
Prometheus is a Titan from Greek mythology, celebrated as the creator of humanity and a champion of human advancement. Known as the bringer of fire and knowledge, he defied Zeus by stealing fire from the gods to empower humans, symbolizing innovation, rebellion, and enlightenment.

As punishment, Zeus condemned Prometheus to eternal torment, binding him to a rock where an eagle devoured his liver daily, only for it to regenerate overnight. He symbolizes sacrifice for progress, a parallel to Enki’s role as humanity’s benefactor.

Prometheus, whose name means “forethought,” is a complex and enduring figure in Greek mythology. As a Titan, the son of Iapetus and Clymene (or Themis, in some accounts) and brother to Atlas, Menoetius, and Epimetheus, he holds a unique position among deities. Unlike other Titans who opposed Zeus during the Titanomachy, Prometheus sided with the Olympians, demonstrating his strategic intellect and foresight.

Prometheus is best known for his role as the creator and protector of humanity. According to myth, he fashioned humans from clay and imbued them with life, making them the first mortals. Observing their plight, he defied Zeus by stealing fire from Olympus and delivering it to humans to ensure their survival and progress. Fire symbolized warmth and survival and the ignition of civilization, inspiring technological and intellectual advancement.


Prometheus’s rebellion against Zeus came at a significant cost. Angered by this defiance, Zeus devised a cruel punishment: Prometheus was chained to a rock in the Caucasus Mountains, where an eagle perpetually devoured his liver. This torture was meant to last forever as his liver regenerated each night. Prometheus’s suffering ends when the hero Heracles, a son of Zeus, slew the eagle and frees him, symbolizing the eventual triumph of resilience and justice.
Prometheus’s story intertwines themes of defiance, suffering, and ultimate liberation. His narrative has inspired countless interpretations across literature, art, and philosophy, resonating as a timeless allegory of resistance against tyranny and the pursuit of knowledge.

Six Stories About Prometheus
The Creation of Humanity
Prometheus sculpted humans from clay, imbuing them with life and a divine spark. His act of creation marked him as humanity’s divine benefactor.
The Creation of Humanity
Long ago, before humans roamed the earth, the world was a canvas of untamed beauty—lush forests, vast oceans, and skies alive with untold stars. But it was silent, devoid of the laughter, songs, and dreams that would one day fill it. Prometheus, the Titan of forethought, gazed upon this empty world with a heart full of compassion and an unshakable vision.


One day, as he wandered near a secluded riverbank, Prometheus knelt beside the soft, rich earth. With his hands, he began to shape the clay, molding it into forms unlike any that existed. Each figure was unique—some tall, others strong, some lithe and graceful. He poured his wisdom into their design, shaping hands to create, legs to explore, and minds to dream.


Prometheus felt a sense of purpose ignite as the figures took form. He realized these beings needed more than shape—they required life. Looking to the heavens, he pleaded to the divine forces, asking for a spark to illuminate his creations.


With the fire of Olympus concealed in his hand, stolen for this noble act, Prometheus leaned down and breathed warmth into the figures. Their clay bodies began to glow faintly and stirred to life individually. Eyes opened, and where there was once silence, the world now echoed with curiosity, wonder, and the first words of a new race.


Prometheus smiled as he watched them rise, touching their surroundings with awe and marveling at their newfound existence. He saw in them infinite potential—the ability to create, love, learn, and defy limits.
As he stood back, his heart swelled with pride. These fragile, imperfect beings carried a spark of the divine, a light that could illuminate the world’s darkest corners. Prometheus knew he had done something extraordinary, an act that would forever mark him as humanity’s benefactor.

But as the winds carried the laughter of his creations into the mountains, he also knew he had defied the gods. For his love of humanity, Prometheus would endure suffering, but his sacrifice would ensure that the world would never be silent again.
And so, the first humans walked the earth, their feet upon the soil and their eyes toward the stars, carrying the spark of a Titan who believed in their boundless potential.

The Theft of Fire
Observing humanity’s vulnerability, Prometheus stole fire from Mount Olympus. He delivered it to mortals, enabling them to survive harsh conditions and advance their civilization.
The Theft of Fire

In the time before mortals knew the warmth of fire, the earth was a cold and unforgiving place. Shadows stretched long across the barren landscapes, and humanity huddled together, shivering under the starry skies. Their existence was fraught with vulnerability, their fragile lives dependent on the whims of nature. Prometheus, the Titan of forethought, watched over them with a heart full of compassion.

