The Roman equivalent of the Greek craftsman Hephaestus in Pandora’s creation story is Vulcan.
Vulcan was the Roman god of fire, metalworking, furnaces, and craftsmanship. Greek and Roman writers often identified their gods across cultures, so Hephaestus became Vulcan in Roman tradition. This correspondence is especially relevant when comparing retellings of Pandora’s creation.
In the Greek story, Hephaestus fashions Pandora at Zeus’s command. A Romanized version would assign that artisan’s role to Vulcan, although the most influential surviving account of Pandora comes from Greek literature rather than a full Roman retelling.
Vulcan should not be confused with Mars, the Roman god of war, or Mercury, the messenger god. His name survives in words connected with volcanic fire and metalworking. The planet Vulcan, once proposed by some nineteenth-century astronomers, was hypothetical and is unrelated to the mythological god’s role in Pandora’s story.