Prometheus - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...

, Prometheus (Greek Προμηθεύς, "forethought") is a Titan

Titan (mythology)

In Greek mythology, the Titans were a race of powerful deities, descendants of Gaia and Uranus, that ruled during the legendary Golden Age....

, the son of Iapetus

Iapetus (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Iapetus , also Iapetos or Japetus , was a Titan, the son of Uranus and Gaia, and father of Atlas, Prometheus, Epimetheus, and Menoetius and through Prometheus, Epimetheus and Atlas an ancestor of the human race...

and Themis

Themis

Themis is an ancient Greek Titaness. She is described as "of good counsel", and is the embodiment of divine order, law, and custom. Themis means "divine law" rather than human ordinance, literally "that which is put in place", from the verb τίθημι, títhēmi, "to put"...

, and brother to Atlas

Atlas (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Atlas was the primordial Titan who supported the heavens. Although associated with various places, he became commonly identified with the Atlas Mountains in north-west Africa...

, Epimetheus

Epimetheus (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Epimetheus was the brother of Prometheus , a pair of Titans who "acted as representatives of mankind" . They were the inseparable sons of Iapetus, who in other contexts was the father of Atlas...

and Menoetius. He was a champion of mankind, known for his wily intelligence, who stole fire

Fire

Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material in the chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products. Slower oxidative processes like rusting or digestion are not included by this definition....

from Zeus

Zeus

In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...

and gave it to mortals. Zeus then punished him for his crime by having him bound to a rock while a great eagle

Eagle

Eagles are members of the bird family Accipitridae, and belong to several genera which are not necessarily closely related to each other. Most of the more than 60 species occur in Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, just two species can be found in the United States and Canada, nine more in...

ate his liver

Liver

The liver is a vital organ present in vertebrates and some other animals. It has a wide range of functions, including detoxification, protein synthesis, and production of biochemicals necessary for digestion...

every day only to have it grow back to be eaten again the next day. His myth has been treated by a number of ancient sources, in which Prometheus is credited with – or blamed for – playing a pivotal role in the early history of mankind. During the Greek War of Independence

Greek War of Independence

The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution was a successful war of independence waged by the Greek revolutionaries between...

, Prometheus became a figure of hope and inspiration for Greek revolutionaries and their philhellene supporters.

Hesiod

The Prometheus myth first appeared in the late 8th-century BC Greek

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

epic poet Hesiod

Hesiod

Hesiod was a Greek oral poet generally thought by scholars to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. His is the first European poetry in which the poet regards himself as a topic, an individual with a distinctive role to play. Ancient authors credited him and...

's Theogony

Theogony

The Theogony is a poem by Hesiod describing the origins and genealogies of the gods of the ancient Greeks, composed circa 700 BC...

(lines 507–616). He was a son of the Titan

Titan (mythology)

In Greek mythology, the Titans were a race of powerful deities, descendants of Gaia and Uranus, that ruled during the legendary Golden Age....

, Iapetus

Iapetus (mythology)

by Clymene

Clymene

Clymene or Klymenê may refer to*104 Klymene, an asteroid*Clymene dolphin , a dolphin endemic to the Atlantic Ocean*Clymene Moth*In Greek mythology:...

, one of the Oceanids. He was brother to Menoetius, Atlas

Atlas (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Atlas was the primordial Titan who supported the heavens. Although associated with various places, he became commonly identified with the Atlas Mountains in north-west Africa...

, and Epimetheus

Epimetheus (mythology)

. In the Theogony, Hesiod introduces Prometheus as a lowly challenger to Zeus

Zeus

' omniscience and omnipotence. In the trick at Mecone, a sacrificial meal marking the "settling of accounts" between mortals and immortals, Prometheus played a trick against Zeus (545–557). He placed two sacrificial offerings before the Olympian: a selection of beef hidden inside an ox's stomach (nourishment hidden inside a displeasing exterior), and the bull's bones wrapped completely in "glistening fat" (something inedible hidden inside a pleasing exterior). Zeus chose the latter, setting a precedent for future sacrifices; henceforth, humans would keep the meat for themselves and burn the bones wrapped in fat as an offering to the gods. This angered Zeus, who hid fire from humans in retribution. Prometheus in turn stole fire in a giant fennel-stalk

Fennel

Fennel is a plant species in the genus Foeniculum . It is a member of the family Apiaceae . It is a hardy, perennial, umbelliferous herb, with yellow flowers and feathery leaves...

and gave it back to mankind. This further enraged Zeus, who sent Pandora

Pandora

In Greek mythology, Pandora was the first woman. As Hesiod related it, each god helped create her by giving her unique gifts...

, the first woman, to live with men. She was fashioned by Hephaestus

Hephaestus

Hephaestus was a Greek god whose Roman equivalent was Vulcan. He is the son of Zeus and Hera, the King and Queen of the Gods - or else, according to some accounts, of Hera alone. He was the god of technology, blacksmiths, craftsmen, artisans, sculptors, metals, metallurgy, fire and volcanoes...

out of clay and brought to life by the four winds, with all the goddesses of Olympus assembled to adorn her. "From her is the race of women and female kind," Hesiod writes; "of her is the deadly race and tribe of women who live amongst mortal men to their great trouble, no helpmeets in hateful poverty, but only in wealth."

