In antiquity, the ‘fires of love’ were a common motif, but volcanic fire was a more unusual metaphor for erotic desire. It first appears in Theocritus’ Idyll 2, where Delphis persuades Simaetha that the intensity of his love matches hers by claiming that “often Eros kindles a flame that blazes more than Hephaistos on Lipari” (Ἔρως δ’ ἄρα καὶ Λιπαραίω / πολλάκις Ἁφαίστοιο σέλας φλογερώτερον αἴθει· 133–34). Catullus took up the idea, comparing the double-edged cura given to him by Amathusian Venus to Mount Etna’s fires: he tells his addressee, “[you know] in what manner she scorched me when I burned as much as the Trinacrian crag” (in quo me torruerit genere, / cum tantum arderem quantum Trinacria rupes…, 68b, 52–53). Ovid returns to the comparison in the Remedia amoris (491–92), Sappho’s letter to Phaon (epist. 15, 12), and the Metamorphoses (13, 868–69). This chapter will explore why it held such interest for the author beyond being a hyperbolic expression of desire’s intensity by exploring these examples of the metaphor and related imagery of volcanic fire in erotic contexts. It will consider the horridus qualities of the volcanic environment – aspects that cause fear, anxiety, and even tremors – and the relationships between this place and the inner tumult of characters who ‘erupt’ with desire.