VULCAN. - Behind the forger's figure of the conventional Hellenistic Hephaistos type, in the Roman V. one discerns the traces of an archaic Roman deity.
In fact, his cult in Rome is very ancient: his festival, the Volcanalia, appears in the oldest calendar (Aug. 23); he had his own particular priest (flamen Volcanalis) since the time of the oldest Roman priestly organization; his sacred open enclosure, the Volcanal, was considered as founded by Romulus. His connections with fire seem very ancient; animals were sacrificed to him, particularly fish, thrown alive into the fire. In myths of clearly Italic character he appears as a divine progenitor present in the hearth (Servius Tullius) or in any case in the fire (Ceculus, founder of Palestrina); he also appears as the father of Cacus, known from Roman poetry as a monster vomiting fire, but more anciently corresponding as the male counterpart of the goddess Caca, whose connections with fire, in the cult, are documented. In the collective lectisternium of 217 B.C., V. forms a pair with Vesta. Other elements of his cult underline a connection with the sun: thus the open place of worship in which sacred objects struck by lightning were exposed to the rays of the sun. In the festival Volcanalia, which was so popular as to survive into the full Christian era, there was the custom, as documented precisely by a Christian author, Paulinus of Nola, of spreading out clothes in honor of the Sun. Another sanctuary of V., mentioned from 214 B.C. onward, was located in the Circus Flaminius, outside the pomerium, as was, in relation to the Palatine pomerium, the Volcanal itself. To V. is linked the cult of the goddess Maia (eponym of the month maius, May?) to whom the flamen Volcanalis presented a sacrifice on the 1st of May. The name of V. seems to be related to a Cretan appellation, velchanos, of Zeus.
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Angelo Brelich