#Hephaestus

God of fire and the forge; smith of the gods.

A young woman with loose auburn hair, in a blue gown under a rose-red mantle with a jewelled clasp, rests her right hand on the ornamented lid of a great lidded ceramic jar at the left — a satyr-mask moulded on its swelling belly — as if about to lift it; ivy climbs a broken pillar behind her against a stormy blue sky.

Pandora, the First Woman

The gods pooled their gifts to build one flawless girl, then handed her to mankind as a punishment; when she lifted the lid of a jar, only Hope stayed behind.

5 minHesiod

An Attic red-figure pelike, the whole black-glazed vessel standing against a plain grey ground, its belly panel bordered by a band of tongues above and running dot-chains at the sides. In the scene the Titaness Rhea, at left in a long pleated chiton and mantle with her hair bound in a fillet, steps forward and holds out in both hands the stone wrapped in swaddling clothes; facing her at right the bearded Kronos, in a himation that leaves one shoulder bare and a soft cap, grips a long sceptre in his trailing hand and raises his other hand to receive the bundle he believes is his newborn son — the swaddled-stone deception that founds the ruling family.

Greek

The Twelve Olympians: The Ruling Family

There is no ancient list of the Twelve. What the oldest poets give us instead is a household with a throne room, a swallowed generation, and a family quarrel that never quite ends.

7 minHesiod

A nude Aphrodite risen waist-deep from a grey-blue sea, wringing the water from the long rope of her hair as she looks aside, a scallop shell adrift on the swell beside her.

Greek

Aphrodite, Goddess of Love

Born from sea-foam and the severed flesh of Heaven, the goddess whose power bent gods and beasts alike, and whom only three could resist.

5 minHesiod