Prometheus, in eternal punishment, is chained to a rock in the Caucasus

Caucasus

The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...

, where his liver is eaten daily by an eagle, only to be regenerated by night, which, by legend, is due to his immortality. Years later, the Greek hero Heracles

Heracles

Heracles ,born Alcaeus or Alcides , was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus...

(Hercules) slays the eagle and frees Prometheus from his chains.

Hesiod revisits the story of Prometheus in the Works and Days

Works and Days

Works and Days is a didactic poem of some 800 verses written by the ancient Greek poet Hesiod around 700 BC. At its center, the Works and Days is a farmer's almanac in which Hesiod instructs his brother Perses in the agricultural arts...

(lines 42–105). Here, the poet expands upon Zeus' reaction to the theft of fire. Not only does Zeus withhold fire from men, but "the means of life," as well (42). Had Prometheus not provoked Zeus' wrath (44–47), "you would easily do work enough in a day to supply you for a full year even without working; soon would you put away your rudder over the smoke, and the fields worked by ox and sturdy mule would run to waste." Hesiod also expands upon the Theogonys story of the first woman, now explicitly called Pandora ("all gifts"). After Prometheus' theft of fire, Zeus sent Pandora in retaliation. Despite Prometheus' warning, Epimetheus accepted this "gift" from the gods. Pandora carried a jar with her, from which were released (91–92) "evils, harsh pain and troublesome diseases which give men death". Pandora shut the lid of the jar too late to contain all the evil plights that escaped, but hope remained in the jar.

Angelo Casanova, Professor of Greek Literature at the University of Florence, finds in Prometheus a reflection of an ancient, pre-Hesiodic trickster

Trickster

In mythology, and in the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a god, goddess, spirit, man, woman, or anthropomorphic animal who plays tricks or otherwise disobeys normal rules and conventional behavior. It is suggested by Hansen that the term "Trickster" was probably first used in this...

-figure, who served to account for the mixture of good and bad in human life, and whose fashioning of men from clay was an Eastern motif familiar in Enuma Elish

Enûma Elish

The is the Babylonian creation myth . It was recovered by Austen Henry Layard in 1849 in the ruined Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh , and published by George Smith in 1876.The Enûma Eliš has about a thousand lines and is recorded in Old Babylonian on seven clay tablets, each holding...

; as an opponent of Zeus he was an analogue of the Titans

Titan (mythology)

In Greek mythology, the Titans were a race of powerful deities, descendants of Gaia and Uranus, that ruled during the legendary Golden Age....

, and like them was punished. As an advocate for humanity he gains semi-divine status at Athens, where the episode in Theogony in which he is liberated is interpreted by Casanova as a post-Hesiodic interpolation.

Aeschylus

Prometheus Bound

Prometheus Bound is an Ancient Greek tragedy. In Antiquity, this drama was attributed to Aeschylus, but is now considered by some scholars to be the work of another hand, perhaps one as late as ca. 415 BC. Despite these doubts of authorship, the play's designation as Aeschylean has remained...

, perhaps the most famous treatment of the myth to be found among the Greek tragedies, is traditionally attributed to the 5th-century BC Greek tragedian Aeschylus

Aeschylus

Aeschylus was the first of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose work has survived, the others being Sophocles and Euripides, and is often described as the father of tragedy. His name derives from the Greek word aiskhos , meaning "shame"...

. At the center of the drama are the results of Prometheus' theft of fire and his current punishment by Zeus

Zeus

; the playwright's dependence on the Hesiodic source material is clear, though Prometheus Bound also includes a number of changes to the received tradition. Before his theft of fire, Prometheus played a decisive role in the Titanomachy

Titanomachy

In Greek mythology, the Titanomachy or War of the Titans , was the ten-year series of battles fought in Thessaly between the two camps of deities long before the existence of mankind: the Titans, based on Mount Othrys, and the Olympians, who would come to reign on Mount Olympus...

, securing victory for Zeus and the other Olympians. Zeus's torture of Prometheus thus becomes a particularly harsh betrayal. The scope and character of Prometheus' transgressions against Zeus are also widened. In addition to giving humankind fire, Prometheus claims to have taught them the arts of civilization, such as writing, mathematics, agriculture, medicine, and science. The Titan's greatest benefaction for humankind seems to have been saving them from complete destruction. In an apparent twist on the myth of the so-called Five Ages of Man

Ages of Man

The Ages of Man are the stages of human existence on the Earth according to Greek mythology. Two classical authors in particular offer accounts of the successive ages of mankind, which tend to progress from an original, long-gone age in which humans enjoyed a nearly divine existence to the current...

found in Hesiod's Works and Days (wherein Cronus and, later, Zeus created and destroyed five successive races of mortal men), Prometheus asserts that Zeus had wanted to obliterate the human race, but that he somehow stopped him. Moreover, Aeschylus anachronistically and artificially injects Io

Io, IO, I/O, i/o, or i.o. may refer to:-An abbreviation:* I.O., a theater in Chicago, Illinois dedicated to improvisational comedy* i.o., "in illo ordine", Latin phrase meaning "respectively"...

