Hephaestus VS Vulcan

Hephaestus VS Vulcan

Hephaestus is known as the Greek god of the blacksmith. Whereas Vulcan is known as the roman god of fire.  These are two very similar gods that share an almost identical story. Hephaestus only had one parent, Hera. Whereas Vulcan was thought to be son of Jupiter and Juno. Unfortunately, both were born ugly and were rejected at sight. Although Hephaestus was said to be born with lame-foot and Vulcan was said to have broken both his feet due to being thrown off Mount Olympus. However, both suffered the same fate, a permanent limp. And both grew up on Earth and were skilful blacksmith.

The personalities of both gods differ a lot. Vulcan is seen as a destructive and angrier god whereas Hephaestus is seen as a kind more compassionate god. Vulcan although often had jealousy of the other gods as he was not beautiful. Hephaestus on the other hand made nice gifts and ornaments for the other gods.

Hephaestus was eventually married to Aphrodite and Vulcan was married to Venus, (The Roman equivalent of Aphrodite.) The ironic marriage of the Ugliest god and the most beautiful god had a very ugly story behind it.

When Venus started an affair with Mars after Vulcan had married her. Vulcan, according to the romans got very angry. The romans believed this caused the first eruption of Mount Vesuvius, also known as Pompeii. Hephaestus on the other hand is did not flare his anger that much. He was a more forgiving God in the eyes of the Greek.

Hephaestus shared the art of fire with humans, but Zeus forced him to also punish the humans for using fire. He then created Pandora’s box for the humans. This was a box full of the bad qualities in humans. Vulcan also ended up sharing the god of fire with the humans but required a little persuasion from Prometheus. He too was later forced to create Pandora’s box by Zeus. In my opinion Hephaestus was truly a better god through his personality by being helpful and forgiving to the other gods and humans. His ugliness didn’t stand in the way of his generosity, he is a truly remarkable God.