In Greek mythology, a god of fire, associated with volcanic sites; then of the smithy and metalwork. Because of his marvellous creations, such as the shield of Achilles, he was worshipped as the god of craftsmen. He was the son of Hera, who was annoyed at his lameness and threw him out of heaven; he landed on Lemnos.
Though his forge traditionally lay in the heart of Lemnos, Hephaestus was quickly identified by Greek colonists in southern Italy with the volcano gods Adranus of Mount Etna and Vulcanus of the Lipara islands and his forge moved here by the poets; 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" (Life of Apollonius of Tyana, book v.16).
Family
Hephaestus and his brother Ares are sons of Hera, with or without the cooperation of Zeus. Hephaestus crafted much of Athena's weaponry, along with those of the rest of the gods and even of a few mortals who received their special favor.
An Athenian founding myth tells that Athena refused a union with Hephaestus, and that when he tried to force her she disappeared from the bed.
Hephaestus' craft
Hephaestus also crafted much of the other 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: Hermes's winged helmet and sandals, the Aegis breastplate, Aphrodite's famed girdle, Agamemnon's staff of office—its provenance recounted in Iliad II— Achilles's armor, Heracles's bronze clappers, Helios's chariot, the shoulder of Pelops, Eros's bow and arrows and Hades's helmet of invisibility. Hephaestus also created the gift that the gods gave man, the woman Pandora and her famous box.
In Iliad i.590, Zeus threw Hephaestus from Olympus because he released his mother Hera who was suspended by a golden chain between earth and sky, after an argument she had with Zeus. Hephaestus fell for nine days and nights before landing on the island of Lemnos where he grew to be a master craftsman and was allowed back into Olympus when his ability and usefulness became known to the gods.
Hephaestus was quite ugly; Arsenic was added to bronze to harden it and most smiths of the Bronze Age would have suffered from chronic workplace poisoning.)
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Greek deities series |
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| Primordial deities |
| Titans |
| Aquatic deities |
| Chthonic deities |
| Personified concepts |
| Other deities |
| Olympians |
| Zeus and Hera, |
| Poseidon, Hades, |
| Hestia, Demeter, |
| Aphrodite, Athena, |
| Apollo, Artemis, |
| Ares, Hephaestus, |
| Hermes, Dionysus |
Hephaestus gained revenge against Hera for rejecting him by making her a magical golden throne which, when she sat on it, did not allow her to leave it. The other gods begged Hephaestus to return to Olympus to let her go but he repeatedly refused. Hephaestus released Hera after being given Aphrodite, the goddess of love, as his wife.
In another version of the myth, Hephaestus, being the most unfaltering of the gods, was given Aphrodite’s hand in marriage by Zeus in order to prevent conflict over her between the other gods.
In either case, Hephaestus and Aphrodite had an arranged marriage and Aphrodite, disliking the idea of being married to unsightly Hephaestus, began an affair with Ares, the god of war. While Aphrodite and Ares lay together in bed, Hephaestus ensnared them in an unbreakable, chain-link net 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 Hephaestus to free them in return for a guarantee that Ares would pay the adulterer's fine. In Homer's Illiad the consort of Hephaestus is a lesser Aphrodite, Charis "the grace" or Aglaia "the glorious", the youngest of the Graces as Hesiod calls her in his (Theogony 945).
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.
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