As
mythology shows, Zeus
was not really a faithful person and he understood it as a Divine Providence to
reproduce with as much women as possible and to have as much children
as possible. Probably this explains that his
wife Hera got angry and decided to give birth to Hephaestus without any male
participation.
But somehow she didn't like the
result and kicked the small Hephaestus immediately after his birth down
from the Olympus. The Nymph Thetis found him
and took him home. Quite soon
she understood that he was not a normal child and saw that he had an
unusual ability for craft. Hephaestus loved the fire and knead hot iron
with bare hands (for the Romans he was Vulcanos).
As it is easy to imagine,
Hephaestus
never forgave his mother for what she had done to him. As a revenge he fixed her
a marvelous throne and sent it to the Olympus. What
Hera didn't know was that if she sat in the chair it would be impossible
to stand up again. So it happened and she called
for Hephaestus in despair. After a long treatment of Dionysus with a
lot of wine, he could elicit the secret from Hephaistos
and set Hera free. From this moment Hephaestus was allowed to stay on the top of
the Olympus and even got the beautiful Aphrodite as his wife.
However, Aphrodite
deceived him several times, mostly with the god
of war Ares. One day the god of the sun Helios enlightened the affair and
Hephaestus
convicted them in the act with a thin net out of gold.
But again he got kicked down from the
Olympus for a second time, this time from Zeus. After the strongest fight between Zeus and
Hera, Zeus hang her up and tied some stones to her feet. As Hephaestus saw
this he set Hera free of pain and got punished
by Zeus.
The Beginning / Gods of the Olympus / Smaller Gods
