The theonym Hebe derives from the Greek noun meaning "youth, prime, vigour of youth, sexual maturity." A common derivation traces it to a Proto-Indo-European form related to "youth" or "youthful vigour," with possible cognates in Lithuanian jėga (power, strength) and Latvian jêga (power, sense). Some linguists, including Rick Derksen, have questioned this derivation.

She occasionally received the epithet Dia, translatable as "Daughter of Zeus" or "Heavenly." At Sicyon and Phlius she also bore the older name Ganymeda, meaning "Gladdening Princess."

Hebe is the daughter of Zeus and his sister-wife Hera. Pindar's Nemean Ode 10 describes her as the most beautiful of the goddesses, dwelling beside her mother in Olympus forever.

Reconstructed Orphic beliefs present an alternative version in which Hera sought pregnancy without Zeus's help: travelling to the realm of Oceanus and Tethys, she entered Flora's garden and touched a nameless plant from the land of Olene to conceive Ares, then later ate lettuce to become pregnant with Hebe. The consumption of lettuce in ancient Greece carried complex associations — connected to sexual impotency yet believed to aid menstrual flow and lactation, potentially linking the plant with motherhood.

A Callimachus fragment describes Hera holding a feast on the seventh day after Hebe's birth, with the gods debating who would give the finest gift; according to Servius, Zeus gave her two doves with human voices, one of which flew to the future Oracle of Dodona.

Initially Hebe appeared in myth as a diligent daughter performing the domestic tasks typical of high-ranking unmarried girls. In Homer's Iliad she drew baths for her brother Ares and helped Hera into her chariot. She was frequently connected with Aphrodite, dancing with her and acting as her herald or attendant, reflecting the Classical link between beauty and the bloom of youth.

As Heracles' bride, Hebe became strongly associated with brides and with her husband in art and literature, serving as a patron of brides — both as the daughter of Hera, goddess of marriage, and through the importance of her own wedding.

The lost comedic play Hebes Gamos ("The Marriage of Hebe") by Epicharmus of Kos depicted their wedding feast. In Theocritus's Encomium of Ptolemy Philadelphus, Heracles, after dining on nectar, bestows his bow, arrows, and club on others and departs for his wife's chamber.

Hebe had two children with Heracles: Alexiares and Anicetus. A Callimachus fragment references Eileithyia, Hebe's sister and goddess of childbirth, attending to Hebe while she was in labour.

One of Hebe's primary roles was serving ambrosia and nectar to the gods as cupbearer. Classical sources attribute her departure from this role to her marriage; alternatively, the Iliad presents her (and occasionally Hephaestus) as cupbearer alongside the divine hero Ganymede.

A 16th-century Church of England moralization (without Classical support) claimed she fell while attending the gods, an episode turned into a warning about modest dress; in this period she was strongly associated with spring, so her fall was also allegorized as the change of season from spring to autumn.

According to Classical authors, Hebe maintained the youth and immortality of the other gods. Bacchylides held that Hebe, as the princess (basileia), is responsible for immortality — which justified her marriage to Heracles, ensuring him not only immortality but also eternal youth. In Euripides' Heracleidae and Ovid's Metamorphoses, Hebe grants Iolaus' wish to become young again in order to fight Eurystheus.

Hebe received particular veneration alongside her mother Hera at Argos and the Heraion of Argos, a principal worship center, where she was depicted in an ivory and gold statue standing beside a large seated statue of Hera holding a pomegranate and sceptre with a cuckoo perched on top; a silver relief above the altar showed the marriage of Hebe and Heracles, and Argive coins display the statues side by side. Scholars theorize Hebe may have represented the virginal aspect of Hera, or that her worship with her mother resembled that of Demeter and Persephone, both representing the cycle of rebirth and renewal.

At Mantinea in Arcadia she was depicted, alongside Athena, beside a seated statue of Hera sculpted by Praxiteles. A priestess from Aexone served both Hebe and Alcmene, receiving a crown of olive leaves. Aelian records Hebe worshipped in a temple adjacent to one of her spouse Heracles, the two housing roosters in Heracles's temple and hens in Hebe's. In Athens, an altar to her stood at the Cynosarges, alongside a gymnasium and altars to Heracles and a joint altar to Alcmene and Iolaus.

In Sicyon a temple was the center of her own cult, and at Phlius she was honored (called Dia, "Daughter of Zeus") by the pardoning of suppliants. Pausanias records that the earliest Phliasians named her Ganymeda and later authorities called her Hebe; the greatest honor was the full forgiveness of all who sought sanctuary, with freed prisoners dedicating their fetters on the trees of the sacred grove. The Phliasians held a yearly festival called Kissotomoi ("Ivy-cutters") and displayed no religious image.

In art Hebe typically appears wearing a sleeveless dress, shown with one or both parents, at her wedding, or with Aphrodite. She was occasionally depicted with wings, causing confusion with Iris and Nike; one confirmed winged depiction, marked by the Greek letter Eta above the figure, appears on a cup by Sosias showing Hebe between her enthroned parents as she awaits her future husband Heracles.

She may appear among the winged figures from the Parthenon pediment in the British Museum, standing as an attendant to Hera near Zeus and Ares, where contextual evidence arguably favors identifying her as Hebe rather than Iris or Nike. She may have served as an acroterion on the Temple of Ares in the Athenian Agora and possibly appears on a fragmentary votive relief near the Erechtheion.

In wedding scenes, an Archaic Attic black-figure dinos attributed to Sophilos (580–570 BCE, British Museum) depicts Hebe as the most prominent goddess in a procession of gods arriving at the house of Peleus for his wedding to Thetis. She also appears prominently on a 5th-century epinetron by the Eretria Painter depicting preparations for the wedding of Harmonia, reinforcing her connection to weddings and brides.

Hebe became a remarkably popular artistic subject from about 1750 to 1880, having attracted little attention before or after. Many depictions were portraits of ladies as Hebe, requiring minimal modifications — a flowing white dress, flowers in the hair, and a cup. Jean-Marc Nattier painted a Rohan princess as Hebe in 1737, and François-Hubert Drouais painted Marie-Antoinette en Hébé in 1773; Angelica Kauffman, Gaspare Landi, and Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun also produced notable examples.

In sculpture Hebe flourished slightly later but continued longer. Antonio Canova sculpted four versions of his Hebe statue, widely copied. An elaborate marble group with a naked Hebe and an outstretched-winged eagle, begun by François Rude and finished after his 1855 death, resides in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon, and Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse produced another group with the eagle perched above a sleeping Hebe (1869, Musée d'Orsay).

Especially in America, Hebe figures remained popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries for garden fountains and temperance fountains, with statues widely available in cast stone, zinc, and iron in towns such as Tarentum, Pennsylvania; Vicksburg, Mississippi; and Bowling Green, Kentucky.