Hephaestus  

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Hephaestus was a Greek god whose Roman equivalent was Vulcan. He was the god of technology, blacksmiths, craftsmen, artisans, sculptors, metals, metallurgy, fire and volcanoes. Like other mythic smiths but unlike most other gods, Hephaestus was lame, which gave him a grotesque appearance in Greek eyes. He served as the blacksmith of the gods, and he was worshipped in the manufacturing and industrial centers of Greece, particularly in Athens. The center of his cult was in Lemnos.

He is the God of fire and the forge (god of fire and smiths) with very weak legs. He was thrown off Mount Olympus as a baby by his mother and in some stories his father. He makes armor for the gods and other heroes like Achilles. Son of Hera and Zeus is his father in some accounts. Married to Aphrodite, but she does not love him because he is deformed and, as a result, is cheating on him with Ares. He had a daughter named Pandora. His symbols are an axe, a hammer and a flame.

Hephaestus's symbols are a smith's hammer, an anvil and a pair of tongs, although sometimes he is portrayed holding an axe.

Hephaestus and Aphrodite

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.

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. Eventually, Hephaestus found out about Aphrodite’s promiscuity from Helios, the all-seeing Sun, and planned a trap for them during one of their trysts. While Aphrodite and Ares lay together in bed, Hephaestus 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 Hephaestus to free them in return for a guarantee that Ares would pay the adulterer's fine. Hephaestus states in the Odyssey that he would return Aphrodite to her father and demand back his bride price: this is the one episode that links them.

In Homer's Iliad the consort of Hephaestus is a lesser Aphrodite, Charis "the grace" or Aglaia "the glorious", the youngest of the Graces, as Hesiod calls her. Hephaestus fathered several children with mortals and immortals alike. One of those children was the robber Periphetes. With Thalia, Hephaestus was sometimes considered the father of the Palici.

The Thebans told that the union of Ares and Aphrodite produced Harmonia, as lovely as a second Aphrodite. But of her union with Hephaestus, there was no issue, unless Virgil was serious when he said that Eros was their child. Later authors might explain this statement when they say the love-god was sired by Ares but passed off to Hephaestus as his own son.

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. One of the three Lemnian tribes also called themselves Hephaestion and claimed direct descent from the god. He had comparatively few epithets. One was Hephaestus Aetnaeus, owing to his workshop supposedly being located below Mount Aetna.

The minor planet 2212 Hephaistos discovered in 1978 by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Chernykh is named in his honor.