The fellow riding his ass here is the gods' blacksmith, inventor and all-around handyman. He is Hephaestos (spelled "backwards" from right to left as Greek of this period - early 6th c BC- often was), who was cuckolded and made a laughing stock among the other gods by his wife Aphrodite when she took on Ares as a lover. Its comical and satirical intent is enhanced and underlined by its ithyphallic details: his donkey's long dong and the equally long one on his servant, who totes a wineskin. Like a satyr, his phallic equipment is prodigious, but his is bigger, for he is a silen or silenos, a horse-man (note the long tail) rather than just a goat-man or satyr. Behind him are two more silens (mainly out of sight here, but note the plural "silenoi" written overhead). One tootles on a diaulos, a double pipe or flute, which you can just make out. Behind him a third silen carries a nymph in his arms, and behind them parade two more nymphs, one playing a pair of cymbals. It all adds up to a drunken Dionysiac procession.



After being banished by the other gods, after six years in exile Hephaestus now returns in triumph to Olympos, where the other gods, seated on their thrones, await him.

Why was he thrown out in the first place? It's a long, sad story. His mother was Hera, the mother of the gods, but when he was born and she saw he was puny, sickly, swarthy and and ugly, she grabbed him by the leg and tossed him out of Olympos and into the sea. He was saved, though, by the sea deities Eurynome and Thetis, in whose seaside grotto, surrounded and protected by Oceanus, he lived for nine years, using his skills as a blacksmith to make them beautiful things of iron, bronze, silver and gold.

For Thetis he made the famous golden armor for her son, Achilles, that protected him in his battles against the Trojans until an arrow struck him in his only vulnerable spot, his Achilles heel. He also made a golden throne or chair for his mother Hera. But that was a magic chair into which Helphaestos had built invisible restraints. Once she sat down in it she couldn't get out.

Apart from that, Hephaestus was surprisingly nice to his mother. In her quarrels with her husband Zeus, he would side with her, but this finally so enraged Zeus that he seized him by the other leg and hurled him from Olympos. All day long he fell, until he landed on the island of Lemnos, where the natives took him in. Now with both legs and hips broken, he made himself a pair of golden crutches, and hobbled around on them. If you look closely at his foot in the stirrup, you may find his feet to be badly twisted backwards.

Now back to that golden throne on whch Hephaestos had imprisoned Hera. All the gods begged him to come and release her, but he absolutely refused. So they tried force. They sent the war god Ares to drag him up, but even he was beaten off. How, I do not know. Next they sent the wine god Dionysos, who got Hephaestos so drunk that he finally agreed to come and free his mother. And that is how we see him on the Francois vase: still partying while being led back into the company of the gods by Dionysos (who is quite smashed up on the vase, I'm afraid), and followed by two silens, one toting a huge wineskin to keep him swozzled, a second blowing his flute, and a third carrying a nymph, followed by two more nymphs, one playing the cymbals.

On the left, awaiting Hephaestos on Olympos, are the gods, most of them seated on their thrones. Aphrodite stands to greet him but points at him with one hand while clutching her belly with the other - apparently disgusted at the sight of this ridiculous old fool, this drunken cripple, who is to be her huaband. Wearing a white chiton, Zeus sits behind her, on a throne covered with tapestries, its back topped by a volute like those on our vase. Behind or beside Zeus sits Hera, with her feet on a footstool, and the back of her throne ending in a swan's head.



Ares and Athena also await him, as we see in this detail. As Ares sits and sulks in his armor on a stone block, dejected and ashamed, Athena mocks him, not only for failing to bring Hephaestos back by force, but now Ares' lovely lover, Aphrodite, will be given to Hephaistos as a bride to reward him for returning to Olympos to free his mother from the magic chair. Behind Ares in this detail you can make out the letters TEMIS, indicating Artemis is next, gesturing with her hand. Behind her are fragments of two male gods, one with a trident who may be Poseidon, and one with a caduceus who may be Hermes. Hephaestos, by the way, was not the only god rewarded by a place in Olympos. Dionysos, who managed to get him there, was also rewarded by a place in that august assembly.