2/26 Hephaestus, or were there ancient robots?

Lecture Story

Who is Talos?

• frightening giant that patrols the island of Creek 3x a day

• any sailors must be careful not to cross path with him

• he is made entirely of metal and is crafted by Hephaestus

• he is powered by a furnace in his chest, and can burn any ships with his chest

• he is alive and can die

• has the form of blood that gods have flowing through his metal parts

• part-machine and living thing → self-moving thing called an automata

Origins and character

Who is Hephaestus? And how is he associated with humans?

• the only god who is physically disabled (humans are associated with disabilities)

• the only god who has a job and has his own workshop and spends his day working as a worker (human is associated with the struggle of working)

• only god who got kicked out of Olympos, and worked his way back in

Origins and character

What are his responsibilities?

• mechanics, engineering, invention, and craftsmanship

• god of engineers

Origins and character

Who is his equivalent? Is it an accurate match?

• Vulcan, an indigenous Italian god of fire

• not an accurate match

• Hephaestus is in cruelly funny stories in Greek mythology, while Vulcan is one of the elemental gods of fire in Roman myths

Origins and character

Who are Hephaestus’ parents? Who are the three legitimate children?

Hera and Zeus

• Hephaestus

• Hebe

• Ares

Origins and character

what is the mythic variant of Hephaestus’ existence?

• hera gave birth to Hephaestus herself, just like how Zeus gave birth to Athena on his own

• Hera was angry that Athena came out so well, and hers (Hephaestus) didn’t

Origins and character

How was Hephaestus rejected? Where did he go and what happened to him?

Hera’s reaction to his birth

• she immediately saw her child with a disability, and kicks him out of Olympus

• he fell all the way down to the sea

• he got rescued by Thetis and is raised by her in her home

• he grows quickly to his fixed age

• he is an incredible craftsperson who showers his foster mom with gifts

Origins and character

Hephaestus being rejected and kicked out of Olympus is like what in reality?

• infant exposure

  • if your baby was born and you could not raise it for whatever reason (religious or economic reasons), then you would not raise the baby and expose the baby: put it somewhere in the street and if anyone found the baby, they can raise them to be enslaved

  • normal in Greek and Roman life

Origins and character

What is Hephaestus’ disability? How is this compensated?

• epithet for Hephaestus is god “with bent feet”

  • birth defect and Greeks are able to correct this, but Hephaestus was never fixed

• mythic “compensation” for their disability

  • skills: Hephaestus’ genius engineering for his craftsmanship

The return of Hephaestus

What does he do?

• comes up with a plan because he knows Hera is his legitimate mom and knows what she did to him at birth

• he uses his crafts to get Hera’s attention but also take revenge

• he makes a golden throne that can float in the air, and it is somehow given to Hera as a gift

• once Hera sits on the throne, bars arise from the throne and strapped her in automatically

• she is suspended in air since the throne can float

The return of Hephaestus

what do the other gods do?

• they try to persuade him to come back because Hephaestus is the only one who can get Hera out of the throne

• Ares said he will go down to the sea and pick him up to Olympos, but Hephaestus fended him off

• Dionysos then went down, got him drunk, and persuaded him through a negotiation

  • Hephaestus would agree to go back and free Hera if he can marry one of the goddesses

The return of Hephaestus

who did Hephaestus marry?

• Athena (unsuccessful) → most inappropriate choice possible because Athena was one of the three virgin goddesses

• Aphrodite (mythic gap) → whoever arranged this bizarre pairing is unknown

The return of Hephaestus

What is the theme of this story?

Outsiders help each other

Hephaestus’ automata

what is an automata?

• machines that could move by itself

  • there was an ancient fascination with artificial life

Hephaestus’ automata

what is the difference between divine automation and biotechne?

divine automation

• statue that is touched by a god and comes to life (magic/supernatural)

biotechne

• mixture of metal and living spirit → blurs the line of something that is crafted and alive

Hephaestus’ automata

what are examples of automaton that Hephaestus made?

• doors of Olympus opens automatically

• tables roll to you automatically if you need to put something down

• “golden girls” are girls made of gold, and if Hephaestus needs something, they automatically come to him

Hephaestus’ automata

why is this such a big theme?

• all the things that automata would do are things that the enslaved would do

• Greeks felt endangered that their enslaved people could kill them in hatred, and they fantasized of robots doing enslaved tasks for them

Talos

who made it and who did they give it to?

Hephaestus made it as a mechanized security guard to police the borders of Creek, and he gave it to the king of Creek

Talos

how does Talos die?

• jason and medea was sailing to Creek, and Jason relies on his girlfriend, Medea, a lot with their issues

• jason asks her how they’re going to deal with Talos

• jason knows his weak spot → the ankle because the plug is there

• Meda uses witchcraft that makes Talos very dizzy, and Talos falls where the plug opens and the ichor (divine form of blood) flows out

Talos

what is the relation between myth and science?

• Hephaestus myth = dreams of future tech, which is another theory besides the enslaved one

• myth is the world of what-if

• birth of scientific ideas

  • dreaming of things that later came to be (such as automatic doors that opened into Olympus became true later on in reality)