Hephaestus (Ancient Greek: Ἥφαιστος Hēphaistos) is the Greek god of blacksmiths, metalworking, carpenters, craftsmen, artisans, sculptors, metallurgy, fire (compare, however, with Hestia), and volcanoes. Hephaestus' Roman equivalent is Vulcan. In Greek mythology, Hephaestus was either the son of Zeus and Hera or he was Hera's parthenogenous child. He was cast off Mount Olympus by his mother because of his deformity or, in another account, by Zeus for protecting Hera from his advances.
As a smithing god, Hephaestus made all the weapons of the gods in Olympus. He served as the blacksmith of the gods, and was worshipped in the manufacturing and industrial centers of Greece, particularly Athens. The cult of Hephaestus was based in Lemnos. Hephaestus' symbols are a smith's hammer, anvil, and a pair of tongs.
Mythology[]
Hephaistos was the manufacturer of art, arms, iron, jewelry and armor for various gods and heroes, including the thunderbolts of Zeus. He was the son of Zeus and Hera, and husband of Aglaia and Aphrodite. His smithy was believed to be situated underneath Mount Aitna in Sicily.
He designed Hermes' winged helmet and sandals. The Aegis breastplate, Aphrodite's famed girdle, Agamemnon's staff of office, Akhilles' armor, Herakles' bronze clappers, Helios' chariot, the shoulder of Pelops, and Eros' bow and arrows. In later accounts, Hephaistos worked with the help of the chthonic Kyklops—among them his assistants in the forge, Brontês, Steropês and Argês.
Hephaistos also built automatons of metal to work for him. This included tripods that walked to and from Mount Olympus. He gave to the blinded Orion his apprentice Kedalion as a guide. Prometheus stole the fire that he gave to man from Hephaistos's forge. Hephaistos also created the gift that the gods gave to man, the woman Pandora and her pithos. Being a skilled blacksmith, Hephaistos created all the thrones in the Palace of Olympus.
Birth and infancy[]
As the son of Zeus, the king of the gods, and Hera, the queen of the gods, Hephaistos should have been quite handsome, but, baby Hephaistos was small and ugly with a red, bawling face. Hera was so horrified that she hurled the tiny baby off the top of Mount Olympus.
Hephaistos fell down for a day and a night, landing in the sea. Unfortunately, one of his legs broke as he hit the water, and never developed properly. From the surface, Hephaistos sunk like a pebble to the cool blue depths where the sea-nymph, Thetis, found him and took him to her underwater grotto, and raised him as her own son.
Childhood[]
Hephaistos had a wretched childhood. When Hera found that he was disfigured, she threw him off Mount Olympus. He grew up in Lemnos. Late in his childhood, he found the remains of a fisherman's fire on the beach and became fascinated with an unextinguished coal, still red-hot and glowing. In other myths, he was thrown off Mount Olympus by Zeus for a whole day down to Lemnos for siding with Hera in an argument.
Hephaistos carefully shut this precious coal in a clamshell and took it back to his underwater grotto and made a fire with it. On the first day after, Hephaistos stared at this fire for hours on end. On the second day, he discovered that when he made the fire hotter with bellows, certain stones sweated iron, silver or gold. On the third day he beat the cooled metal into shapes: bracelets, chains, swords and shields. Hephaistos made pearl-handled knives and spoons for his foster mother, a silver chariot for himself, and bridles so that seahorses could transport him quickly. He even made slave-girls of gold to wait on him and do his bidding.
Adulthood[]
One day, Thetis left her underwater grotto to attend a dinner party on Mount Olympus wearing a beautiful necklace of silver and sapphires, which Hephaistos had made for her. Hera admired the necklace and asked her where she could get one. Thetis became flustered causing Hera to become suspicious and, at last, the queen god discovered the truth: the baby she had once rejected had grown into a talented blacksmith.
Hera was furious and demanded Hephaistos return home, a demand that he refused. However, he did send Hera a beautifully constructed chair made of silver and gold, inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Hera was delighted with this gift but as soon as she sat on it her weight triggered hidden springs and metal bands that sprung forth to hold her fast. The more she shrieked and struggled the more firmly the mechanical throne gripped her; the chair was a cleverly designed trap.
