Hephaestus make love to Athena: at the moment of climax she pushes him aside, and his semen falls to the earth where it impregnates Gaia." Hephaestus was associated by Greek colonists in southern Italy with the volcano gods Adranus (of Mount Etna) and Vulcanus of the Lipari islands. The first-century sage Apollonius of Tyana is said to have observed, "there are many other mountains all over the earth that are on fire, and yet we should never be done with it if we assigned to them giants and gods like Hephaestus". In the Trojan war, Hephaestus sided with the Greeks, but
Hephaestus was also worshiped by the Trojans and saved one of their men from being killed by Diomedes. Hephaestus’ favourite place in the mortal world was the island of Lemnos, where he liked to dwell among the Sintians, but he also frequented other volcanic islands such as Lipara, Hiera, Imbros and Sicily, which were called his abodes or workshops. The epithets and surnames by which Hephaestus is known by the poets generally allude to his skill in the plastic arts or to his figure or lameness. The Greeks frequently placed small dwarf-like statues of Hephaestus near their hearths, and these figures