He saw their struggles—their futile attempts to fend off the bitter cold, their inability to cook food or light the darkness. Without fire, their potential lay dormant, their dreams unkindled. Prometheus knew humanity needed more than life; they needed the tools to shape their destiny.
But fire, the sacred flame of Olympus, was forbidden to mortals. Zeus, king of the gods, feared the power it might bestow upon them. Zeus valued control; fire meant progress—a force that could elevate humans closer to the divine.

Prometheus, however, could not stand idle. One moonlit night, he ascended the slopes of Mount Olympus, moving with the quiet determination of one who knew the weight of his actions. The sacred flame burned in a bronze vessel at the summit, its golden light casting dancing shadows across the heavens. Prometheus approached with reverence but without hesitation. He reached into the flame and captured a spark, concealing it within a hollow reed.

As he descended from the mountain, the stars bore witness to his defiance. The journey back to the earth below was fraught with peril. Every whisper of the wind and every flicker of shadow seemed to carry Zeus’s anger. But Prometheus pressed on, the flame glowing faintly within the reed, a beacon of hope for the mortals he sought to save.

When he returned, he found humanity huddled in darkness, their eyes filled with fear and longing. Gently, Prometheus knelt among them and revealed the stolen fire. The mortals gasped as the flame leaped to life, its warmth chasing away the chill and its light illuminating their faces. With this gift, they learned to cook their food, forge tools, and ward off the dangers of the night.

The fire transformed their existence. It sparked their imagination, kindled their creativity, and became the foundation of their civilization. The once-shivering mortals began to build, dream, and rise above their hardships.

Prometheus watched with quiet pride as humanity thrived, but he knew his actions would not go unnoticed. The heavens stirred, and the wrath of Zeus thundered across the skies. Yet, Prometheus bore no regret. His love for humanity outweighed the price he would pay, and in their laughter and progress, he found solace.
And so, the stolen fire symbolized humanity’s resilience and Prometheus’s enduring sacrifice—a light that would burn forever, defying the darkness.
The Punishment of Prometheus
Zeus condemned Prometheus to eternal torment, binding him to a rock where an eagle devoured his liver daily. This punishment underscored the price of rebellion.

The skies above Mount Olympus darkened with Zeus’s wrath. The King of the Gods, seething over Prometheus’s defiance and theft of fire, called forth his most fearsome agents to mete out punishment. Prometheus, who had given humanity the gift of fire and kindled their hope, knew the gods would not forgive his rebellion. Yet, he stood resolute, his gaze steady even as thunder echoed through the heavens.

In his fury, Zeus decreed an eternal torment befitting the Titan’s crime. Prometheus was seized by divine chains, unbreakable and cold as the gods’ will, and dragged to the world’s edge—to a desolate peak in the Caucasus Mountains. There, the Titan was bound to a jagged rock, his arms stretched wide as if in perpetual sacrifice.
As Prometheus’s bindings locked into place, Zeus’s voice boomed a proclamation of judgment: “For your defiance, you shall endure endless agony. An eagle shall feast upon your liver each day, and each night, it shall regenerate, ensuring your torment never ceases.”

At Zeus’s command, a colossal and menacing eagle descended from the stormy skies. Its talons gleamed like blades, and its eyes burned with a cruel intelligence. The creature landed upon Prometheus, its wings spreading wide to blot out the sunlight. Without hesitation, it struck, tearing into Prometheus’s side, its beak rending flesh and devouring his liver.

Prometheus clenched his jaw, refusing to cry out. Pain coursed through his immortal body, but he bore it with the dignity of one who knew his suffering served a higher purpose. As the eagle feasted, Prometheus’s mind turned not to his torment but to the mortals below. He envisioned them gathered around the flames, their laughter and warmth piercing the cold darkness of the world. Their progress and survival gave meaning to his agony.
Night fell, and the eagle retreated, its hunger sated. The silence of the mountains enveloped Prometheus as his body began to heal. Slowly, his liver regenerated, preparing him for another day of torment. Yet, his spirit remained unbroken. The stars above bore witness to his quiet defiance, their light reflecting the spark he had gifted to humanity.

This cycle repeated endlessly. Each dawn brought the eagle’s return, and each night Prometheus healed, his suffering a perpetual reminder of the cost of rebellion. Yet, through it all, he held onto the knowledge that his sacrifice had ignited the flame of human potential—a fire that could never be extinguished.