For three days Hera sat fuming, still trapped in Hephaistos's chair; she could not sleep, she could not stretch, she could not eat. Zeus pleaded with Hephaistos to dislodge Hera, but he steadfastly refused. Dionysus at last brought Hephaistos back to Olympus by getting him drunk and carrying him on a donkey. Then, on the condition Aphrodite would be given to Hephaistos as his wife, Hera was freed.
Hephaestus and Aphrodite[]
Hephaistos, being the most unfaltering of the gods, was given Aphrodite's hand in marriage by Zeus to prevent conflict over her between the other gods.
Hephaistos and Aphrodite had an arranged marriage, and Aphrodite, disliking the idea of being Hephaistos discovers Aphrodite's promiscuity through Helios, the all-seeing Sun, and planned a trap during one of their trysts. While Aphrodite and Ares lay together in bed, Hephaistos 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.
However, the gods laughed at the sight of these naked lovers, and Poseidon persuaded Hephaistos to free them in return for a guarantee that Ares would pay the adulterer's fine. Hephaistos states in the Odyssey that he would return Aphrodite to her father and demand back his bride price.
The Thebans told that the union of Ares and Aphrodite produced Harmonia. However, of the union of Hephaistos with Aphrodite, there was no issue unless Virgil was serious when he said that Eros was their child. Later authors explain this statement by saying the love-god was sired by Ares but passed off to Hephaistos as his own son.
Hephaistos was somehow connected with the archaic, pre-Greek Phrygian and Thracian mystery cult of the Kabeiroi, who were also called the Hephaistoi, "the Hephaistos-men," in Lemnos. One of the three Lemnian tribes also called themselves Hephaestion and claimed direct descent from the god.
Hephaistos and Athena[]
Hephaistos is to the male gods as Athena is to the females, for he gives skill to mortal artists and was believed to have taught men the arts alongside Athena. He was nevertheless believed to be far inferior to the sublime character of Athena. At Athens they had temples and festivals in common. Both were believed to have great healing powers, and Lemnian earth (terra Lemnia) from the spot on which Hephaistos had fallen was believed to cure madness, the bites of snakes, and hemorrhage, and priests of Hephaistos knew how to cure wounds inflicted by snakes.
He was represented in the temple of Athena Chalcioecus (Athena of the Bronze House) at Sparta, in the act of delivering his mother; on the chest of Kypselos, giving Achilles's armor to Thetis; and at Athens there was the famous statue of Hephaistos by Alcamenes, in which his lameness was only subtly portrayed. The Greeks frequently placed small dwarf-like statues of Hephaistos near their hearths, and these figures are the oldest of all his representations. During the best period of Grecian art he was represented as a vigorous man with a beard, and is characterized by his hammer or some other crafting tool, his oval cap, and the chiton.
Identification with other deities[]
Hephaestus is often identified and syncretized with the Egyptian god Ptah. When Typhon engaged war with Zeus, the rest of the gods (except Athena) in fear of Typhon fled to Egypt and changed shaped in order to hide from him. Among those gods is Hephaestus in which he changed his form into an ox. When Zeus finally defeated Typhon, he piled the highest mountain, Etna on top of Typhon's body and placed Hephaestus on guard there.[1] This account by Antoninus Liberalis, is clearly an etiology of the origin of the gods in Egypt and their animal-forms, to which the Greeks found unusual and foreign to them. The ox in this instance is Ptah's sacred animal the bull specifically the Apis bull in which he was frequently associated with.
In The Histories by Herodotus a 5th century Greek historian, he states that when Cambyses fled to escape the Persians, he went to Memphis[2] and entered the Temple of Hephaestus and he jeered at an image there. Herodotus then states that "This image of Hephaestus is most like the Phoenician Pataici, which the Phoenicians carry on the prows of their triremes. I will describe it for anyone who has not seen these figures: it is the likeness of a dwarf."[3] the Phoenician Πατάικος (as the Greeks called him) was the Ptah or Patah of Egypt whom the Greeks identified with Hephaestus; always in the form of a dwarf.[3] Herodotus also states he met and conversed with priests of Hephaestus at Memphis[4] and later states that Memphis has a "great and most noteworthy temple of Hephaestus",[5]
In the Suda, a 10th century Byzantine Greek lexicon, it states that "Phthas" is a name for Hephaestus among the Memphites (Memphis in Egypt).[6]
Hephaestus is also often identified and syncretized with the Roman god Vulcanus. In Cicero's De Natura Deorum, he speaks about several Vulcans.[7] The first Vulcan he says was the son of Caelus and with Minerva was the father of Apollo, whom the Athenians considered a tutelary deity,[note 1] the second Vulcan is said to be called Opas by the Egyptians and was considered as the protector of Egypt[note 2] and the son of Nilus, the third was a son of Jupiter and Juno and was a master of the forges on Lemnos, and the fourth is said to be the son of Maemalius and possessed the islands near Sicily called Vulcaniae (the Lipari islands).[note 3]
Consorts and offspring[]
According to most versions, Hephaistos' consort is Aphrodite, who is unfaithful to Hephaistos with a number of gods and mortals, including Ares. However, in Homer's Iliad, the consort of Hephaistos is a lesser Aphrodite, Charis "the grace" or Aglaia "the glorious" — the youngest of The Graces, as Hesiod calls her.
