Ancient Greek architecture of marriage; Athena, goddess of wisdom; Poseidon, god of the sea; Demeter, goddess of the harvest; Apollo, god of the sun, law, healing, plague, reason, music and poetry; Artemis, goddess of the moon, the hunt and the wilderness; Aphrodite, goddess of love; Ares, God of war; Hermes, god of commerce and travelers, Hephaestus, god of fire and metalwork, and Dionysus, god of wine and fruit-bearing plants. Worship, like many other activities, was done in community, in the open. However, by 600 BC, the gods were often represented by large statues and it was necessary to provide a building in which
Hephaestus was present at the birth of Athena and wields the axe with which he split Zeus' head to free her. In the latter account, Hephaestus is there represented as older than Athena, so the mythology of Hephaestus is inconsistent in this respect. In one branch of Greek mythology, Hera ejected Hephaestus from the heavens because he was "shrivelled of foot". He fell into the ocean and was raised by Thetis (mother of Achilles and one of the 50 Nereids) and the Oceanid Eurynome. In another account, Hephaestus, attempting to rescue his mother from Zeus' advances, was flung down from the