VULCAN, the old Roman fire-god, answering to the Greek Hephaestus (q.v.), with whom he was confounded by the ancients. The etymology of the name is uncertain: it has been proposed to derive it from the root var, “warm”; ulka in Sanscrit is a firebrand. How closely Vulcan was identified with the fire, regarded as a person, appears from the stories of the birth of Caeculus and Servius Tullius, both of whom were called sons of Vulcan, and were supposed to have been conceived by virgins who had been impregnated by sparks of fire from the hearth. At Rome his temple was in the Campus Martius outside the city walls. But there was also a place sacred to him in the comitium. It was not a temple, but only a raised area, called the Volcanal. It was said to have been founded by Romulus, and a lotus tree in it was thought to be as old as the city. Statues of persons who or whose statues had been struck by lightning were sometimes set up in the Volcanal. There was a festival of Vulcan called the Volcanalia on August 23d, in which the people threw animals into the fire instead of themselves. On the 7th of June there was a fishermen’s festival, with games, held under the superintendence of the “praetor urbanus,” and the fish were brought to the Volcanal and sacrificed to the god instead of human victims. Another festival of Vulcan was the Tubilustria, or purification of trumpets, on May 23d, Vulcan being regarded as the father of trumpets. At Ostia there was a festival of Vulcan (Volcanalia) presided over by a “praetor sacris Volcani faciundis,” and at Ostia there were also a temple and a pontifex of Vulcan. At Rome there was a “flamen” of Vulcan, who sacrificed to Maia, wife of Vulcan, on the 1st of May. According to others the name of Vulcan’s wife was Majesta.

VULCANO. See Lipari Islands, vol. xiv. p. 682.