Written by Arianna North Castell
Ah, a cheating scandal. A guilty pleasure for the masses—we settle in to watch our favourite reality TV show and gasp over the salacious details. Unfortunately, there was no such media in Ancient Greece. We get no shocking confessionals from Hera, who would tell us her reaction to her husband transforming into a cow to sleep with another woman. Wait—was it an eagle or a swan? Oh, that’s right. It was all three.
While it would be scintillating to watch a twenty-five-part season that barely covers a week of Zeus’ transgressions (hyperbolic, yes, but the man really got around), I thought for this episode of the Real Housewives of Mount Olympus, we would focus on a scandal. The affair that made The Daily Olympian headlines. Zeus cheating was another Tuesday. Hephaestus’ dramatic exposé was something else entirely.
A Hot New Bombshell enters the Villa
So first, a little context. Aphrodite was a late addition to the Olympian clan. She had no parents—unless you count Ouranous’ severed testicles and some sea foam. Her non-traditional gestation took a minute, and by the time she rocked up on Olympus the Titans were long gone and Zeus was in power. When she appeared, one thing was clear—she was an absolute babe. All of the Olympians needed a second to pick their jaws up off the floor and wipe their drool. Zeus was already halfway through a ‘So… you come here often?’ before he remembered that his wife, Hera, was standing beside him. Hera was less than impressed. She had noticed that all the male Olympians were looking around at each other as competition in the Who Gets to Bag the Hottie Olympics. So, she welcomed Aphrodite into the family by offering one of her sons in marriage. Ares stepped up. He was buff and arrogant—just Aphrodite’s type. Unfortunately for him, Hera had another son in mind: Hephaestus, the blacksmith god. Now, he wasn’t exactly a looker. He had been thrown off Mount Olympus twice, which does not do wonders for the complexion—he was disfigured and crippled. Hera’s thinking was that no-one would be jealous of her son, because he was just that ugly. Mother of the Year award goes to Hera yet again (the first time she got it was for throwing Hephaestus off Mount Olympus in the first place).
How to Get Your Brother’s Wife (Incest Included)
So, Aphrodite and Hephaestus married. The Daily Olympian gives them a double page feature, and Aphrodite’s dress dominates the trend cycle for a couple centuries. Happily ever after, right? Not even in the Olympian vocabulary. Ares was not happy. He believed in his Divine Right to the Hottie, and he was set on getting her. So, he wooed Aphrodite. Romantic carriage rides with his fire breathing horses, dinners overlooking bloody battlefields, the whole nine yards. Aphrodite fell for him—maybe it’s the daddy issues (after all, Ouranous’ chopped genitals never came to her recitals), or maybe she just liked his abs. Either way, it was the start of a love affair.
Unfortunately for Aphrodite and Ares, neither of them were gods of wisdom or discretion. So not only were they doing it, but they were doing it everywhere—in Hephaestus’ bed, even in the middle of his great hall when he was away.
One god caught them: Helios. This was unfortunate, because Helios’ entire job was pulling the sun across the sky. Which meant he had a perfect view of absolutely everything happening below—whether he wanted it or not. And what he saw was Aphrodite and Ares conducting their affair with the subtlety of a teepee poking out of a toga—even though Helios swore he wasn’t looking. Either way, he felt bad for Hephaestus. He knew how hard Hephaestus tried to be a good husband. He would tinker little gifts for Aphrodite, bring flowers, and was an active listener when she talked about how she forced a girl to fall in love with her own father (gross but true). So, Helios did the decent thing and let Hephaestus know.
Hephaestus Demonstrates Conflict Resolution (not Couples’ Therapy Approved)
So, Hephaestus had been made the cuckold, and he was not going to take it lying down (that had been Ares’ job). Seeing as marriage counselling was not an option (Hera, the goddess of marriage, liked to therapise everyone, but she was hardly the authority on infidelity), Hephaestus settled on some good old-fashioned Olympian revenge.
What do you do when you’ve been cheated on? Hephaestus was stuck. Keying their chariots seemed like a weak reaction. Nope. This called for the Ancient Greek equivalent of sending screenshots into the group chat. He went to his forge and came up with a plan. He set on creating a string that was as strong and heavy as ten pounds of iron, but so thin and delicate that it was nearly invisible. Being the divine god of metalwork, this was an easy task. Then he wove the translucent thread into a net. He went home and laid the net over his bed. The stage was set.
When Aphrodite got home from a long day of making a stepmother fall in love with her stepson (also gross but true) Hephaestus made out like he was leaving. He made up an excuse about attending a blacksmith convention and told her not to wait up. Something about a keynote on hinge mechanisms and autograph requests from eager apprentices. Aphrodite had stopped listening somewhere around ‘convention’. As soon as he left, Aphrodite sent a well-crafted ‘U up?’ message to Ares—and it was on.
Now, details are not needed for what happened next. As the great bard once put it, they got jiggy with it. Then, when they were on the bed (toga-less, if you get what I mean), the net released and fell on them. It was so heavy that it froze them into place. So, they were completely stuck, unable to move, midway through their cardio.
Then Hephaestus walked in, and according to historians, coined the phrase ‘Well, well, well.’ Aphrodite and Ares, suddenly feeling the breeze in unfamiliar places and very interested in the ceiling, were unable to defend themselves. Not that there was anything they could say. The evidence was right there, crumpling the A+H 4EVA personalised sheets that Hephaestus had made.
When Hephaestus saw them there, in his own bed, he realised just him humiliating them was not enough. So, he gathered the rest of the Olympians for the live show. The goddesses refused to look—they were girl’s girls and felt for Aphrodite. The gods, on the other hand, had their fun. They made jokes, compared certain anatomical features to pickles, and drew moustaches on them in permanent marker—the male Olympians had clearly peaked emotionally at about fourteen. Eventually, after making sure they had milked every joke that the situation so generously allowed, they released them, and Aphrodite and Ares shot out of there with a Road Runner-like ping. It was, by all accounts, the most popular event Olympus had hosted in years.
So, Aphrodite and Hephaestus divorced— ‘irreconcilable differences’ was the understatement of the century. The tabloids were plastered with the headlines ‘NET-GATE: OLYMPUS SCANDALISED’ and ‘LOVE GODDESS TRADES BLACKSMITH FOR A SMALLER ANVIL.’ Some undignified selfies that Hermes had snapped while they were trapped began circulating immediately (I won’t go into details, but there were filters involved). Hermes later insisted they were taken for ‘historical purposes.’ The gossip was relentless— there were think pieces, podcasts, even merch with the infamous selfies for a couple drachma. The story dominated the papers until about twenty-four hours later, when Zeus managed to cheat on Hera again—this time in the form of a golden shower (a literal one, for those of you with your minds in the gutter). Say what you will, but Zeus does get points for creativity. And even though Aphrodite and Hephaestus’ marriage was kaput, the Olympians’ gift for infidelity certainly kept on giving.
Featured image credit: “Ares & Aphrodite” by virtusincertus is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Retrospect Journal 