Hephaestus
(Ἥφαιστος), the god of fire, was, according to the Homeric account, the son of Zeus and Hera. (Il. 1.578, 14.338, 18.396, 21.332, Od. 8.312.) Later traditions state that he had no father, and that Hera gave birth to him independent of Zeus, as she was jealous of Zeus having given birth to Athena independent of her. (Apollod. 1.3.5; Hygin. Fab. Praef.) This, however, is opposed to the common stor, that Hephaestus split the head of Zeus, and thus assisted him in giving birth to Athena, for Hephaestus is there represented as older than Athena. A further development of the later tradition is, that Hephaestus sprang from the thigh of Hera, and, being for a long time kept in ignorance of his parentage, he at length had recourse to a stratagem, for the purpose of finding it out. He constructed a chair, to which those who sat upon it were fastened, and having thus entrapped Hera, he refused allowing her to rise until she had told him who his parents were. (Serv. ad Aen. 8.454, Eclog. 4.62.) For other accounts respecting his origin, see Cicero (de Nat. Deor. 3.22), Pausanias (8.53.2). and Eustathius (Eustath. ad Hom. p. 987).
Hephaestus is the god of fire, especially in so far as it manifests itself as a power of physical nature in volcanic districts, and in so far as it is the indispensable means in arts and manufactures, whence fire is called the breath of Hephaestus, and the name of the god is used both by Greek and Roman poets as synonymous with fire. As a flame arises out of a little spark, so the god of fire was delicate and weakly from his birth, for which reason he was so much disliked by his mother, that she wished to get rid of him, and dropped him from Olympus. But the marine divinities, Thetis and Eurynome, received him, and he dwelt with them for nine years in a grotto, surrounded by Oceanus, making for them a variety of ornaments. (Hom. Il. 18.394, &c.) It was, according to some accounts, during this period that he made the golden chair by which he punished his mother for her want of affection, and from which he would not release her, till he was prevailed upon by Dionysus. (Paus. 1.20.2; Hyg. Fab. 166.) Although Hephaestus afterwards remembered the cruelty of his mother, yet he was always kind and obedient towards her, nay once, while she was quarrelling with Zeus, he took her part, and thereby offended his father so much, that he seized him by the leg, and hulled him down from Olympus. Hephaestus was a whole day falling, but in the evening he came down in the island of Lemnos, where he was kindly received by the Sintians. (Hom. Il. 1.590, &c. V. Fl. 2.8.5; Apollod. 1.3.5, who, however, confounds the two occasions on which Hephaestus was thrown from Olympus.) Later writers describe his lameness as the consequence of his second fall, while Homer makes him lame and weak from his birth. After his second fall he returned to Olympus, and subsequently acted the part of mediator between his parents. (Il 1.585.) On that occasion he offered a cup of nectar to his mother and the other gods, who burst out into immoderate laughter on seeing him busily hobbling through Olympus from one god to another, for he was ugly and slow, and, owing to the weakness of his legs, he was held up, when he walked, by artificial supports, skilfully made of gold. (Il. 18.410, &c., Od. 8.311, 330.) Iis neck and chest, however, were strong and muscular. (Il. 18.415, 20.36.)
In Olympus, Hephaestus had his own palace, imperishable and shining like stars: it contained his workshop, with the anvil, and twenty bellows, which worked spontaneously at his bidding. (Il. 18.370, &c.) It was there that he made all his beautiful and marvellous works, utensils, and arms, both for gods and men. The ancient poets and mythographers abound in passages describing works of exquisite workmanship which had been manufactured by Hephaestus. In later accounts, the Cyclopes, Brontes, Steropes, Pyracmon, and others, are his workmen and servants, and his workshop is no longer represented as in Olympus, but in the interior of some volcanic isle. (Verg. A. 8.416, &c.) The wife of Hephaestus also lived in his palace: in the Iliad she is called a Charis, in the Odyssey Aphrodite (Il. 18.382, Od. 8.270), and in Hesiod's Theogony (945) she is named Aglaia. the youngest of the Charites. The story of Aphrodite's faithlessness to her husband, and of the manner in which he surprised her, is exquisitely described in Od. 8.266_358. The Homeric poems do not mention any descendants of Hephaestus, but in later writers the number of his children is considerable. In the Trojan war he was on the side of the Greeks, but he was also worshipped by the Trojans, and on one occasion he saved a Trojan from being killed by Diomedes. (Il. 5.9, &c.)
His favourite place on earth was the island of Lemnos, where he liked to dwell among the Sintians (Od. 8.283, &c., Il. 1.593; Ov Fast. 8.82); but other volcanic islands also, such as Lipara, Hiera, Imbros. and Sicily, are called his abodes or workshops. (Apollon. Rhod 3.41; Callim. Hymn. in Dian. 47; Serv. ad Aen. 8.416; Strab. p. 275; Plin. Nat. 3.9; Val. Flace. 2.96.)
