Juno is the third asteroid, found by Karl Ludwig Harding at Lilienthal on 1 September 1804. It is about 250 kilometres across, clearly smaller than Ceres and Pallas. For a while after its discovery it was counted as a planet, and that classification was dropped once hundreds of bodies were found in the belt.
It is named after the Roman goddess of marriage, Iuno, whose Greek counterpart is Hera. In classical astrology Juno has no rulership, exaltation, sect or joy. This page tells the myths of the goddess the body was named after; its astrological reading belongs to the twentieth century.
The glyph of Juno stands at the centre. The branches around it show the symbolism in four colours: goddesses in gold, archetypes in blue, traditions in green and narratives in red. Touch a branch and its explanation opens below the map.
In Hesiod, Hera is the daughter of Cronus and Rhea and both the sister and the wife of Zeus. Her name is usually read as 'lady'. She is queen on Olympus and guardian of the marriage bond. Hera in the family tree →
Iuno forms the Capitoline triad with Jupiter and Minerva. In Rome she is the goddess of the state and of women. Her name is connected with the Latin iuvenis, young.
The hieros gamos is the ritual re-enactment of the wedding of Hera and Zeus. At Samos the statue of the goddess was washed, dressed and carried in a wedding procession. The rite presents marriage as an institution that orders the year of the city rather than a private event.
The Heraion of Samos was among the largest temples of the Greek world, and Herodotus counts it as one of the three great works of the island. The Heraion of Argos was the political centre of the Argolid. Both cities claimed to be the birthplace of the goddess.
The epithet Teleia means complete and describes the married woman. In Greek thought marriage counted as the social completion of a woman. The same epithet is used of Zeus, so the pair is complete together.
Zeus approaches Io, a priestess of Hera at Argos, and turns her into a white cow to avoid being caught. Hera asks for the cow as a gift and sets the hundred eyed Argus to guard her. When Hermes kills the guard, the goddess sends a gadfly and Io wanders as far as Egypt.
The body of Argus Panoptes was covered in eyes, and some stayed open even while he slept. Hermes lulled him with music and killed him, which earned him the title Argeiphontes, slayer of Argus. Hera set the eyes of her guard in the tail of the peacock.
The name Heracles means glory of Hera, although every trial of the hero comes from the goddess. Hera sends two serpents to his cradle and the infant strangles them both. Pindar counts that scene as the first of his labours.
In the account attributed to Eratosthenes, the infant Heracles is put to the breast of the sleeping Hera. The goddess wakes, pushes the child away, and the milk sprays across the sky to form the Milky Way. The Greek word galaxias comes from gala, milk.
The epithet Lucina, from lux, light, names the goddess who brings the child into the light at birth. Her temple on the Esquiline was where women in labour made their vows. Ovid writes that no hair or garment should be knotted during the birth.
The epithet Moneta comes from the Latin monere, to warn. The mint of Rome stood beside her temple on the Capitol, and the word money spread from that title. The story of the geese whose cries warned the city is attached to the same temple.
At the Matronalia married Roman women made offerings to Iuno Lucina. Husbands gave gifts to their wives, and mistresses of the house waited on their slaves for the day. The festival falls on 1 March, the old new year of the Roman calendar.
Hera decides to put Zeus to sleep in order to change the course of the Trojan war. She borrows the girdle of Aphrodite and strikes a bargain with Hypnos, god of sleep. She seduces Zeus on Mount Ida, and once he sleeps Poseidon helps the Achaeans, so the goddess directs the war from the bed.
Hesiod writes that Hera bore Hephaestus alone. When his mother threw him from Olympus for being lame, Hephaestus made a golden throne with invisible bonds and sent it to her as a gift. Hera sat down and could not rise, and Dionysus had to make the smith drunk and bring him back to free her.
Hera is not only a wife but a co-ruling queen. She interferes in decisions, gives orders to gods and opposes Zeus openly. Most myths arise from the collision of those two wills.
The anger of Hera is usually called jealousy, yet the myths present it as the answer to a broken bond. The goddess strikes not at her husband but at the women and children he brings into the marriage. This is the side of Juno most used in modern readings.
Romans held that every woman had her iuno as every man had his genius. That spirit carried her fertility and vital force. Offerings were made to a woman's iuno on her birthday.
The daughters of Hera are Hebe and Eileithyia and her son is Ares. Hebe is the goddess of youth and Eileithyia of the pangs of birth. Delaying the arrival of Eileithyia is one of the ways Hera holds back a birth. Hebe in the family tree →
After Eleanor Bach's ephemeris Juno was calculated regularly in charts. Demetra George connects it with equal partnership and the marriage contract. These readings have no link to the classical system of dignities and cannot be added to it.
