21. It Often Sucked to be Zeus’ Mistress
In Greek mythology, it was not always a good thing to attract the attention of the gods. Even more so if that attention took the form of a divine attraction, and if the god attracted to you was Zeus. To be a mistress of the Ancient Greeks’ chief god was no bed of roses. His relentless pursuit, persistence, rough wooing, and refusal to take “no” for an answer was bad enough. What made it worse for those who gave in to Zeus or were forcibly taken by him, was to then have to deal with his insanely jealous wife – who also happened to be his sister – Hera.
Hera was prone to fly into a rage and shower vengeance – not on her philandering husband, but on his victims, as Leto could attest. Zeus’ first mistress, Leto became the first to fall victim both to the chief god, who slaked his lust and abandoned her when she got pregnant, and then to the bonkers wrath of his wife. To exacerbate the unfairness of it all, Leto had been Zeus’ mistress before he had married Hera, so the chief god had not even cheated on his wife at the time. That did not stop Hera from visiting epic punishments upon the unfortunate Leto.