Hebe as his wife. The Odyssey has Odysseus see only a ghost of Heracles in the underworld, while the hero himself is among the gods with fair-ankled Hebe.
Another cupbearer displaced her in some accounts. Ganymede, a Trojan prince carried off by Zeus, is said in the Iliad to pour the wine for the gods, and later writers sometimes treat the offices as separate.
In later art and language
Hebe is also the name of a genus of evergreen flowering shrubs, named after the goddess.
Ancient sources
- Hesiod, Theogony 921-923, 950-955
- Homer, Iliad 4.2-3, 5.722, 20.232-235
- Homer, Odyssey 11.601-604