HYMN TO HEPHAESTUS

THE fact that Hephaestus and Athena were joined in a common cult at Athens, and (as far as is known) in no other Greek city, gives colour to Baumeister's suggestion that this hymn is Athenian. The two deities were worshipped together as patrons of all arts and crafts; the shops of braziers and ironmongers were near the temple of Hephaestus, in which stood a statue of Athena ( Paus.i. 14. 6), and the festival called Chalceia was sacred to both (see Frazer l.c., Harrison M. M. A. A. 119 f.; Preller-Robert i.^{1} p. 180 and 209). According to Plato (Critias 109 C), Athena and Hephaestus, φιλοσοφίᾳ φιλοτεχνίᾳ τε ἐπὶ τὰ αὐτὰ ἐλθόντες, became joint patrons of Attica; cf. Solon fr. 13 (quoted on 5) and other references in Farnell Cults i. p. 409 f. Athena was Ἐργάνη, the Worker; but in a wider sense she was the giver of all civilization; Hephaestus, the Fire-god and the divine smith, gave men the skill (κλυτόμητιν 1, κλυτοτέχνην 5) which differentiated them from wild beasts. Aeschylus, indeed, attributes these gifts of civilization to Prometheus; but the importance of the Titan was mainly mythological; in practical cult Hephaestus appropriated most of the credit (see Sikes and Willson on P. V. p. xix f.).

But this aspect of Athena and Hephaestus was by no means exclusively Athena Attic. was the patron of arts in Homer (Il. 5.61 , υ 78), and under titles such as Ἐργάνη, Καλλίεργος, and Μαχανῖτις, she was worshipped in many parts of Greece (Farnell Cults i. p. 314 f.). In Hesiod she instructs Pandora, the creation of Hephaestus, in weaving ( Op.60 f.); see further h. Aphr. 12 f. We may therefore fairly look for Epic rather than Athenian influence in the mythology of this hymn.

a)*glaa\ e)/rga here = τέχνας generally; cf. h. Aphr. 11 and 15.