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
The God Beneath the Sea second time after reproaching Zeus. In Part I, "The Making of the Gods", Thetis and Eurynome tell Hephaestus stories of the Titans and Olympians, in hopes of quelling his restless nature. They begin with the myths of the Titans emerging from Chaos, then tell of the birth of the Cyclopes and Hecatonchires, and the overthrowal of Uranus by his son Cronus. They tell of Cronus' ascension to the throne with his queen Rhea, and his descent to madness after the Furies torment him nightly with prophecies that he, like his father, would be overthrown by his son. Hephaestus grows uglier