Hephaestus
Hephaestus is the Greek god of artisans, blacksmiths, carpenters, craftsmen, fire, metallurgy, metalworking, sculpture, and volcanoes. In Greek mythology, Hephaestus was the son of Hera, either on her own or by her husband Zeus. He was cast off Mount Olympus by his mother Hera because of his lameness, the result of a congenital impairment; or in another account, by Zeus for protecting Hera from his advances.
As a smithing god, Hephaestus created all the weapons of the gods in Olympus. He served as the blacksmith of the gods, and was worshipped in the manufacturing and industrial centres of Greece, particularly Athens. The cult of Hephaestus was based in Lemnos. Hephaestus's symbols are a smith's hammer, anvil, and a pair of tongs. In Rome, he was equated with Vulcan.
Etymology
Hephaestus is probably associated with the Linear B inscription, A-pa-i-ti-jo, found at Knossos. The inscription indirectly attests his worship at that time because it is believed that it reads the theophoric name āpʰaistios, or Hāphaistion. The Greek theonym Hēphaistos is most likely of Pre-Greek origin, as the form without -i- shows a typical Pre-Greek variation and points to an original sy.Epithets
The epithets by which Hephaestus is known by the poets generally allude to his skill in the plastic arts or to his figure or disability. The Greeks frequently placed miniature statues of Hephaestus near their hearths, and these figures are the oldest of all his representations. The meaning of some of his epithets are:- Amphigyḗeis often translated as "the lame one"; literally "lame on both sides" vel sim.
- Kyllopodíōn "club-footed" or "of dragging feet"
- Khalkeús "coppersmith"
- Klytotékhnēs "renowned artificer"
- Polýmētis "shrewd, crafty" or "of many devices"
- Aitnaîos "Aetnaean", owing to his workshop supposedly being located below Mount Aetna.
- Polýphrōn "ingenious, inventive"
- Agaklytós "very famous, glorious"
- Aithalóeis theós "sooty god"
Mythology
Parentage
In Homer's Iliad, Hephaestus is described as the son of Hera; the Iliad seemingly also refers to Zeus as his father at two points, though it is possible these passages are not referring to Hephaestus as Zeus's literal son. The Odyssey does, however, refer explicitly to Hephaestus as having "two parents", the identity of whom would presumably be Zeus and Hera. In Hesiod's Theogony, Hera gives birth to Hephaestus on her own, out of revenge for Zeus having, without her, fathered Athena. Apollodorus similarly states that Hera gives birth to Hephaestus alone, though he also relates that, according to Homer, Hephaestus is one of the children of Zeus and Hera.Some sources state that the origin myth of Hephaestus was that of a "daemon of fire coming up from the Earth"—that he was also associated with gas "which takes fire and burns is considered by many people to be divine" and that only later was a volcano considered Hephaestus's smithy. He was associated by Greek colonists in southern Italy with the volcano gods Adranus and Vulcanus of the Lipari islands. The first-century sage, Apollonius of Tyana, is said to have observed, "there are many other mountains all over the earth that are on fire, and yet we should never be done with it if we assigned to them giants and gods like Hephaestus". Nevertheless, Hephaestus's domain over fire goes back to Homer's Iliad, where he uses flames to dry the waters of Scamandrus River in order to force its eponymous deity, who was attacking Achilles, to retreat. His favourite place in the mortal world was the island of Lemnos, where he liked to dwell among the Sintians, but he also frequented other volcanic islands such as Lipari, Hiera, Imbros and Sicily, which were called his abodes or workshops.
Fall from Olympus
In one branch of Greek mythology, Hera ejected Hephaestus from the heavens because of his congenital impairment. He fell into the ocean and was raised by Thetis and the Oceanid Eurynome.In another account, Hephaestus, attempting to rescue his mother from Zeus's advances, was flung down from the heavens by Zeus. He fell for an entire day and landed on the island of Lemnos, where he was cared for and taught to be a master craftsman by the Sintians - an ancient tribe native to that island. Later writers describe his physical disability as the consequence of his second fall, while Homer makes him disabled from birth.