, another victim of Zeus' violence and ancestor of Heracles, into Prometheus' story. Finally, just as Aeschylus gave Prometheus a key role in bringing Zeus to power, he also attributed to him secret knowledge that could lead to Zeus' downfall: Prometheus had been told by his mother Gaia of a potential marriage that would produce a son who would overthrow Zeus. Fragmentary evidence indicates that Heracles, as in Hesiod, frees the Titan in the trilogy's second play, Prometheus Unbound

Prometheus Unbound (Aeschylus)

Prometheus Unbound is a play by the Greek poet Aeschylus, concerned with the torments of the Greek mythological figure Prometheus and his suffering at the hands of Zeus...

. It is apparently not until Prometheus reveals this secret of Zeus' potential downfall that the two reconcile in the final play, Prometheus the Fire-Bringer.

Prometheus Bound also includes two mythic innovations of omission. The first is the absence of Pandora

Pandora

In Greek mythology, Pandora was the first woman. As Hesiod related it, each god helped create her by giving her unique gifts...

's story in connection with Prometheus' own. Instead, Aeschylus includes this one oblique allusion to Pandora and her jar that contained Hope (252): "[Prometheus] caused blind hopes to live in the hearts of men." Second, Aeschylus makes no mention of the sacrifice-trick played against Zeus in the Theogony.

These innovations reflect the play's thematic reversal of the Hesiodic myth. In Hesiod, the story of Prometheus (and, by extension, of Pandora) serves to reinforce the theodicy

Theodicy

Theodicy is a theological and philosophical study which attempts to prove God's intrinsic or foundational nature of omnibenevolence , omniscience , and omnipotence . Theodicy is usually concerned with the God of the Abrahamic religions Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, due to the relevant...

of Zeus: he is a wise and just ruler of the universe, while Prometheus is to blame for humanity's unenviable existence. In Prometheus Bound, this dynamic is transposed: Prometheus becomes the benefactor of humanity, while every character in the drama (except for Hermes

Hermes

Hermes is the great messenger of the gods in Greek mythology and a guide to the Underworld. Hermes was born on Mount Kyllini in Arcadia. An Olympian god, he is also the patron of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of the cunning of thieves, of orators and...

, a virtual stand-in for Zeus) decries the Olympian as a cruel, vicious tyrant.

Other authors

Some two dozen other Greek and Roman authors retold and further embellished the Prometheus myth into the 4th century AD. The most significant detail added to the myth found in, e.g., Sappho

Sappho

Sappho was an Ancient Greek poet, born on the island of Lesbos. Later Greeks included her in the list of nine lyric poets. Her birth was sometime between 630 and 612 BC, and it is said that she died around 570 BC, but little is known for certain about her life...

, Plato

Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...

, Aesop

Aesop

Aesop was a Greek writer credited with a number of popular fables. Older spellings of his name have included Esop and Isope. Although his existence remains uncertain and no writings by him survive, numerous tales credited to him were gathered across the centuries and in many languages in a...

and Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...

— was the central role of Prometheus in the creation of the human race. According to these sources, Prometheus fashioned humans out of clay. In the dialogue Protagoras

Protagoras

Protagoras was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher and is numbered as one of the sophists by Plato. In his dialogue Protagoras, Plato credits him with having invented the role of the professional sophist or teacher of virtue...

, Protagoras asserts that the gods created humans and all the other animals, but it was left to Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus

Epimetheus (mythology)

to give defining attributes to each. As no physical traits were left when the pair came to humans, Prometheus decided to give them fire and other civilizing arts.

Although perhaps made explicit in the Prometheia, later authors such as Hyginus

Hyginus

Hyginus can refer to:People:*Gaius Julius Hyginus , Roman poet, author of Fabulae, reputed author of Poeticon astronomicon*Hyginus Gromaticus, Roman surveyor*Pope Hyginus, also a saint, Bishop of Rome about 140...

, Apollodorus

Apollodorus

Apollodorus of Athens son of Asclepiades, was a Greek scholar and grammarian. He was a pupil of Diogenes of Babylon, Panaetius the Stoic, and the grammarian Aristarchus of Samothrace...

, and Quintus of Smyrna would confirm that Prometheus warned Zeus not to marry the sea nymph Thetis

Thetis

Silver-footed Thetis , disposer or "placer" , is encountered in Greek mythology mostly as a sea nymph or known as the goddess of water, one of the fifty Nereids, daughters of the ancient one of the seas with shape-shifting abilities who survives in the historical vestiges of most later Greek myths...

. She is consequently married off to the mortal Peleus

Peleus

In Greek mythology, Pēleus was a hero whose myth was already known to the hearers of Homer in the late 8th century BCE. Peleus was the son of Aeacus, king of the island of Aegina, and Endeïs, the oread of Mount Pelion in Thessaly; he was the father of Achilles...

, and bears him a son greater than the father — Achilles

Achilles

In Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greek hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad.Plato named Achilles the handsomest of the heroes assembled against Troy....

, Greek hero of the Trojan War

Trojan War

In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, including the Iliad...

. Apollodorus moreover clarifies a cryptic statement (1026–29) made by Hermes in Prometheus Bound, identifying the centaur Chiron

Chiron

In Greek mythology, Chiron was held to be the superlative centaur among his brethren.-History:Like the satyrs, centaurs were notorious for being wild and lusty, overly indulgent drinkers and carousers, given to violence when intoxicated, and generally uncultured delinquents...

as the one who would take on Prometheus' suffering and die in his place.

