This week's #MythologyMonday theme is mirrors. #Aphrodite is often depicted with a mirror, so much so that a stylised mirror became the symbol of the planet #Venus and of the element copper in #alchemy. Copper is associated with Aphrodite through the island of #Cyprus, one of her major cult centres where she is said to have first stepped foot after her birth in the sea. Cyprus was famous in antiquity for its copper ore deposits.
Hephaistos (the personification of fire) arrives on #Lemnos from the sky, as it would through a burning mirror. He is weak, within an inch of his life, but the people of Lemnos care for him and kindle the weak little flame until it grows strong enough to craft the most beautiful things.
Read more about #Hephaistos in my article on gods of fire:
This week's #MythologyMonday theme is fire and there are two major Greek gods associated with fire: #Hestia, goddess of the hearth, and #Hephaistos, god of smiths.
They represent #fire in two different forms: the sacrificial flame of the hearth as the sacred centre of domestic life and the flame of Hephaistos, source of all arts, and fuel of the funeral pyre. But both could be invoked for the cooking of sacrificial meat or a good meal:
If it did go out, only sacred fire produced by friction, or by bronze burning mirrors drawing fire from the sun, might be used to rekindle it.
A ritual from #Lemnos, the cult centre of #Hephaistos, has all fires on Lemnos extinguished for nine days until new fire is brought from the island of #Delos:
"And the island of #Lemnos is purified every year for the deed once done to the men on Lemnos by their wives at #Aphrodite's instigation. The fire on Lemnos is extinguished for nine days. A sacred ship from #Delos, however, carries the fire, and if it arrives before the offerings for the dead, it puts in nowhere on Lemnos, but rides at anchor off the headlands out at sea until sailing into the harbor is permitted by divine law."
Heroikos by Lucius Flavius Philostratus, 213–214 CE