He became very interested in the coals he saw that were glowing red-hot. His Roman name was Vulcan. It was one of the most ancient Roman shrines. To punish mankind for stealing the secrets of fire, Jupiter ordered the other gods to make a poisoned gift for man. 233, xxiii. It was a celebration that took place on August 23 each year. for giving fire to humans. As a baby, Vulcan was very small and ugly. ; There came a time when Vulcan’s foster mother Thetis went to a dinner party on top of Mount Olympus. sat on the throne, the trap closed and imprisoned her. 36. 22), Pausanias (viii. Thetis became flustered causing Juno to become suspicious and, at last, the queen god discovered the truth: the baby she had once rejected had grown into a talented blacksmith. (Herod. He told the blacksmith God if he released Juno, he could give him a wife. He also made the thrones for the other gods on Mount Olympus. He is often depicted with a blacksmith's hammer. From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, https://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vulcan_(mythology)&oldid=6862025, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. One time he took an ax and split Zeus's skull to Sicily, and had workshops on Olympus and beneath other volcanoes as well. viii. 266-358. Hephaestus was lame and deformed. [5], It has been supposed that his name was not Latin but related to that of the Cretan god Velchanos, a god of nature and the nether world. It never healed properly, and it was noticeable when Vulcan walked. It was Vulcan who made a chain of gold that was unbreakable. As the son of Jupiter, the king of the gods, and Juno, the queen of the gods, Vulcan should have been quite handsome, but baby Vulcan was small and ugly with a red, bawling face. 62.) ", Homer, Iliad 18. Hear, blessed power, to holy rites incline, and all propitious on the incense shine: suppress the rage of fire's unwearied frame, and still preserve our nature's vital flame.". xviii. We shall therefore deem god to be lame, since tradition represents Volcanus so. Other myths say that [60] Deor. From Strabon[78] we know that at Pozzuoli there was an area called in Greek agora' of Hephaistos (Lat. When he tried to court her, she simply told him no. Although Hephaestus afterwards remembered the cruelty of his mother, yet he was always kind and obedient towards her, nay once, while she was quarrelling with Zeus, he took her part, and thereby offended his father so much, that he seized him by the leg, and hulled him down from Olympus. [citation needed] Gérard Capdeville finds a continuity between Cretan Minoan god Velchanos and Etruscan Velchans. [58][irrelevant citation], For three days Juno sat fuming, still trapped in Vulcan's chair; she could not sleep, she could not stretch, she could not eat. The planet Vulcan in the Star Trek franchise, for instance, is specified as orbiting 40 Eridani A. Vulcan is a playable character in Smite, an online MOBA where Gods fight each other. Maiestas and Maia, though, are possibly the same divine person: compare Ovid's explanations of the meaning of the name of the month May in his. iii. Through his identification with the Hephaestus of Greek mythology, he came to be considered as the manufacturer of art, arms, iron, je… This site contains a total of 12 pages describing the god Hephaistos, including general descriptions, mythology, and cult. At the same time a red bull-calf and red boar were added to the sacrifices made on the Vulcanalia, at least in that region of the city.[26]. She was given a gift from the Gods. Vulcan is god of fire, metalworking, stonemasonry, Froge, the art of sculpture and Blacksmith. As the Consualia were mentioned first in connection with the founding of Rome in the episode of the abduction of the Sabine women, as the Volcanalia are celebrated two days later and two days before the Opiconsivia, and as the name Volcanus resembles that of the ancient Cretan god honoured in the Βελχ?νια who presided over initiation rites, the Consualia must have a meaning of integration into the citizenship. The tales about Vulcan, who is sometimes called Mulciber (the smelter), are all based on Greek myths about Hephaestus. 17. The Greeks believed that Hephaestus had a workshop on the volcanic island . According to legend, should Venus be unfaithful, Vulcan would become angry and beat metal that is red-hot with extreme force. An ancient god of fire in Roman mythology, Vulcan is the counterpart of the Greek god Hephaestus, the god of fire and patron of metalwork and crafts. no, the myth says that hera threw him of olympus, rejecting him at birth. His Greek equivalent is the god Hephaestus. It was said that whenever Venus is unfaithful, Vulcan grows angry and beats the red-hot metal with such a force that sparks and smoke rise up from the top of the mountain, to create a volcanic eruption. This page was last changed on 10 March 2020, at 13:27. The flamen Vulcanalis officiated at a sacrifice to the goddess Maia, held every year at the Kalendae of May. [citation needed], The Avro Vulcan (later Hawker Siddeley Vulcan) was a high-altitude strategic bomber operated by the Royal Air Force from 1956 until 1984. Achilles [16] Vulcan became associated like his Greek counterpart with the constructive use of fire in metalworking. [52] Cretan Velchanos is a young god of Mediterranean or Near Eastern origin who has mastership of fire and is the companion of the Great Goddess. : At Ostia the cult of the god, as well as his sacerdos, was the most important of the town. His cult enjoyed a period of popularity in the Roman Empire during the 2nd and 3rd centuries and the god had a temple in Rome on the Aventine.