Reflecting a myth attested in Greek vase paintings from the Classical period, Apollodorus places the Titan (armed with an axe) at the birth of Athena

Athena

In Greek mythology, Athena, Athenê, or Athene , also referred to as Pallas Athena/Athene , is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, warfare, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, justice, and skill. Minerva, Athena's Roman incarnation, embodies similar attributes. Athena is...

, thus explaining how the goddess sprang forth from the forehead of Zeus.

Other minor details attached to the myth include: the duration of Prometheus' torment; the origin of the eagle that ate the Titan's liver (found in Apollodorus and Hyginus); Pandora's marriage to Epimetheus (found in Apollodorus); myths surrounding the life of Prometheus' son, Deucalion

Deucalion

In Greek mythology Deucalion was a son of Prometheus and Pronoia. The anger of Zeus was ignited by the hubris of the Pelasgians, and he decided to put an end to the Bronze Age. Lycaon, the king of Arcadia, had sacrificed a boy to Zeus, who was appalled by this savage offering...

(found in Ovid and Apollonius of Rhodes

Apollonius of Rhodes

Apollonius Rhodius, also known as Apollonius of Rhodes , early 3rd century BCE – after 246 BCE, was a poet, and a librarian at the Library of Alexandria...

); and Prometheus' marginal role in the myth of Jason

Jason

Jason was a late ancient Greek mythological hero from the late 10th Century BC, famous as the leader of the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece. He was the son of Aeson, the rightful king of Iolcus...

and the Argonauts

Argonauts

The Argonauts ) were a band of heroes in Greek mythology who, in the years before the Trojan War, accompanied Jason to Colchis in his quest to find the Golden Fleece. Their name comes from their ship, the Argo, which was named after its builder, Argus. "Argonauts", therefore, literally means...

(found in Apollonius of Rhodes and Valerius Flaccus

Gaius Valerius Flaccus

Gaius Valerius Flaccus was a Roman poet who flourished in the "Silver Age" under the emperors Vespasian and Titus and wrote a Latin Argonautica that owes a great deal to Apollonius of Rhodes' more famous epic....

).

Anecdotally, the Roman fabulist Phaedrus attributes to Aesop

Aesop

a simple etiology

Etiology

Etiology is the study of causation, or origination. The word is derived from the Greek , aitiologia, "giving a reason for" ....

for homosexuality

Homosexuality

Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...

, in Prometheus' getting drunk while creating the first humans and misapplying the genitalia.

Cults

Prometheus had a small shrine in the Kerameikos, or potter's quarter, of Athens
History of Athens
Athens is one of the oldest named cities in the world, having been continuously inhabited for at least 7000 years. Situated in southern Europe, Athens became the leading city of Ancient Greece in the first millennium BCE and its cultural achievements during the 5th century BCE laid the foundations...

, not far from the Academy
Academy
An academy is an institution of higher learning, research, or honorary membership.The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 385 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the goddess of wisdom and skill, north of Athens, Greece. In the western world academia is the...

. The Academy had its own altar dedicated to Prometheus. According to the 2nd-century AD Greek traveler Pausanias
Pausanias (geographer)
Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical...

, this site was central to a torch race dedicated to Prometheus.
Pausanias also wrote that the Greek cities of Argos
Argos
Argos is a city and a former municipality in Argolis, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Argos-Mykines, of which it is a municipal unit. It is 11 kilometres from Nafplion, which was its historic harbour...

and Opous both claimed to be Prometheus' final resting place, each erecting a tomb in his honor.
Finally, Pausanias attested that in the Greek city of Panopeus
Panopeus
Panopeus , or Phanoteus , was an ancient Greek town of Phocis, near the frontier of Boeotia, and on the road from Daulis to Chaeronea. Pausanias said that Panopeus was 20 stadia from Chaeronea and 7 from Daulis; but the latter number is almost certainly a mistake...

there was a cult statue claimed by some to depict Prometheus, for having created the human race there.

Comparative myths

The two most prominent aspects of the Prometheus myth – the creation of man from clay and the theft of fire – have parallels within the beliefs of many cultures throughout the world:

The creation of man from clay

In the Babylonian creation epic Enuma Elish
Enûma Elish
The is the Babylonian creation myth . It was recovered by Austen Henry Layard in 1849 in the ruined Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh , and published by George Smith in 1876.The Enûma Eliš has about a thousand lines and is recorded in Old Babylonian on seven clay tablets, each holding...

, the goddess Ninhursag
Ninhursag
In Sumerian mythology, Ninhursag or Ninkharsag was the earth and mother goddess, one of the seven great deities of Sumer. She is principally a fertility goddess. Temple hymn sources identify her as the 'true and great lady of heaven' and kings of Sumer were 'nourished by Ninhursag's milk'...

created humans from clay.
In Africa, the Yoruba
Yoruba people
The Yoruba people are one of the largest ethnic groups in West Africa. The majority of the Yoruba speak the Yoruba language...

culture holds that the god Obatala
Obatala
In the religion of the Yoruba people, Obàtálá is the creator of human bodies, which were supposedly brought to life by Olorun's breath.Obàtálá is also the owner of all ori or heads. Any orisha may lay claim to an individual, but until that individual is initiated into the priesthood of that orisha,...

likewise created the human race from clay.
In Egyptian mythology, the ram-headed god Khnum made people from clay in the waters of the Nile.
In Chinese myth, the goddess Nüwa
Nüwa
Nüwa is a goddess in ancient Chinese mythology best known for creating mankind and repairing the wall of heaven.-Primary sources:...

created the first humans from mud and clay.
According to Genesis 2:7 "And the Lord god formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."
According to Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...