Though Zeus sought to exemplify Prometheus, the Titan’s endurance turned his punishment into a symbol of resilience. Prometheus, bound and tormented, became a rebel and a martyr—a testament to the power of compassion and the willingness to endure pain for the greater good.
And so, Prometheus remained, chained to the rock, a figure of suffering and hope, his story carried by the winds to the farthest corners of the earth. Though punished, his defiance shone brighter than Zeus’s wrath, ensuring that his name and gift would never be forgotten.
Prometheus and Pandora

To punish humanity for Prometheus’s defiance, Zeus created Pandora, the first woman, and sent her with a jar (or box) containing evils. When Pandora opened it, she unleashed suffering upon the world, leaving only hope inside.
Enraged by Prometheus’s defiance and the gift of fire bestowed upon humanity, Zeus sought to punish the rebellious Titan and the mortals he favored. The king of the gods conceived a plan to introduce a new form of suffering to the world—one that would test the resilience and spirit of humankind.
From the hands of the divine craftsman Hephaestus, Zeus commanded the creation of Pandora, the first woman. She was a marvel of beauty and grace, shaped from clay and imbued with life.

Each Olympian god contributed to her making: Athena bestowed her with wisdom, Aphrodite adorned her with charm and allure, and Hermes gifted her with cunning and a persuasive tongue. Yet, beneath her outward perfection lay Zeus’s cunning design—a vessel of wonder and peril.

Zeus gave Pandora a sealed jar (or box), warning her never to open it. Within, he had concealed all the world’s evils: sickness, envy, war, and despair, each waiting to be unleashed. He placed one final gift alongside them: hope, small and fragile but powerful enough to endure the darkness.

Pandora was sent to Earth as a gift to Epimetheus, the brother of Prometheus. Despite Prometheus’s warnings to beware of Zeus’s gifts, Epimetheus is captivated by Pandora’s beauty and accepts her into their lives. For a time, all seemed well. Pandora lived among humanity, her presence a source of fascination and delight.

Yet, the jar loomed, its sealed lid a mystery that gnawed at Pandora’s curiosity. Day by day, her thoughts returned to it. What could it contain? Was it a treasure, a divine blessing, or something else entirely? Finally, unable to resist the lure of the unknown, Pandora lifted the lid.

In an instant, chaos erupted. Dark, malevolent forms spilled out, spreading worldwide with terrifying speed. Once innocent and free, humanity was consumed by pain, suffering, and strife. Disease took root, hatred festered, and despair cast its shadow over the lands.

Realizing the gravity of her actions, Pandora slammed the lid shut, trapping the last of the jar’s contents. Within it remained one small, flickering presence: hope. Though the evils now roamed free, hope stayed behind a beacon of light amidst the darkness. It whispered to humanity that the possibility of better days would always remain, even in the face of suffering.


Prometheus, bound to his rock in the mountains, could only watch as humanity struggled against the forces unleashed by Pandora’s act. Yet, he took solace in the resilience of mortals. Though Zeus had sought to break them, the fire Prometheus had given them burned brightly in their hearts, and hope kept their spirits alive.

And so, Pandora’s story became one of caution and redemption. She, too, bore the weight of her choices, but the presence of hope ensured that humanity would endure, always striving, always believing in the possibility of a brighter future.
The Prophecy of Prometheus
Prometheus knew of a prophecy foretelling Zeus’s potential downfall, which he withheld despite torture, asserting his intellectual and moral superiority.
The Prophecy of Prometheus
Prometheus, the Titan of forethought, was no ordinary rebel. In addition to his compassion and defiance, he possessed a gift rare even among the gods: the ability to see the threads of fate. One stood out among the countless futures he glimpsed—a prophecy foretelling the downfall of Zeus, the mighty king of the gods.

This knowledge, weighty and dangerous, became Prometheus’s silent weapon. He understood that this secret gave him leverage over Zeus, who ruled with an iron fist and tolerated no threat to his reign. Yet, Prometheus chose to keep the prophecy hidden, knowing its revelation could sow chaos and further suffering.

When Zeus punished Prometheus for stealing fire and giving it to humanity, the Titan’s defiance deepened. Chained to the jagged rocks of the Caucasus Mountains, Prometheus endured daily torment as an eagle devoured his regenerating liver. Each morning brought the eagle’s return; each night, his body healed, readying him for another cycle of pain. But though his body suffered, his spirit remained unbroken.
Zeus, aware of Prometheus’s knowledge of the prophecy, sought to extract the secret through threats and torture. The king of the gods offered to end Prometheus’s torment if he would reveal what he knew. “Tell me,” Zeus demanded, “who among the gods or mortals dares to challenge my throne?”
Prometheus, battered but resolute, looked Zeus in the eye and refused. “You, with all your power, cannot comprehend the depth of what I know,” he said. “This knowledge is not yours to wield. It belongs to fate, and fate answers to no one—not even you.”