[55]. p. 330; Dict. On that occasion he offered a cup of nectar to his mother and the other gods, who burst out into immoderate laughter on seeing him busily hobbling through Olympus from one god to another, for he was ugly and slow, and, owing to the weakness of his legs, he was held up, when he walked, by artificial supports, skilfully made of gold. The God Prometheus was determined to have given mankind the secrets of fire. Hephaestus was born lame and that Hera threw him from Olympus because she ; He took them back to his home under the water and made a fire with them. His mother was Juno, queen of the Gods. ", Nonnus, Dionysiaca 5. Partially or not quoted (Latin): Statius, Propertius, Valerius Flaccus, et. Rouse) (Greek epic C5th A.D.) : Deor. She would be the Goddess of love and beauty known as Venus. Source: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. According to Plutarch, though, the war in question was that against Cameria, that occurred sixteen years after the foundation of Rome. A further development of the later tradition is, that Hephaestus sprang from the thigh of Hera, and, being for a long time kept in ignorance of his parentage, he at length had recourse to a stratagem, for the purpose of finding it out. sea 136 ff : Vulcan's contribution to the beautiful and foolish Pandora was to mould her from clay and to give her form. On the third day he beat the cooled metal into shapes: bracelets, chains, swords and shields. He is the son of Zeus and Hera. The son of Zeus* and Hera* (or, in some versions, of Hera alone), <>, The crafting of the armour of Akhilleus (Achilles) at the request of the hero's mother Thetis. The story of Aphrodite's faithlessness to her husband, and of the manner in which he surprised her, is exquisitely described in Od. And in support of their master moved his attendants. 24 (trans. Vulcan was among the gods placated after the Great Fire of Rome in AD 64. in love. The child Juno had so forcefully rejected had grown up to become a talented blacksmith. Fire Hephaestus is the god of fire, especially in so far as it manifests itself as a power of physical nature in volcanic districts, and in so far as it is the indispensable means in arts and manufactures, whence fire is called the breath of Hephaestus, and the name of the god is used both by Greek and Roman poets as synonymous with fire. also fashioned thunderbolts for Zeus, armor for the heroes Achilles* and It was five meters higher than the Comitium[68] and from it the kings and the magistrates of the beginnings of the republic addressed the people, before the building of the rostra. The Minoan god's identity would be that of a young deity, master of fire and companion of the Great Goddess. When she attended the party, she wore a stunning necklace made with sapphires and silver. These stirred nimbly in support of their master. from Olympus* for taking Hera's side in a quarrel with Zeus and that § 5; Hygin. Take your favorite fandoms with you and never miss a beat. When she [7] Meid and Vasily Abaev have proposed on their side a matching theonym in the Ossetic legendary smith of the Nart saga Kurd-Alä-Wärgon ("the Alan smith Wärgon"), and postulated an original PIE smith god named *wl̩kānos. and a Caeretan Black Figure Vase Painting C6th B.C. It was said to have been built during the Roman Kingdom by Titus Tatius, the Sabine co-king, in the eighth century BC. His Greek equivalent is Hephaestus. (Il. After the discovery of cremation tombs in the Forum the latter scholar maintained that the Volcanal was originally the site where corpses were cremated. According to Roman tradititon the sanctuary had been dedicated by Romulus. 3. The rock shows signs of damages and repairs. While the festivals of July dealt with untamed nature (woods) and waters (superficial waters the Neptunalia and underground waters the Furrinalia) at a time of danger caused by their relative deficiency, those of August were devoted to the results of human endeavour on nature with the storing of harvested grain (Consualia) and their relationship to human society and regality (Opiconsivia) which at that time were at risk and required protection from the dangers of the excessive strength of the two elements of fire (Vulcanalia) and wind (Vulturnalia) reinforced by dryness. "To Hephaistos (Hephaestus), Fumigation from Frankincense and Manna. minor goddess of nature, usually represented as young and beautiful, invincible His cult is located outside the boundaries of the original city to avoid the risk of fires caused by the god in the city itself. Flacc. [67], The area Volcani was probably a locus substructus. 41; Callim. During the best period of Grecian art, he was represented as a vigorous man with a beard, and is characterised by his hammer or some other instrument, his oval cap, and the chiton, which leaves the right shoulder and arm uncovered. Her husband Jupiter contacted Vulcan. Vulcan’s father Jupiter scolded him for catching the couple in the net. 454, Eclog. Otherwise Earth would be symbolised in the tree and Heaven in the double axe of the god. <>, The crafting of Pandora, the first woman, at the command of Zeus. He Vulcan became very angry. [20] This habit might reflect a theological connection between Vulcan and the divinized Sun. [80], The word volcano is derived from the name of Vulcano, a volcanic island in the Aeolian Islands of Italy whose name in turn originates from Vulcan. He then called the other gods so In the Norwegian translation of the Harry Potter books, Dumbledore's Phoenix is named Vulcan. He even made slave-girls of gold to wait on him and do his bidding. ; (Apollon. Later, Thetis left her underwater grotto to attend a dinner party on Mount Olympus wearing a beautiful necklace of silver and sapphires, which Vulcan had made for her. § 3); on the chest of Cypselus, giving to Thetis the armour for Achilles (v. 19. Hephaestus became lame as a result of the fall. The name "Vulcan" has been used for various other fictional planets, in and out of the Solar System, that do not correspond to the hypothetical planet Vulcan, theorized by Urbain Le Verrier shortly after his discovery of Neptune to orbit the Sun closer in than Mercury.