, Allah
Allah
Allah is a word for God used in the context of Islam. In Arabic, the word means simply "God". It is used primarily by Muslims and Bahá'ís, and often, albeit not exclusively, used by Arabic-speaking Eastern Catholic Christians, Maltese Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Mizrahi Jews and...

created man from clay.
Mayan myth holds that Tepeu
Tepeu
Tepeu is a word of the K'iche' Maya language meaning "sovereign" . The title is associated with the god Gukumatz of the K'iche'-Maya, one of the creation gods of the Popol Vuh; his whole name translating as "Sovereign Plumed Serpent"...

and Kukulkán
Kukulkan
Kukulkan is the name of a Maya snake deity that also serves to designate historical persons. The depiction of the feathered serpent deity is present in other cultures of Mesoamerica. Kukulkan is closely related to the god Q'uq'umatz of the K'iche' Maya and to Quetzalcoatl of the Aztecs...

(Quetzalcoatl
Quetzalcoatl
Quetzalcoatl is a Mesoamerican deity whose name comes from the Nahuatl language and has the meaning of "feathered serpent". The worship of a feathered serpent deity is first documented in Teotihuacan in the first century BCE or first century CE...

) made the first humans from clay, but they were unsatisfactory.
The Māori people believe that Tāne Mahuta
Tane Mahuta
Tāne Mahuta is a giant kauri tree in the Waipoua Forest of Northland Region, New Zealand. Its age is unknown but is estimated to be between 1,250 and 2,500 years old. It is the largest kauri known to stand today...

, god of the forest, created the first woman out of clay and breathed life into her.

The theft of fire

According to the Rig Veda (3:9.5), the hero Mātariśvan recovered fire, which had been hidden from mankind.
In Cherokee
Cherokee
The Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...

myth, after Possum and Buzzard had failed to steal fire, Grandmother Spider used her web to sneak into the land of light. She stole fire, hiding it in a clay pot.
Among various Native American tribes of the Pacific Northwest
Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest is a region in northwestern North America, bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains on the east. Definitions of the region vary and there is no commonly agreed upon boundary, even among Pacific Northwesterners. A common concept of the...

and First Nations
First Nations
First Nations is a term that collectively refers to various Aboriginal peoples in Canada who are neither Inuit nor Métis. There are currently over 630 recognised First Nations governments or bands spread across Canada, roughly half of which are in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. The...

, fire was stolen and given to humans by Coyote, Beaver or Dog.
According to some Yukon First Nations
First Nations
First Nations is a term that collectively refers to various Aboriginal peoples in Canada who are neither Inuit nor Métis. There are currently over 630 recognised First Nations governments or bands spread across Canada, roughly half of which are in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. The...

people, Crow stole fire from a volcano in the middle of the water.
According to the Creek Native Americans, Rabbit stole fire from the Weasels.
In Algonquin myth, Rabbit stole fire from an old man and his two daughters.
In Ojibwa
Ojibwa
The Ojibwe or Chippewa are among the largest groups of Native Americans–First Nations north of Mexico. They are divided between Canada and the United States. In Canada, they are the third-largest population among First Nations, surpassed only by Cree and Inuit...

myth, Nanabozho
Nanabozho
In Anishinaabe mythology, particularly among the Ojibwa, Nanabozho is a spirit, and figures prominently in their storytelling, including the story of the world's creation. Nanabozho is the Ojibwe trickster figure and culture hero...

the hare stole fire and gave it to humans.
In Polynesian
Polynesian mythology
Polynesian mythology is the oral traditions of the people of Polynesia, a grouping of Central and South Pacific Ocean island archipelagos in the Polynesian triangle together with the scattered cultures known as the Polynesian outliers...

myth, Māui
Maui (Maori mythology)
In Māori mythology, Māui is a culture hero famous for his exploits and his trickery.-Māui's birth:The offspring of Tū increased and multiplied and did not know death until the generation of Māui-tikitiki . Māui is the son of Taranga, the wife of Makeatutara...

stole fire from the Mudhens.
In the Book of Enoch
Book of Enoch
The Book of Enoch is an ancient Jewish religious work, traditionally ascribed to Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah. It is not part of the biblical canon as used by Jews, apart from Beta Israel...

, the fallen angels and Azazel
Azazel
Azazel or Azazael or Azâzêl is a term used three times in the Hebrew scriptures, and later in Hebrew mythology as the enigmatic name of a character....

teach early mankind to use tools and fire.

Punishment

In Norse mythology
Norse mythology
Norse mythology, a subset of Germanic mythology, is the overall term for the myths, legends and beliefs about supernatural beings of Norse pagans. It flourished prior to the Christianization of Scandinavia, during the Early Middle Ages, and passed into Nordic folklore, with some aspects surviving...