Zeus’s rage thundered across the skies, his fury shaking the mountains. But Prometheus did not yield. His refusal was not born of spite but of wisdom. He understood that the prophecy’s revelation would weaken Zeus and destabilize the delicate balance of power among the gods, potentially unleashing greater chaos upon the world.
Prometheus’s silence symbolized his intellectual and moral superiority as the years turned into centuries. Though he was chained and tortured, his resistance showed that true strength lay not in might but in the courage to uphold one’s principles, even at significant personal cost.
The prophecy remained unspoken, a shadow hanging over Zeus’s rule. Prometheus bore his suffering with dignity, knowing that his defiance preserved the integrity of fate and protected the mortals he cherished. His silence became a testament to his enduring spirit and belief in a higher order beyond the whims of the gods.
And so, the prophecy lived on, hidden in the depths of Prometheus’s mind. It served as a quiet reminder to Zeus that even the mightiest could not escape the currents of destiny. For Prometheus, it was a source of strength, a secret that underscored his unyielding resolve and the enduring power of forethought.
The Liberation by Heracles
Heracles, during one of his labors, encountered Prometheus. Moved by his plight, he killed the eagle and shattered his chains, symbolizing human heroism and the power of compassion.
High in the desolate Caucasus Mountains, Prometheus hung bound to the jagged rock, his body battered by centuries of torment. Each day, the monstrous eagle descended, its talons tearing into him, devouring his regenerating liver. The winds carried his pain across the barren peaks, yet Prometheus bore his suffering in silence, his defiance against Zeus undiminished.

Far below, a hero named Heracles embarked on one of his fabled twelve labors. As he journeyed across the rugged landscape, he heard whispers of a Titan chained in eternal agony. Guided by fate, or perhaps by the quiet pull of compassion, Heracles ascended the treacherous cliffs to seek out the source of the lament carried on the wind.
When he reached the summit, Heracles beheld the sight of Prometheus, his robust frame chained to the rock, his eyes weary but unbroken. The eagle circled above, its shadow a dark stain upon the ground. Heracles, a son of Zeus but no stranger to the cruelty of the gods, was moved by the Titan’s plight. Though his labors served his redemption, Heracles could not ignore the suffering of another, especially one who had acted out of love for humanity.

Prometheus gazed at the mortal hero and a flicker of hope kindled in his heart. “Who are you,” he asked, “that you would climb to this forsaken place?”
“I am Heracles,” the hero replied, “and I have come to end your torment.”
Sensing its prey threatened, the eagle swooped down with a shriek, its talons poised to strike. Heracles stood firm, drawing his bow with unerring precision. With a single shot, he loosed an arrow that pierced the eagle’s heart, sending it plummeting to the rocks below.

The chains that bound Prometheus remained, their divine strength unyielding to mortal hands. But Heracles imbued with extraordinary strength, struck them with his club, shattering them into pieces. Prometheus staggered forward as the chains fell away, free for the first time in millennia.

Heracles supported the Titan, their eyes meeting in mutual respect. “You have endured more than any being should,” Heracles said. “Your sacrifice will not be forgotten.”
Prometheus, though weakened, stood tall. “And your compassion,” he replied, “is a beacon of what humanity can achieve. You honor the fire I gave to mortals.”

With his chains broken and his torment ended, Prometheus could walk the earth again. He chose not to return to Olympus but to remain among mortals, guiding them subtly, his wisdom shaping their path forward.
Heracles continued his labors, carrying the memory of the Titan he had freed. The story of Prometheus’s liberation spread across the lands, symbolizing human heroism and the power of compassion. It reminded all who heard it that even the most unyielding chains could be broken and that acts of courage, however small or significant, could change the course of destiny.
Who is Hercules?

Hercules, known as Heracles in Greek mythology, is one of the most celebrated heroes in ancient lore. He is the son of Zeus, king of the gods, and Alcmene, a mortal woman. This divine lineage endowed him with extraordinary strength and courage, making him a central figure in countless myths. However, Hercules’s life was marked by struggle, tragedy, and redemption.
From birth, Hercules was the target of Hera’s wrath, Zeus’s jealous wife, who despised him as the product of Zeus’s infidelity. Hera’s hatred caused much of the hardship in Hercules’s life, including the madness that led him to commit a grave sin: the killing of his wife and children. Overcome with guilt, Hercules sought atonement and was assigned twelve near-impossible labors to purify his soul and restore his honor.