Return to Olympus
Hephaestus was one of the Olympians who returned to Olympus after being exiled.In an archaic story, Hephaestus gained revenge against Hera for rejecting him by forging her a magical golden throne, which, when she sat on it, did not allow her to stand up again. The other gods begged Hephaestus to return to Olympus to let her go, but he refused, saying "I have no mother". It was Ares who undertook the task of fetching Hephaestus at first, but he was threatened by the fire god with torches. At last, Dionysus, the god of wine, fetched him, intoxicated him with wine, and took the subdued smith back to Olympus on the back of a mule accompanied by revelers - a scene that sometimes appears on painted pottery of Attica and of Corinth. According to Hyginus, Zeus promised anything to Hephaestus in order to free Hera. Hephaestus asked for the hand of Athena in marriage, leading to his attempted rape of the goddess, who rejected his advances. In another version, he demanded to be married to Aphrodite in order to release Hera, and his mother fulfilled the request.
The theme of the return of Hephaestus, popular among the Attic vase-painters whose wares were favored among the Etruscans, may have introduced this theme to Etruria. In the vase-painters' portrayal of the procession, Hephaestus was mounted on a mule or a horse, with Dionysus holding the bridle and carrying Hephaestus's tools. In the painted scenes, the padded dancers and phallic figures of the Dionysan throng leading the mule show that the procession was a part of the dithyrambic celebrations that were the forerunners of the satyr plays of fifth-century Athens. The traveller Pausanias spoke of having seen a painting of Hephaestus in the temple of Dionysus in Athens. The temple had been built in the 5th century, but may have been decorated at any time before the 2nd century CE. When Pausanias saw it, he said:
Craft of Hephaestus
Hephaestus had his own palace on Olympus, containing his workshop with anvil and twenty bellows that worked at his bidding. He crafted much of the magnificent equipment of the gods, and almost any finely wrought metalwork imbued with powers that appears in Greek myth is said to have been forged by Hephaestus. He designed all the thrones in the Palace of Olympus, the Aegis breastplate, Hermes's winged helmet and sandals, Aphrodite's famed girdle, Eros's bow and arrows, Helios's chariot, Heracles's bronze clappers, and the shoulder of Pelops.Hephaestus also created the gift that the gods gave to mankind: the first woman Pandora and her pithos. In some versions of the myth, Prometheus stole the fire that he gave to man from Hephaestus's forge.
Hephaestus gave to the blinded Orion his apprentice Cedalion as a guide. In later accounts, Hephaestus worked with the Cyclopes Brontes, Steropes and Arges, who were highly skilled blacksmiths in their own right and forged Zeus's thunderbolts, Poseidon's trident and Hades's helmet of darkness.
Automatons
According to Homer, Hephaestus built automatons of metal to work for him or others. This included tripods with golden wheels, able to move at his wish in and out the assembly hall of the celestials; and "handmaidens wrought of gold in the semblance of living maids", who had "understanding in their hearts, and speech and strength", as a gift of the gods. They moved to support Hephaestus while walking. Hephaestus also put golden and silver lions and dogs at the entrance of the palace of Alkinoos in such a way that they could bite the invaders; these guard dogs did not age nor perish.A similar golden dog was set by Rhea to guard the infant Zeus and his nurse, the goat Amaltheia, on the island of Krete. Later Tantalus was said to have stolen the automaton when it guarded Zeus's temple, or to have persuaded Pandareos to steal it for him. Later texts attempt to replace the automaton with the idea that the golden dog was actually Rhea, transformed by Hephaestus.
Other myths
Hephaestus fought against the Giants and killed Mimas by throwing molten iron at him. He also fought another Giant, Aristaeus, but he fled. During the battle Hephaestus fell down exhausted, and was picked up by Helios in his chariot. As a gift of gratitude, Hephaestus forged four ever-flowing fountains and fire-breathing bulls for Helios's son Aeëtes.At the marriage of Peleus and Thetis, Hephaestus gave a knife as a wedding present. When the Trojan War began, Hephaestus sided with the Greeks and forged the armour of Achilles, the cuirass of Diomedes, and Agamemnon's staff of office, but Hephaestus was also worshipped by the Trojans and saved one of their men from being killed by Diomedes.