, the god Loki
Loki
In Norse mythology, Loki or Loke is a god or jötunn . Loki is the son of Fárbauti and Laufey, and the brother of Helblindi and Býleistr. By the jötunn Angrboða, Loki is the father of Hel, the wolf Fenrir, and the world serpent Jörmungandr. By his wife Sigyn, Loki is the father of Nari or Narfi...

was bound to a rock. Above him is a large serpent which drips toxic venom upon him. His wife collects the poison in a bowl, but must empty it every time it gets full. As she is in the process of doing this, the snake proceeds to cover Loki in poison. Just as Prometheus gets his liver eaten only to have it grow back again, Loki is temporarily saved from venom only to have it drip on him once more.
In Georgian
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...

mythology Amirani
Amirani
Amirani is the name of a culture hero of a Georgian epic who resembles the Classical Prometheus. Various versions of the myth reveal a process through which the myth was transformed over time, but the legend itself is traced between 3,000 and 2,000 years BC at the beginning of the first Iron Age,...

challenged the chief god and for that was chained on Caucasian mountains where birds would eat his organs.

In other arts

The mythic Prometheus is the lyrical I of the poem "Prometheus" by Johann Wolfgang Goethe
Prometheus (Goethe)
Prometheus is a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in which the character of the mythic Prometheus addresses God in misotheist accusation and defiance. The poem was written between 1772 and 1774 and first published in 1789 after an anonymous and unauthorised publication in 1785 by Friedrich...

, in which the character addresses God (as Zeus
Zeus
In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...

) in misotheist accusation and defiance.
The Norwegian
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

symphonic
Symphonic black metal
Symphonic black metal is a black metal subgenre that emerged in the mid to late 1990s. The genre is known for its symphonic and orchestral elements and is centralized in Europe.-Characteristics:...

black metal
Black metal
Black metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include fast tempos, shrieked vocals, highly distorted guitars played with tremolo picking, blast beat drumming, raw recording, and unconventional song structure....

band Emperor
Emperor (band)
Emperor was a Norwegian black metal band formed in 1991. They dissolved in 2001, but reunited in 2006 and again in 2007 for a few festival dates and brief US tours. The group was founded by Samoth and Ihsahn .-Biography:...

released, in 2001, an album entitled "Prometheus: The Discipline of Fire & Demise
Prometheus: The Discipline of Fire & Demise
Prometheus: The Discipline of Fire & Demise is the fourth and final studio album by Emperor. Produced by band member Ihsahn, it was released by Candlelight and was the band's final album. Prometheus: The Discipline of Fire & Demise differs from Emperor's previous recordings with a focus on a more...

".
The American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

Metalcore
Metalcore
Metalcore is a subgenre of heavy metal combining various elements of extreme metal and hardcore punk. The name is a portmanteau of the names of the two genres. The term took on its current meaning in the mid-1990s, describing bands such as Earth Crisis, Deadguy and Integrity...

band Trivium
Trivium (band)
Trivium is an American heavy metal band from Orlando, Florida, formed in 1999. Signed to Roadrunner Records, the band has released five studio albums, eleven singles, and twelve music videos...

pointed out similarities of the crucifixion
Crucifixion
Crucifixion is an ancient method of painful execution in which the condemned person is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross and left to hang until dead...

of Jesus Christ, and Prometheus's torment of being eternally
Eternity
While in the popular mind, eternity often simply means existence for a limitless amount of time, many have used it to refer to a timeless existence altogether outside time. By contrast, infinite temporal existence is then called sempiternity. Something eternal exists outside time; by contrast,...

torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...

d in their song "Of Prometheus and The Crucifix".
Beethoven wrote a ballet
Ballet
Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...

called "The Creatures of Prometheus."
"Prometheus Unbound" is a four-act play by Percy Bysshe Shelley first published in 1820.
Prometheus: Poem of Fire
Prometheus: Poem of Fire
Prometheus: The Poem of Fire, Op. 60 , is a symphonic work by the Russian composer Alexander Scriabin for piano, orchestra, optional choir, and clavier à lumières or "Chromola" . However, the clavier à lumières is rarely featured in the performance of the piece, including performances during...

, Opus 60 (1910) by Alexander Scriabin
Alexander Scriabin
Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin was a Russian composer and pianist who initially developed a lyrical and idiosyncratic tonal language inspired by the music of Frédéric Chopin. Quite independent of the innovations of Arnold Schoenberg, Scriabin developed an increasingly atonal musical system,...

.
Prometheus, Symphonic Poem No. 5 (S.99) by Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...

.
Prometheus, opera using Aeschylus's original Greek by Carl Orff
Carl Orff
Carl Orff was a 20th-century German composer, best known for his cantata Carmina Burana . In addition to his career as a composer, Orff developed an influential method of music education for children.-Early life:...

, 1968.
Prometheus On His Crag, a 1973 poetry collection by Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes
Edward James Hughes OM , more commonly known as Ted Hughes, was an English poet and children's writer. Critics routinely rank him as one of the best poets of his generation. Hughes was British Poet Laureate from 1984 until his death.Hughes was married to American poet Sylvia Plath, from 1956 until...