Hercules’s Story

Hercules’s twelve labors are among the most famous tales of Greek mythology. These tasks, set by King Eurystheus, required him to confront deadly creatures, retrieve sacred objects, and perform feats no ordinary mortal could achieve. Some of his notable labors include:
Slaying the Nemean Lion, whose skin was impervious to weapons.
Capturing the Golden Hind of Artemis, a sacred and elusive deer.
Cleaning the Augean Stables in a single day, which housed thousands of cattle and had not been cleaned in years.
Retrieving the Golden Apples of the Hesperides, guarded by a hundred-heade dragon.
Capturing Cerberus, the three-headed guard dog of the Underworld.
Hercules demonstrated immense strength, cunning, resilience, and a sense of justice through these labors.
Hercules and Prometheus: Their Connection
Depending on the myth’s variation, Hercules encounters Prometheus during one of his labors. Many accounts place it during his quest for the Golden Apples of the Hesperides. These sacred apples grew in a garden at the world’s edge, tended by the Hesperides and guarded by the monstrous dragon Ladon.
During his journey, Hercules sought guidance from various figures, including Prometheus. Chained to the Caucasus Mountains, Prometheus had long endured Zeus’s punishment for giving fire to humanity. When Hercules came upon the suffering Titan, he was moved by his plight. Prometheus, in turn, provided valuable wisdom to Hercules, guiding him toward the path to the garden of the Hesperides.
Freeing Prometheus from his torment became a defining moment in Hercules’s story. Hercules demonstrated his physical strength, compassion, and sense of justice by slaying the eagle and breaking Prometheus’s chains. This act symbolized a shared defiance of Zeus’s authority and a belief in the value of humanity and freedom.
How Hercules Was Positioned to Help Prometheus
Hercules’s life was deeply interwoven with the gods’ will, fate, and his quest for redemption. His encounter with Prometheus can be seen as an intersection of these forces:
Zeus’s Indirect Role: Though Zeus sought to punish Prometheus, he also allowed Hercules to perform feats that challenged divine decrees, reflecting the complex dynamics among the gods.
Hercules’s Nature: As a hero born of both divine and mortal origins, Hercules embodied the bridge between gods and humans. His compassion for Prometheus reflected his connection to humanity and willingness to confront divine injustice.
Fate and Mythic Necessity: In Greek mythology, fate often drives heroes toward their destinies. Hercules’s meeting with Prometheus was a moment where his strength and moral character were tested and affirmed.
Through his encounter with Prometheus, Hercules proved himself not only as a mighty hero but also as a figure of compassion and liberation. This act of freeing the Titan further solidified Hercules’s legacy as a champion of both mortals and the divine.
How Are Enki and Prometheus Alike?
Creators of Humanity: Both Enki and Prometheus are credited with shaping and protecting humanity—Enki through his interventions in Mesopotamian myths and Prometheus through his act of creation.
Bringers of Knowledge: Enki’s gift of wisdom, arts, and sciences parallels Prometheus’s gift of fire, symbolizing enlightenment and progress.
Defiance of Higher Authority: Both figures defy the ruling gods (Anu in Enki’s case, Zeus in Prometheus’s) to benefit humanity, showcasing their rebellious yet compassionate nature.
Endurance of Punishment: Prometheus’s eternal torment and Enki’s enduring challenges reflect their sacrifices for humanity’s welfare.
Symbolism of Rebellion and Enlightenment: They both embody the spirit of challenging tyranny to elevate others, serving as archetypes of benevolent defiance.
Birth and Historical Context from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus
Prometheus is an ancient figure of Greek mythology, likely originating around 800-700 BCE during the creation of Hesiod’s Theogony and Works and Days. His myths reflect themes of the human struggle for progress and resilience in the face of divine control, resonating through the ages.
In Greek mythology, Prometheus (/prəˈmiːθiəs/; Ancient Greek: Προμηθεύς, [promɛːtʰéu̯s], possibly meaning “forethought“)[1] is one of the Titans and a god of fire.[2] Prometheus is best known for defying the Olympian gods by taking fire from them and giving it to humanity in the form of technology, knowledge and, more generally, civilization.
In some versions of the myth, he is also credited with the creation of humanity from clay.[3] Prometheus is known for his intelligence and for being a champion of mankind[4] and is also generally seen as the author of the human arts and sciences.[5] He is sometimes presented as the father of Deucalion, the hero of the flood story.[6][7][8]
