The Garden of the Hesperides

The Garden of the Hesperides was Hera's sacred orchard in the western lands, home to either a single tree or an entire grove that produced golden apples. According to legend, during the marriage celebration of Zeus and Hera, various deities presented nuptial gifts to the bride. Among these offerings, the goddess Gaia presented branches bearing golden apples. Hera, captivated by their beauty, requested that Gaia plant them in her gardens, which extended to Mount Atlas.

The Hesperides were assigned the responsibility of tending this magnificent grove, though they occasionally succumbed to temptation and picked the apples themselves. Distrusting their guardianship, Hera installed an additional protector—an immortal, ever-vigilant, hundred-headed dragon named Ladon. In the myth of the Judgement of Paris, this garden became the source of the Apple of Discord, retrieved by Eris, Goddess of Discord, which ultimately triggered the Trojan War.

Modern scholars have speculated that these "golden apples" may actually have been oranges, a fruit unknown to Europe and the Mediterranean region until medieval times. This theory is reflected in the Greek botanical nomenclature, where all citrus species were classified as Hesperidoeidē (Ἑσπεριδοειδῆ, "hesperoids"). Even today, the modern Greek word for orange is πορτοκάλι (Portokáli)—named after Portugal, a country on the Iberian Peninsula near where the legendary Garden of the Hesperides was believed to have existed.