Consorts, victims and children
Hephaestus and Aphrodite
Though married to Hephaestus, Aphrodite had an affair with Ares, the god of war. Eventually, Hephaestus discovered Aphrodite's affair through Helios, the all-seeing Sun, and planned a trap during one of their trysts. While the lovers lay together in bed, Hephaestus ensnared them in an unbreakable chain-link net so small as to be invisible and dragged them to Mount Olympus to shame them in front of the other gods for retribution.The gods laughed at the sight of these naked lovers, and Poseidon persuaded Hephaestus to free them in return for a guarantee that Ares would pay the adulterer's fine, or that he, Poseidon, would pay it himself. Hephaestus states in The Odyssey that he would return Aphrodite to her father and demand back his bride price. The Emily Wilson translation depicts Hephaestus demanding/imploring Zeus before Poseidon offers, however, leading the reader to assume Zeus did not give back the "price" Hephaestus paid for his daughter and that this was the reason Poseidon intervened. Some versions of the myth state that Zeus did not return the dowry, and in fact Aphrodite "simply charmed her way back again into her husband's good graces." In the Iliad, Hephaestus is described as married to the Grace Charis during the events depicted in the Trojan War, while in the Theogony, he is married to the Grace Aglaea, with no indication of having been ever married to Aphrodite. The later Dionysiaca by Nonnus explicitly states that, though Hephaestus and Aphrodite were once married, that they have since separated and Hephaestus is now married to Charis.
In a much later, interpolated detail, Ares put the young soldier Alectryon, by their door to warn them of Helios's arrival as he suspected that Helios would tell Hephaestus of Aphrodite's infidelity if the two were discovered, but Alectryon fell asleep on guard duty. Helios discovered the two and alerted Hephaestus, as Ares, in rage, turned Alectryon into a rooster, which always crows at dawn when the sun is about to rise.
File:Guillemot, Alexandre Charles - Mars and Venus Surprised by Vulcan - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|Mars and Venus Surprised by Vulcan by Alexandre Charles Guillemot.
A typical interpretation of why Hephaestus and Aphrodite got married at all is that Hephaestus was promised her hand in marriage so that he would release Hera from the throne; no clear evidence from antiquity of such a version survives however. It is mostly conjectured based on preserved accounts and other testimonies, such as Hyginus' version where Hephaestus asks for Athena to be given as his wife for releasing Hera, and an early sixth-century BC calyx krater, the François Vase, which depicts Hephaestus return to Olympus; Aphrodite looks upset at his arrival, while Ares kneels down looking defeated. It is likely that this narrative, if genuine, originated from the lost Homeric Hymn to Dionysus, which was highly popular during the archaic era. Martin West has identified an echo of Hephaestus and Aphrodite's arranged marriage in Book 14 of the Iliad, where Hera goes to Hephaestus' island Lemnos and promises a golden throne and marriage to Pasithea to Hypnos in exchange for a favour.
The Thebans told that the union of Ares and Aphrodite produced Harmonia, but that of the union of Hephaestus with Aphrodite, there was usually no issue. Because Harmonia was conceived during Aphrodite's marriage to Hephaestus, for revenge, on Harmonia's wedding day to Cadmus, Hephaestus gifted her with a finely worked but cursed necklace that brought immense suffering to her descendants, culminating with the story of Oedipus.
The author of Octavia writes that " delude ourselves that was born from Venus and sprung from the loins of Vulcan", implying the notion that Eros/Cupid was the son of Vulcan/Hephaestus was a decently common one in late antiquity. Nonnus also seemingly presents Eros as the son of Aphrodite and Hephaestus, but it has been suggested that the use of πολυφράδμων to describe Aphrodite and the emphasis given in Hephaestus fearing that Eros would be born crippled like him, only for the child to be abled-bodied, strongly implies that Nonnus means for Ares to be understood as the real father, while Aphrodite passed her son as Hephaestus'. Ulrich von Wilamovitz's conjecture of a badly preserved scholium on the Argonautica to read that Ibycus made Eros the son of Aphrodite and Hephaestus is widely accepted by scholars, but cannot be proven as the ancient text is unreadable.
Hephaestus was somehow connected with the archaic, pre-Greek Phrygian and Thracian mystery cult of the Kabeiroi, who were also called the Hephaistoi, "the Hephaestus-men", in Lemnos. One of the three Lemnian tribes also called themselves Hephaestion and claimed direct descent from the god.