Hephaestus- Greek GodDeity"God of the Forge"

The Rejected God

The circumstances of Hephaestus's birth and fall vary between two traditions. In Hesiod's Theogony, Hera conceived him alone, without Zeus, in retaliation for Zeus producing Athena from his own head. When she saw her newborn son's twisted legs, she hurled him from Olympus in disgust. He fell for a full day and night before crashing into the sea near Lemnos. The sea nymphs Thetis and Eurynome rescued him and raised him in an underwater cave, hidden from the gods, where he spent nine years at a forge built among the coral and sea rocks.

In the Iliad, it was Zeus who threw him from Olympus for taking Hera's side in a quarrel. He fell for an entire day, landing on Lemnos at sunset, where the Sintians nursed him back to health. The fall caused or worsened his lameness. Lemnos remained his most sacred island throughout antiquity. The Greeks took its sulfurous vents and hot springs as marks of the god's presence beneath the earth. A distinctive rite recalled his bond with the island: all fires were extinguished for nine days. The number echoed his nine years in the cave. Then new fire arrived by ship from Delos, and the island's hearths burned again.

Revenge on Hera

Hephaestus never forgot his mother's cruelty. After nine years in the underwater cave, he revealed himself to Olympus by sending Hera a gift: a golden throne of exquisite workmanship. Hera sat upon it, and invisible chains sprang from the throne, binding her fast. No god could break her free. No tool could cut the chains. Hephaestus alone could release her, and he refused to return to Olympus.

The gods sent Ares to bring him back by force, but Hephaestus drove the war god away with torches and burning brands. Only Dionysus succeeded. He got Hephaestus drunk and led him back on the back of a mule, a comic scene painted on Attic vases from the sixth century onward: the god swaying on his mule, satyrs dancing alongside. The price of Hera's freedom was Hephaestus's acceptance among the Olympians, and, in the tradition Pindar preserves, the hand of Aphrodite in marriage.

The Divine Smith

In his forge beneath Mount Etna, where the Cyclopes Brontes and Steropes worked the bellows, Hephaestus created wonders no mortal hand could match. From his anvil came Zeus's thunderbolts and the chains that bound Prometheus to his rock.

His finest work was forged for a mortal. When Thetis, the sea nymph who had once saved him from the waves, came to beg armor for her son Achilles, Hephaestus could not refuse. The Iliad devotes nearly all of Book 18 to the shield he made. On its surface he wrought two cities, one celebrating a wedding and one under siege, and around the rim ran the great river Oceanus.

The Automatons and Pandora

His workshop assistants in the Iliad are golden maidens, mechanical women who could think and speak and knew the works of the immortal gods. He crafted twenty golden tripods on wheels that rolled themselves to the assembly of the gods and returned home without a hand to guide them. For King Alcinous of the Phaeacians, he made golden and silver watchdogs, immortal and ageless, to stand guard at the gates.

He also made Talos, the bronze giant who guarded Crete. Talos circled the island three times each day, hurling boulders at approaching ships. A single vein ran from his neck to his ankle, sealed with a bronze nail. When the Argonauts came to Crete, Medea removed the nail with her magic, and his divine ichor drained away.

Zeus commanded Hephaestus to create Pandora, the first mortal woman, as punishment for Prometheus's theft of fire. In Hesiod's Works and Days, Hephaestus shaped her from earth and water. Each god added a gift: Athena taught her weaving, Hermes gave her a deceitful nature. Pandora opened the forbidden jar and released all evils into the world. Only Hope remained inside.

Athena and the Birth of Erichthonius

Hephaestus desired Athena and pursued her. In Apollodorus's account, she fought him off, but his seed fell upon her leg. She wiped it away with wool and threw it to the earth. From that spot Erichthonius was born, a child who was part serpent. Athena placed the infant in a chest and entrusted it to the daughters of Cecrops, king of Athens, with instructions not to open it. They opened it, saw the snake-child within, and leapt from the Acropolis to their deaths.

Erichthonius became an early king of Athens and established the Panathenaic festival. Through him, Hephaestus became ancestor to the Athenian royal line. His temple still stands on the hill above the Agora, overlooking the quarter where smiths and potters once worked. Each year at the Hephaisteia, runners carried fire through the streets in tribute to the god who mastered it.

Marriage to Aphrodite

Zeus gave Hephaestus Aphrodite as his wife. She took Ares as her lover. When Hephaestus learned of it from Helios, who saw everything from his chariot, he forged an unbreakable golden net, fine as spider silk and invisible to the eye, and draped it over his marriage bed. Then he announced he was leaving for Lemnos.

Ares and Aphrodite met in Hephaestus's own home. They lay together on the bed, and the net fell, trapping them in their embrace. Hephaestus returned and summoned all the gods to witness. The goddesses stayed away out of modesty, but the gods came and laughed. Hermes quipped that he would gladly endure three times the bonds for a night with Aphrodite. Poseidon persuaded Hephaestus to release them, offering to guarantee Ares's fine. The laughter of the gods did not end the affair.