VULCAN

In Mythology, the Latin name for the divinity called by the Greeks Hephaestus, — the god who presided over the working of metals. He was also called Mulciber. He was the son of Jupiter who, incensed at his interference on the part of his mother Juno, cast him out of heaven: he fell in the isle of Lemnos, and broke his leg in the fall. His feats as the patron of armourers and workers in metal, his marriage with Venus, and her infidelities, form the subjects of many of the best known cla ical stories. (See Bryant, Anc. Myth. vi. 115.) There is about the character of Vulcan much of the usual confusion belonging to Greek mythology. Cicero mentions three Vulcans, besides the son of Jupiter: one, the child of Uranus; another, of Nilus, who reigned in Egypt; a third, of Maenalius. A peculiarity attending the worship of Vulcan was, that the victims were wholly consumed, in reference to his character as God of Fire. In sculpture, he is represented as bearded, with a hammer and pincers, and a pointed cap. He does not appear lame, as represented by the poets. Cicero, however, praises the sculptor Alcamenes for making his lamene observable without amounting to deformity. The description of his cavern in the Isle of Vulcan, or Hiera, in the 8th Book of the JEneid, is among the best known pa ages in cla ical poetry. [s. 1324]