ENCYCLOPEDIAHEBE (Hêbê), the person

ENCYCLOPEDIA
HEBE (Hêbê), the personification of youth, is described as a daughter of Zeus and Hera (Apollod. i. 3. § 1.), and is, according to the Iliad (iv. 2), the minister of the gods, who fills their cups with nectar; she assists Hera in putting the horses to her chariot (v. 722); and she bathes and dresses her brother Ares (v. 905). According to the Odyssey (xi. 603; comp. Hes. Theog. 950), she was married to Heracles after his apotheosis. Later traditions, however, describe her as having become by Heracles the mother of two sons, Alexiares and Anicetus (Apollo. ii. 7. § 7), and as a divinity who had it in her power to make persons of an advanced age young again. (Ov. Met. ix. 400, &c.) She was worshipped at Athens, where she had an altar in the Cynosarges, near one of Heracles. (Paus. i. 19. § 3.) Under the name of the female Ganymedes (Ganymeda) or Die, she was worshipped in a sacred grove at Sicyon and Phlius. (Paus. ii. 13. § 3; Strab. viii. p. 382.)