The punishment of Prometheus for stealing fire from Olympus and giving it to humans is a subject of both ancient and modern culture. Zeus, king of the Olympian gods, condemned Prometheus to eternal torment for his transgression. Prometheus was bound to a rock, and an eagle—the emblem of Zeus—was sent to eat his liver (in ancient Greece, the liver was thought to be the seat of human emotions). His liver would then grow back overnight, only to be eaten again the next day in an ongoing cycle. According to several major versions of the myth, most notably that of Hesiod, Prometheus was eventually freed by the hero Heracles.[9][10] In yet more symbolism, the struggle of Prometheus is located by some at Mount Elbrus or at Mount Kazbek, two volcanic promontories in the Caucasus Mountains beyond which for the ancient Greeks lay the realm of the barbari.[11]
In another myth, Prometheus establishes the form of animal sacrifice practiced in ancient Greek religion.[12] Evidence of a cult to Prometheus himself is not widespread. He was a focus of religious activity mainly at Athens, where he was linked to Athena and Hephaestus, who were the Greek deities of creative skills and technology.[13][14]
In the Western classical tradition, Prometheus became a figure who represented human striving (particularly the quest for scientific knowledge) and the risk of overreaching or unintended consequences. In particular, he was regarded in the Romantic era as embodying the lone genius whose efforts to improve human existence could also result in tragedy: Mary Shelley, for instance, gave The Modern Prometheus as the subtitle to her novel Frankenstein (1818).
Etymology
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The etymology of the theonym prometheus is debated. The usual view is that it signifies “forethought”, as that of his brother Epimetheus denotes “afterthought”.[1] Hesychius of Alexandria gives Prometheus the variant name of Ithas, and adds “whom others call Ithax”, and describes him as the Herald of the Titans.[15] Kerényi remarks that these names are “not transparent”, and may be different readings of the same name, while the name “Prometheus” is descriptive.[16]
It has also been theorised that it derives from the Proto-Indo-European root that also produces the Vedic pra math, “to steal”, hence pramathyu-s, “thief”, cognate with “Prometheus”, the thief of fire. The Vedic myth of fire’s theft by Mātariśvan is an analogue to the Greek account.[17] Pramant was the fire-drill, the tool used to create fire.[18] The suggestion that Prometheus was in origin the human “inventor of the fire-sticks, from which fire is kindled” goes back to Diodorus Siculus in the first century BC. The reference is again to the “fire-drill”, a worldwide primitive method of fire making using a vertical and a horizontal piece of wood to produce fire by friction.[19]
Myths and legends
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Possible sources
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The oldest record of Prometheus is in Hesiod, but stories of theft of fire by a trickster figure are widespread around the world. Some other aspects of the story resemble the Sumerian myth of Enki (or Ea in later Babylonian mythology), who was also a bringer of civilization who protected humanity against the other gods, including during the great flood,[20] as well as created man from clay. While the theory lost favour in the 20th century that Prometheus descends from the Vedic fire bringer Mātariśvan, it was suggested in the 19th century and is still supported by some.[citation needed]
Oldest legends
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Hesiod’s Theogony and Works and Days
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Theogony
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The first recorded account of the Prometheus myth appeared in the late 8th-century BC Greek epic poet Hesiod‘s Theogony (507–616). In that account, Prometheus was a son of the Titan Iapetus by Clymene or Asia, one of the Oceanids. He was brother to Menoetius, Atlas, and Epimetheus. Hesiod, in Theogony, introduces Prometheus as a lowly challenger to Zeus‘s omniscience and omnipotence.
In the trick at Mecone (535–544), a sacrificial meal marking the “settling of accounts” between mortals and immortals, Prometheus played a trick against Zeus. 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 (556–557). Henceforth, humans would keep that 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. In this version of the myth, the use of fire was already known to humans, but withdrawn by Zeus.[21]
Prometheus stole fire back from Zeus in a fennel stalk and restored it to humanity (565–566). This further enraged Zeus, who sent the first woman to live with humanity (Pandora, not explicitly mentioned). The woman, a “shy maiden”, was fashioned by Hephaestus out of clay and Athena helped to adorn her properly (571–574). Hesiod writes, “From her is the race of women and female kind: 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” (590–594). For his crimes, Prometheus was punished by Zeus, who bound him with chains and sent an eagle to eat Prometheus’ immortal liver every day, which then grew back every night. Years later, the Greek hero Heracles, with Zeus’ permission, killed the eagle and freed Prometheus from this torment (521–529).

