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Divine Lineage
An engraving of Hephaestus published in an 1878 book of the gods.

Forge

Hephaistos

ἭφαιστοςRoman: Vulcanus

The only Olympian who works, and the only one thrown out of heaven twice.

Engraving, published 1878

3
epithets
3
cult sites
0
offspring
0
unions
2
recorded births

Vitals

Kind
Olympian
Generation
3
Domains
fire under control, metalwork, invention
Accent
Forge — fire under control, metal, the hearth
Sacred symbols
the hammer and tongs, the anvil, the workman's cap, the automaton
Principal cult sites
Lemnos, Athens (the Hephaisteion), Mount Etna

What they were called

  • κλυτοτέχνης

    famous for craft

  • ἀμφιγυήεις

    lame in both legs, or strong in both arms

  • πολύμητις

    of many devices

Lineage

See in the tree

Descent

Bore them aloneHeraHesiod, Theogony

Hesiod is explicit: Hera bore him without any union, in anger and rivalry with her husband, after Zeus produced Athena from his head.

Variant traditions

Homer, Iliad 1.571-579

MotherHeraFatherZeus

In Homer he calls Hera mother and Zeus father in the same speech, and there is no hint of a fatherless birth.

Offspring in this roster

None recorded among the figures modelled here.

Notable myths

  1. The Fall to Lemnos

    Hephaistos reminds Hera that he once tried to help her and Zeus caught him by the foot and threw him off the divine threshold. He fell all day and came down on Lemnos at sunset with very little life left in him, and the Sintian men there took care of him. He tells the story in the middle of a quarrel, to make the point that nobody wins an argument with Zeus.

    Homer, Iliad 1.590-594

  2. The Shield of Achilles

    Asked by Thetis for armour, Hephaistos worked twenty bellows at once and made a shield with the earth, the sky, the sea, the sun and moon and every constellation on it, then two cities — one at a wedding and a lawsuit, one under siege — then ploughing, harvest, a vineyard, cattle, a dance floor, and the river of Ocean running round the rim. The description takes a hundred and thirty lines and is the longest sustained account of the ancient world at peace that survives.

    Homer, Iliad 18.478-608

The account

Hephaistos is the Olympian with a trade and a disability, and the tradition connects the two without ever quite saying so. Hesiod has Hera produce him alone, out of spite, after Zeus produced Athena from his head — a parthenogenesis that is explicitly a reply. Homer knows nothing of that and treats him as the son of both. On the lameness the sources also split: Hera threw him out of Olympos at birth because he was lame, or he was lame because Zeus threw him out for taking Hera's side in an argument, and he fell a whole day and landed on Lemnos. Either way he came back and he built everything: the gods' houses, Achilles' shield, Zeus's sceptre and thunderbolts, the golden women who support him as he walks, self-moving tripods that go to the assembly on their own. He is married to Aphrodite, who is unfaithful with Ares, and his revenge is the finest piece of engineering in Homer. He is the god of making the thing work regardless.

Ancient sources

  • Hesiod, Theogony 927-929
  • Homer, Iliad 1.571-579
  • Homer, Iliad 1.590-594
  • Homer, Iliad 18.478-608

Where a line reference is not given, the work is cited without one rather than guessed at.

Image credit

Title
Hephaestus, published in 1878
Artist
Illustrated by Engravings on Wood.
Date
1878, upload: 2022-11-27
Licence
Public domain
Source
Wikimedia Commons file page