Hephaestus is among the male what Athena is among the female deities, for, like her, he give skill to mortal artists, and, conjointly with her, he was believed to have taught men the arts which embellish and adorn life. (Od. 6.233, 23.160. Hymn. in Vaulc. 2. &c.) But he was. nevertheless, conceived as far inferior to the sublime character of Athena. At Athens they had temples and festivals in common. (See Dict of Ant. s. v. Ἡφαιστεῖα, Χαλκεῖα.) Both also were believed to have great healing powers, and Lemnian earth (terra Lemnia) from the spot on which Hephaestus had falleen was believed to cure madness, the bites of snakes, and haemorrhage, and the priests of the god knew how to cure wounds inflicted by snakes. (Philostr. Heroic. 5.2; Eustath. ad Hom. p. 330; Dict. Cret. 2.14.) The epithets and surnames by which Hephaestus is designated by the poets generally allude to his skill in the plastic arts or to his figure and his lameness. He was represented in the temple of Athena Chalcioecus at Sparta, in the act of delivering his mother (Paus. 3.17.3); on the chest of Cypselus, giving to Thetis the armour for Achilles (5.19.2); and at Athens there was the famous statue of Hephaestus by Alcamenes, in which his lameness was slightly indicated. (Cic. de Nat. Deor. 1.30; V. Max. 8.11.3.) The Greeks frequently placed small dwarf-like statues of the god near the hearth, and these dwarfish figures seem to have been the most ancient. (Hdt. 3.37; Aristoph. Birds 436; Callim. Hymnn. in Dian. 60.) During the best period of Grecian art, he was represented as a vigorous man with a beard, and is characterised by his hammer or some other instrument, his oval cap, and the chiton, which leaves the right shoulder and arm uncovered. (Hirt, Mythol. Bilderb. 1.42, &c.) The Romans, when speaking of the Greek Hephaestus, call him Vulcanus, although Vulcanus was an original Italian divinity. [Vulcanus.] [L.S]
(Ἥφαιστος). In Greek mythology, the god of fire, and of the arts which need fire in the execution. Roscher proposes various derivations of the name—from ἁφή (ἅπτω), “a lighting,” or from the root of φαίνω, “to shine.” He was said to be the son of Zeus and Heré, or, according to Hesiod, of the latter only. Being ugly, and lame in both feet, his mother was ashamed of him, and threw him from Olympus into the ocean, where he was taken up by Eurynomé and Thetis and concealed in a subterranean cavern. Here he remained for nine years, and fashioned a number of exquisite works of art, among them a golden throne with invisible chains, which he sent to his mother by way of revenge. She sat down in it, and was chained to the seat so fast that no one could release her. On this it was resolved to call Hephaestus back to Olympus. Ares wished to force him back, but was frightened off by his brother with firebrands. Dionysus at length succeeded in making him drunk and bringing him back in this condition to Olympus. But he was destined to meet with his former luck a second time. There came a quarrel between Zeus and Heré, and Hephaestus took his mother's part; whereupon Zeus seized him by the leg and hurled him down from Olympus. He fell upon the island of Lemnos, where the Sintians, who then inhabited the island, took care of him and finally revived him. From this time Lemnos was his favourite abode. His lameness was, in the later story, attributed to this fall (Hom. Il. i. 590 foll.).
The whole story—the sojourn of Hephaestus in the cavern under the sea and his fondness for Lemnos—is, in all probability, based upon volcanic phenomena—the submarine activity of volcanic fires and the natural features of the island of Lemnos. Here there was a volcano called Mosychlus, which was in activity down to the time of Alexander the Great. The friendship existing between Dionysus and Hephaestus may be explained by the fact that the best and finest wines are grown in the volcanic regions of the South.
As a master in the production of beautiful and fascinating works of art, Hephaestus is in the Iliad the husband of a Charis, and in the Odyssey of Aphrodité, and in Hesiod of Aglaea. (See Charites.) The story of his marriage with Aphrodité was not, apparently, widely known in early antiquity. Through his artistic genius he appears, and most especially in the Athenian story, as the intimate friend of Athené. In Homer he lives and works on Olympus, where he makes palaces of brass for himself and the other deities; but he has a forge also on Mount Mosychlus in Lemnos; the later story gives him one under Aetna in Sicily, and on the sacred island, or island of Hephaestus, in the Lipari Islands, where he is heard at work with his companions the Cyclopes. All the masterpieces of metal which appear in the stories of gods and heroes— the aegis of Zeus, the arms of Achilles, the sceptre of Agamemnon, the fatal necklace of Harmonia, the fire-breathing bulls of Aeëtes, the golden torchbearers in the palace of Alcinoüs, and others —were attributed to the art of Hephaestus. To help his lameness he made, according to Homer, two golden maidens, with the power of motion, to lean upon when he walked. He was much worshipped in Lemnos, where there was an annual festival in his honour. All fires were put out for nine days, during which rites of atonement and purification were performed. Then fresh fire was brought on a sacred ship from Delos, the fires were kindled again, and a new life, as the saying went, began. At Athens he was worshipped in the Academy, in connection with Athené and Prometheus (q.v.). In October the smiths and smelters celebrated the Χαλκεῖα, a feast of metal-workers, in his honour and that of Athené; at the Ἀπατούρια sacrifices were offered to him, among other gods, as the giver of fire, and torches were kindled and hymns were sung; at the Ἡφαίστεια, finally, there was a torch-race in his honour. The Greeks frequently set small dwarf-like images of Hephaestus near their fireplaces. In works of art he is represented as a vigorous man with a beard, equipped, like a smith, with hammer and tongs; his left leg is shortened, to show his lameness. The Romans identified him with their Vulcanus (q.v.).