Works and Days
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Hesiod revisits the story of Prometheus and the theft of fire in Works and Days (42–105). In it the poet expands upon Zeus’s reaction to Prometheus’ deception. Not only does Zeus withhold fire from humanity, but “the means of life” as well (42). Had Prometheus not provoked Zeus’s wrath, “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” (44–47).
Hesiod also adds more information to Theogony‘s story of the first woman, a maiden crafted from earth and water by Hephaestus now explicitly called Pandora (“all gifts“) (82). Zeus in this case gets the help of Athena, Aphrodite, Hermes, the Graces and the Hours (59–76). After Prometheus steals the fire, Zeus sends Pandora in retaliation. Despite Prometheus’ warning, Epimetheus accepts this “gift” from the gods (89). Pandora carried a jar with her from which were released mischief and sorrow, plague and diseases (94–100). Pandora shuts the lid of the jar too late to contain all the evil plights that escaped, but Hope is left trapped in the jar because Zeus forces Pandora to seal it up before Hope can escape (96–99).
Interpretation
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Casanova (1979),[22][23] finds in Prometheus a reflection of an ancient, pre-Hesiodic trickster-figure, who served to account for the mixture of good and bad in human life, and whose fashioning of humanity from clay was an Eastern motif familiar in Enuma Elish. As an opponent of Zeus, the titan Prometheus can be seen as characteristic of the titans in general, and like other titans, was punished for his opposition. As an advocate for humanity he gains semi-divine status at Athens, where the episode in Theogony in which he is liberated[24] is interpreted by Casanova as a post-Hesiodic interpolation.[a][22]
According to the classicist Karl-Martin Dietz, in Hesiod’s scriptures, Prometheus represents the “descent of mankind from the communion with the gods into the present troublesome life”.[25]
The Lost Titanomachy
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The Titanomachy is a lost epic of the cosmological struggle between the Greek gods and their parents, the Titans, and, in addition to the works of Hesiod, is a probable source of the Prometheus myth.[26] Its reputed author was anciently supposed to have lived in the 8th century BC, but M. L. West has argued that it can’t be earlier than the late 7th century BC.[27] Presumably included in the Titanomachy is the story of Prometheus, himself a Titan, who managed to avoid being in the direct confrontational cosmic battle between Zeus and the other Olympians against Cronus and the other Titans[28] (although there is no direct evidence of Prometheus’ inclusion in the epic).[20] M. L. West notes that surviving references suggest that there may have been significant differences between the Titanomachy epic and the account of events in Hesiod; and that the Titanomachy may be the source of later variants of the Prometheus myth not found in Hesiod, notably the non-Hesiodic material found in the Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus.[29]
Athenian tradition
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The two major authors to have an influence on the development of the myths and legends surrounding the Titan Prometheus during the Socratic era of greater Athens were Aeschylus and Plato. The two men wrote in highly distinctive forms of expression which for Aeschylus centered on his mastery of the literary form of Greek tragedy, while for Plato this centered on the philosophical expression of his thought in the form of the various dialogues he wrote during his lifetime.
Aeschylus and the ancient literary tradition
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Prometheus Bound, 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.[30] At the centre of the drama are the results of Prometheus’ theft of fire and his current punishment by 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.[b] It has been suggested by M.L. West that these changes may derive from the now lost epic Titanomachy.[29]
Before his theft of fire, Prometheus played a decisive role in the Titanomachy, securing victory for Zeus and the other Olympians. Zeus’ 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 humanity fire, Prometheus claims to have taught them the arts of civilisation, such as writing, mathematics, agriculture, medicine, and science. The Titan’s greatest benefaction for humanity seems to have been saving them from complete destruction. In an apparent twist on the myth of the so-called Five Ages of Man found in Hesiod’s Works and Days (wherein Cronus and, later, Zeus created and destroyed five successive races of humanity), Prometheus asserts that Zeus had wanted to obliterate the human race, but that he somehow stopped him.[31]

