Hephaestus (Divine Smith)
godThe lame god of metalwork and fire who crafted the weapons of the gods and the most wondrous automatons in mythology.
The Myth
Hephaestus was the divine craftsman, the only Olympian who was physically imperfect. Born to Hera alone (in some versions, as revenge for Zeus birthing Athena), he was either thrown from Olympus by Hera for his lameness or by Zeus for taking Hera's side in a quarrel. He fell for nine days and was raised by the sea-nymphs Thetis and Eurynome. His forge lay beneath volcanoes — Etna in Sicily or Lemnos in the Aegean — where he worked with the Cyclopes as his assistants. His creations were supernatural: Zeus's thunderbolts, Achilles's shield (depicting the entire cosmos), Pandora (the first woman, moulded from clay), golden handmaidens that could think and speak (the first robots in literature), self-propelling tripods that served the gods, and the unbreakable golden net that trapped Ares and Aphrodite. Despite being lame and mocked, Hephaestus was married to Aphrodite — the most beautiful goddess wed to the least beautiful god, a marriage that fascinated the Greeks as an image of beauty drawn to skill.
Fun Fact
Hephaestus built golden robot women who could think, speak, and serve — the first conception of artificial intelligence.
Words We Inherited
English words and phrases that trace back to this myth:
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