.
Prometheus' torment by the eagle and his rescue by Heracles were popular subjects in vase paintings of the 6th–4th c. BC. He also sometimes appears in depictions of Athena's birth from Zeus' forehead.
There was a relief sculpture of Prometheus with Pandora on the base of Athena's cult statue in the Athenian Parthenon
Parthenon
The Parthenon is a temple on the Athenian Acropolis, Greece, dedicated to the Greek goddess Athena, whom the people of Athens considered their virgin patron. Its construction began in 447 BC when the Athenian Empire was at the height of its power. It was completed in 438 BC, although...

of the 5th century BC.
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...

wrote a short piece on Prometheus (translated by Willa and Edwin Muir):

There are four legends concerning Prometheus:

According to the first, he was clamped to a rock in the Caucasus for betraying the secrets of the gods to men, and the gods sent eagles to feed on his liver, which was perpetually renewed.

According to the second, Prometheus, goaded by the pain of the tearing beaks, pressed himself deeper and deeper into the rock until he became one with it.

According to the third, his treachery was forgotten in the course of thousands of years, forgotten by the gods, the eagles, forgotten by himself.

According to the fourth, everyone grew weary of the meaningless affair. The gods grew weary, the eagles grew weary, the wound closed wearily.

There remains the inexplicable mass of rock. The legend tried to explain the inexplicable. As it came out of a substratum of truth it had in turn to end in the inexplicable.

A Soviet cartoon called Prometheus (Прометей) was created in 1974.
Laxmi Prasad Devkota
Laxmi Prasad Devkota
Laxmi Prasad Devkota , was a Nepali poet.Devkota is considered to be one of the best writers in Nepal. He is best known for the poem "Muna Madan". There are several tributes to the poem Muna Madan...

, a great Nepalese poet, wrote an epic entitled Prometheus (प्रमीथस).

Prometheus, Pomona College, by José Clemente Orozco

José Clemente Orozco

José Clemente Orozco was a Mexican social realist painter, who specialized in bold murals that established the Mexican Mural Renaissance together with murals by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and others...

In modern culture

The cloned
Cloning
Cloning in biology is the process of producing similar populations of genetically identical individuals that occurs in nature when organisms such as bacteria, insects or plants reproduce asexually. Cloning in biotechnology refers to processes used to create copies of DNA fragments , cells , or...

horse Prometea
Prometea
Prometea is a Haflinger foal, the first cloned horse and the first to be born from and carried by its cloning mother. Her birth was announced publicly on August 6, 2003. Born 36 kg after a natural delivery and a full-term pregnancy in Laboratory of Reproductive Technology, Cremona, Italy, Prometea...

, and Prometheus
Prometheus (moon)
-Animations:-External links:* at ** anaglyph view of Prometheus...

, a moon
Natural satellite
A natural satellite or moon is a celestial body that orbits a planet or smaller body, which is called its primary. The two terms are used synonymously for non-artificial satellites of planets, of dwarf planets, and of minor planets....

of Saturn
Saturn
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn is named after the Roman god Saturn, equated to the Greek Cronus , the Babylonian Ninurta and the Hindu Shani. Saturn's astronomical symbol represents the Roman god's sickle.Saturn,...

, are named after this Titan, as is the asteroid
Asteroid
Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...

1809 Prometheus
1809 Prometheus
1809 Prometheus is an asteroid that shares the name of one of the lesser-known Saturnian moons, Prometheus....

.
The name of the sixty-first element, promethium
Promethium
Promethium is a chemical element with the symbol Pm and atomic number 61. It is notable for being the only exclusively radioactive element besides technetium that is followed by chemical elements with stable isotopes.- Prediction :...

, is derived from Prometheus.

The story of Prometheus has inspired many authors through the ages, and the Romantics

Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

saw Prometheus as a prototype of the natural daemon

Daemon (mythology)

The words dæmon and daimôn are Latinized spellings of the Greek "δαίμων", a reference to the daemons of Ancient Greek religion and mythology, as well as later Hellenistic religion and philosophy...

or genius

Genius (mythology)

In ancient Roman religion, the genius was the individual instance of a general divine nature that is present in every individual person, place or thing.-Nature of the genius:...

The Prometheus Society
Prometheus Society
The Prometheus Society is a high IQ society, similar to Mensa International, but much more restrictive. The entry test is designed to be passable by 1 in 30,000 of the population; Mensa entry is achievable by 1 in 50...

is a High IQ society
High IQ society
A high IQ society is an organization that limits its membership to people who are within a certain high percentile of Intelligence quotient test results. The oldest, largest and best-known such society is Mensa International, which was founded by Roland Berrill and Dr. Lancelot Ware in 1946...

. Its magazine is called 'Gift of Fire' and its website http://www.prometheussociety.org/ notes that fire has from antiquity been associated with mental gifts.
Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley was a British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus . She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley...

