Caeculus

In Roman tradition Caeculus is said to have been miraculously conceived when a spark from the hearth landed on a woman who was sitting by the fire. At his birth he was exposed near the temple of Jupiter and found lying by a hearth by a group of girls; he was reared by his maternal uncles, the divine twin brothers called the Depidii (or Digidii). As an adult he gathered peers and founded the city of Praeneste. He is presented in literary sources as a son of the god Vulcan, linking his lineage and the city's origin to divine fire.

Sources report a specific ocular trait: smoke from fire in the narrative left his eyes smaller than normal, which underlies his name Caeculus (from Latin caecus, 'blind', glossed as 'little blind boy'). Beyond this report of reduced eyes the surviving accounts supply no extended physical description.

Tradition attributes to Caeculus unusual relations to fire: he is reported to have been unharmed by a fire set when his ancestry was questioned and is said to have shown the power to start and extinguish a fire at will. He functions socially as a community founder and leader—raised among shepherds, gathering young men of his age, and establishing the city of Praeneste. These attributes mark him as a semi-divine founder tied to Vulcan and hearth-fire imagery in Roman local religion and legend.