The glyph of Juno ⚵ is a sceptre with a star at its head. The star is the mark of queenship and the descending line is the sceptre itself. The sign defines the goddess by rule rather than by war.
The queen goddess appears in many pantheons as the consort of the sky god. The counterparts below are not exact equivalents of Hera, and each line states where the equation actually holds.
Sister and wife of Zeus, queen of Olympus. Her temples at Samos and Argos are among the oldest Greek temples.
See in the family treeMember of the Capitoline triad. As Lucina she governs birth, as Moneta the warning and the mint.
Consort of the chief god Enlil and named beside him. The queenly role matches, while Hera's enforcement of marriage does not belong to her.
See in the family treeConsort of Amun and mother goddess of Thebes. Her name means mother, and her queenship and motherhood invite comparison with Hera.
See in the family treeWife of Odin, goddess of marriage and of the household. She knows fate and does not speak it, and the open conflict found in Hera is absent.
See in the family treeConsort of Indra, and her name means power. Her position as queen beside the sky god has the same structure as Hera's.
She forms a triad with Tinia and Menrva, the model for the Capitoline triad of Rome. The Roman Iuno owes much to this Etruscan goddess.
Zeus approaches Io, a priestess of Hera at Argos, and turns her into a white cow so as not to be caught. Hera sees through it and asks for the cow as a gift, which Zeus cannot refuse. She sets the hundred eyed Argus Panoptes to guard the animal, since not all of his eyes close at once. Zeus sends Hermes, who lulls the guard with music and kills him. Hera then sends a gadfly, and Io wanders across the world until she reaches Egypt and recovers her human shape.
Hesiod writes that Hera bore Hephaestus without a father. She threw the child from Olympus because he was lame, and he fell into the sea and grew up there. Years later he made a golden throne woven with invisible bonds and sent it to his mother as a gift. The moment Hera sat down she was held fast, and no god could release her. Dionysus made the smith drunk and brought him back to Olympus, and only on his own terms did Hephaestus free her.
In the fourteenth book of the Iliad Hera wants to keep Zeus out of the fighting. She borrows the girdle of desire from Aphrodite and strikes a bargain with Hypnos, the god of sleep. On Mount Ida she seduces Zeus, and while the king of the gods sleeps Poseidon openly helps the Achaeans. When Zeus wakes he understands what has happened and threatens her. The episode shows a goddess who uses calculation rather than force.
| Rulership | None. In classical astrology domicile belongs to the seven traditional planets alone. Assigning Libra or Scorpio to Juno is a modern proposal. |
|---|---|
| Exaltation | None. Degrees of exaltation are defined for the seven planets. |
| Sect | None. The division by sect belongs to the classical seven. |
| Joy | None. Joy is tied to the house system and does not cover asteroids. |
| Type of body | Asteroid, about 250 kilometres across. |
| Discovery | 1 September 1804, Karl Ludwig Harding, Lilienthal. |
| Orbit | It circles the Sun in about 4.4 years. |
| Modern use | Calculable from the ephemerides published after 1973. Its interpretation belongs to modern asteroid literature. |
The position of this school is plain: Juno is not a planet and rules no sign. It has no place in the dignity table. For the detail see Essential and Accidental Dignities.
These correspondences come from the discovery record, from the mythological sources and from twentieth century asteroid literature. They are not part of the classical system of dignities and should not be read as if they were.
| Discovery | 1 September 1804, Karl Ludwig Harding, Lilienthal |
|---|---|
| Class | Asteroid, one of the larger bodies of the belt |
| Glyph | ⚵, a sceptre with a star |
| Greek counterpart | Hera |
| Roman festival | Matronalia, 1 March |
| Sacred bird | The peacock, also the cuckoo and the goose |
| Modern literature | Eleanor Bach ephemeris 1973, Demetra George 1986 |
No. Juno is an asteroid found in 1804. Classical astrology works with the seven traditional planets and domicile belongs to those seven. Texts proposing Libra or Scorpio for Juno belong to the twentieth century.
Most myths begin with an affair of Zeus, which puts her reaction at the centre of the story. The Greek sources treat it as the answer to a broken bond rather than a personal temper. In cult Hera is not a jealous figure but the goddess who guards the marriage order of the city.
The body of her guard Argus Panoptes was covered in eyes. When Hermes killed him, the goddess set those eyes in the tail of the peacock. The bird has been her emblem ever since.
Iuno is Italic in origin and connected with the Etruscan Uni. After Rome took over Greek mythology the stories of Hera passed to Iuno unchanged, so the two names came to denote a single goddess.
In this school the reading is built from the seven planets. If you are curious the calculator will show the sign and house of Juno, but treating it as a planet breaks the system of dignities.
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The free birth chart calculator shows the sign, house and aspects of Juno. It does not appear in the dignity table, because it holds no dignity in the classical system.
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