's 1818 novel Frankenstein
Frankenstein
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel about a failed experiment that produced a monster, written by Mary Shelley, with inserts of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty-one. The first...

is subtitled "The Modern Prometheus". This is a reference to the novel's themes of the over-reaching of modern man into dangerous areas of knowledge.
Percy Bysshe Shelley's Prometheus Unbound rewrites the lost play of Aeschylus so that Prometheus does not submit to Zeus (Shelley's Jupiter), but supplants him instead in a triumph of the human heart and intellect over tyrannical religion. Lord Byron's poem "Prometheus" also portrays the Titan as unrepentant. For the Romantics, Prometheus was the rebel who resisted all forms of institutional tyranny epitomized by Zeus — church, monarch, and patriarch. They drew comparisons between Prometheus and the spirit of the French Revolution, Christ, Milton's Satan, and the divinely inspired poet or artist.

Prometheus Books
Prometheus Books
Prometheus Books is a publishing company founded in August 1969 by Paul Kurtz, who also founded the Council for Secular Humanism and co-founded the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. He is currently the chairman of all three organizations. Prometheus Books publishes a range of books, including many...

, a publishing company for scientific, educational, and popular books, especially those relating to secular humanism
Secular humanism
Secular Humanism, alternatively known as Humanism , is a secular philosophy that embraces human reason, ethics, justice, and the search for human fulfillment...

or scientific skepticism
Scientific skepticism
Scientific skepticism is the practice of questioning the veracity of claims lacking empirical evidence or reproducibility, as part of a methodological norm pursuing "the extension of certified knowledge". For example, Robert K...

, takes its name from the myth.
The Prometheus Award
Prometheus Award
The Prometheus Award is an award for libertarian science fiction novels given annually by the Libertarian Futurist Society, which also publishes a quarterly journal Prometheus. L. Neil Smith established the award in 1979, but it was not awarded regularly until the newly founded Libertarian Futurist...

is given by the Libertarian Futurist Society for Libertarian science fiction
Libertarian science fiction
Libertarian science fiction is a sub-genre of science fiction that focuses on the politics and social order implied by libertarian philosophies with an emphasis on individualism and a limited state-- and in some cases, no state whatsoever....

."
Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism....

uses Prometheus (as well as other characters from Greek mythology) as metaphors of her individualist ideology in Atlas Shrugged
Atlas Shrugged
Atlas Shrugged is a novel by Ayn Rand, first published in 1957 in the United States. Rand's fourth and last novel, it was also her longest, and the one she considered to be her magnum opus in the realm of fiction writing...

and Anthem.
Alexander Scriabin
Alexander Scriabin
Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin was a Russian composer and pianist who initially developed a lyrical and idiosyncratic tonal language inspired by the music of Frédéric Chopin. Quite independent of the innovations of Arnold Schoenberg, Scriabin developed an increasingly atonal musical system,...

's seminal orchestra piece, Prometheus: Poem of Fire, is named after the mythological figure.
In the novel The Last Olympian
The Last Olympian
The Last Olympian is a fantasy-adventure novel based on Greek mythology by Rick Riordan, published on May 5, 2009. It is the fifth and final novel in the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series and serves as the direct sequel to The Battle of the Labyrinth...

(the final book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians
Percy Jackson and the Olympians
Percy Jackson & the Olympians is a pentalogy of adventure and fantasy fiction books authored by Rick Riordan. The series consists of five books, as well as spin-off titles such as The Demigod Files and Demigods and Monsters. Set in the United States, the books are predominantly based on Greek...

series), Prometheus appears as an ally of the Titans. He explains this change of alliance by stating that he has foreseen that the Titans will win this time, and it is suggested that all of his supposed good deeds were actually done for his own ends, portraying Prometheus as a sort of conman.
Prometheus is a character in Jasper Fforde
Jasper Fforde
Jasper Fforde is a British novelist. Fforde's first novel, The Eyre Affair, was published in 2001. Fforde is mainly known for his Thursday Next novels, although he has written several books in the loosely connected Nursery Crime series and begun two more independent series: The Last Dragonslayer...

's The Big Over Easy
The Big Over Easy
The Big Over Easy is a novel written by Jasper Fforde and published in 2005. It features Detective Inspector Jack Spratt and his assistant, Sergeant Mary Mary....

.

Liver regeneration

Scientific and medical works about liver regeneration often refer to Prometheus who was chained to a rock in the Caucasus where, each day, his liver was devoured by an eagle only to grow back each night. Some think the myth indicates that the ancient Greeks

Ancient Greece

knew about the liver’s remarkable capacity for self-repair, since the etymology

Etymology

Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...

of (Greek for liver) is derived from , meaning mend, repair. This claim has been challenged. Because of the association of Prometheus with liver regeneration, his name has also been associated with biomedical companies involved in regenerative medicine.

External links

Theoi Text, Theogony
Theoi Text, Works and Days
Theoi Text, Prometheus Bound
Theoi Mythology, Prometheus
Theoi Mythology, Pronoea
GML, Prometheus
Messagenet, Prometheus
Prometheus, a poem by Noevel (French)
Prometheus, a poem by Byron
Book "Prometheus Bound" (for free download – two volumes about 600 pages)
O fogo e as chamas dos mitos (text in Portuguese) by Betty Mindlin (Essay about the origin of fire, the stealing of fire, the keeping of fire in different South-American indigenous cultures).

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Hesiod

Aeschylus

Other authors

Cults

Comparative myths

The creation of man from clay

The theft of fire

Punishment

In other arts

In modern culture

Liver regeneration

See also

Further reading

External links