In Athens, there is a Temple of Hephaistos, the Hephaesteum (miscalled the "Theseum") near the agora. An Athenian founding myth tells that the city's patron goddess, Athena, refused a union with Hephaistos because of his unsightly appearance and crippled nature, and that when he became angry and forceful with her, she disappeared from the bed. His ejaculate fell on the earth, impregnating Gaia, who subsequently gave birth to Erichthonius of Athens. A surrogate mother later gave the child to Athena to foster, guarded by a serpent.
On the island of Lemnos, Hephaistos' consort was the sea nymph Kabeiro, by whom he was the father of two metalworking gods named the Kabeiri. In Sicily, his consort was the nymph Aitna, and his sons were two gods of Sicilian geysers called Palici. With Thalia, Hephaistos was sometimes considered the father of the Palici.
Hephaistos fathered several children with mortals and immortals alike. One of those children was the robber Periphetes. This is the full list of his consorts and children according to the various accounts:
Immortal Offspring[]
With Cabeiro
- Cadmilus
- the Kabeiri
With Aglaea
- Eukleia
- Euphemia
- Philophrosyne
- Euthenia
- Euphilo
With Aetna
- The Palici
With Athena and Gaia or Atthis
With Anticlea
- Periphetes
With No mother mentioned
- Cercyon
- Olenus
- Palaemon
- Pylius
- Thalia
Creation his own Offspring[]
Creations[]
Hephaestus created various if not all the divine weapons and items for the gods, with the help of chthonic Cyclopes, which were his assistants in the forge. Among his creations are:
- Achilles' armor
- The Aegis
- Agamemnon's staff of office
- Aphrodite's girdle
- Eros' bow and arrows
- Heracles' bronze clappers
- Hermes' Winged Helmet and sandals
- Shoulder of Pelops (after it was eaten by Demeter)
- Pandora (the First Woman created as a punishment for Mankind)
Mortal Descendants in Athens[]
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Gallery[]
See also[]
Notes[]
- ↑ The website Theoi posits that this Apollo is Erichthonius.
- ↑ Ptah was considered the protector of Memphis by the Ancient Egyptians
- ↑ The website Theoi posits that this fourth Vulcan is the Italian god Adranus
References[]
- ↑ Antoninus Liberalis, Metamorphoses 28 (trans. Celoria)
- ↑ Herodotus, Histories 3.37.1 (trans. Godley)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Herodotus, Histories 3.37.2 (trans. Godley)
- ↑ Herodotus, Histories 2.3.1 (trans. Godley)
- ↑ Herodotus, Histories 2. 99. 4
- ↑ Suidas, s.v. Phthas (trans. Suda On Line)
- ↑ Cicero, De Natura Deorum 3. 55
Citations[]
- Hamilton, Edith (1998), Mythology, Back Bay Books, New York, ISBN 0-316-34151-7
[]
| Deities in Greek mythology | |
|---|---|
| Protogenoi | Chaos • Chronus • Gaia • Tartarus • Eros • Erebos • Nyx • Uranus • Pontus • Thalassa • Aether • Hemera |
| Titans | Oceanus • Cronus • Mnemosyne • Rhea • Tethys • Themis • Atlas • Prometheus • Metis • Hecate • Eos • Helios • Selene |
| Twelve Olympians | Zeus • Hera • Demeter • Hestia • Poseidon • Ares • Artemis • Apollo • Athena • Hermes • Hephaestus • Aphrodite • Dionysus |
| Daemones | Bia • Dike • Eris • Hebe • Hygieia • Hypnos • Nemesis • Nike • Phobos • Poena • Soteria • Thanatos |