HEPHÆSTUS

   called Vulcan by the Romans, the Greek god of fire, or of labour in the element of fire, the son of Zeus and Hera, represented as ill-shapen, lame, and ungainly, so much so as to be an object of ridicule to the rest of the pantheon, but he was indispensable to the dynasty, and to none more than his father and mother, who were often unkind to him; he had his smithy in Olympus in the vicinity of the gods, and the marvellous creations of his art were shaped on an anvil, the hammer of which was plied by 20 bellows that worked at his bidding; in later traditions he had his workshop elsewhere, and the Cyclops for his servants, employed in manufacturing thunderbolts for Zeus; he was wedded to Aphrodité, whom he caught playing false with Ares, and whom he trapped along with him in a net a spectacle to all the upper deities.