Moreover, Aeschylus anachronistically and artificially injects Io, another victim of Zeus’s 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’s downfall: Prometheus had been told by his mother Themis, who in the play is identified with Gaia (Earth), 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. It is apparently not until Prometheus reveals this secret of Zeus’s potential downfall that the two reconcile in the final play, Prometheus the Fire-Bringer or Prometheus Pyrphoros, a lost tragedy by Aeschylus.
Prometheus Bound also includes two mythic innovations of omission. The first is the absence of Pandora‘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.[30] The four tragedies of Prometheus attributed to Aeschylus, most of which are lost to the passages of time into antiquity, are Prometheus Bound (Prometheus Desmotes), Prometheus Unbound (Lyomenos), Prometheus the Fire Bringer (Pyrphoros), and Prometheus the Fire Kindler (Pyrkaeus).
The larger scope of Aeschylus as a dramatist revisiting the myth of Prometheus in the age of Athenian prominence has been discussed by William Lynch.[32] Lynch’s general thesis concerns the rise of humanist and secular tendencies in Athenian culture and society which required the growth and expansion of the mythological and religious tradition as acquired from the most ancient sources of the myth stemming from Hesiod. For Lynch, modern scholarship is hampered by not having the full trilogy of Prometheus by Aeschylus, the last two parts of which have been lost to antiquity. Significantly, Lynch further comments that although the Prometheus trilogy is not available, the Orestia trilogy by Aeschylus remains available and may be assumed to provide significant insight into the overall structural intentions which may be ascribed to the Prometheus trilogy by Aeschylus as an author of significant consistency and exemplary dramatic erudition.[33]
Harold Bloom, in his research guide for Aeschylus, has summarised some of the critical attention that has been applied to Aeschylus concerning his general philosophical import in Athens.[34] As Bloom states, “Much critical attention has been paid to the question of theodicy in Aeschylus. For generations, scholars warred incessantly over ‘the justice of Zeus,’ unintentionally blurring it with a monotheism imported from Judeo-Christian thought. The playwright undoubtedly had religious concerns; for instance, Jacqueline de Romilly[35] suggests that his treatment of time flows directly out of his belief in divine justice. But it would be an error to think of Aeschylus as sermonising. His Zeus does not arrive at decisions which he then enacts in the mortal world; rather, human events are themselves an enactment of divine will.”[36]
According to Thomas Rosenmeyer, regarding the religious import of Aeschylus, “In Aeschylus, as in Homer, the two levels of causation, the supernatural and the human, are co-existent and simultaneous, two ways of describing the same event.” Rosenmeyer insists that ascribing portrayed characters in Aeschylus should not conclude them to be either victims or agents of theological or religious activity too quickly. As Rosenmeyer states: “[T]he text defines their being. For a critic to construct an Aeschylean theology would be as quixotic as designing a typology of Aeschylean man. The needs of the drama prevail.”[37]
In a rare comparison of Prometheus in Aeschylus with Oedipus in Sophocles, Harold Bloom states that “Freud called Oedipus an ‘immoral play,’ since the gods ordained incest and parricide. Oedipus therefore participates in our universal unconscious sense of guilt, but on this reading so do the gods” […] “I sometimes wish that Freud had turned to Aeschylus instead, and given us the Prometheus complex rather than the Oedipus complex.”[38]
Karl-Martin Dietz states that in contrast to Hesiod’s, in Aeschylus’ oeuvre, Prometheus stands for the “Ascent of humanity from primitive beginnings to the present level of civilisation.”[25]
Plato and philosophy
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Olga Raggio, in her study “The Myth of Prometheus”, attributes Plato in the Protagoras as an important contributor to the early development of the Prometheus myth.[39] Raggio indicates that many of the more challenging and dramatic assertions which Aeschylean tragedy explores are absent from Plato’s writings about Prometheus.[40]
As summarised by Raggio,
After the gods have moulded men and other living creatures with a mixture of clay and fire, the two brothers Epimetheus and Prometheus are called to complete the task and distribute among the newly born creatures all sorts of natural qualities. Epimetheus sets to work but, being unwise, distributes all the gifts of nature among the animals, leaving men naked and unprotected, unable to defend themselves and to survive in a hostile world. Prometheus then steals the fire of creative power from the workshop of Athena and Hephaistos and gives it to mankind.
Raggio then goes on to point out Plato’s distinction of creative power (techne), which is presented as superior to merely natural instincts (physis).
For Plato, only the virtues of “reverence and justice can provide for the maintenance of a civilised society – and these virtues are the highest gift finally bestowed on men in equal measure”.[41] The ancients by way of Plato believed that the name Prometheus derived from the Greek prefix pro– (before) + manthano (intelligence) and the agent suffix –eus, thus meaning “Forethinker”.
In his dialogue titled Protagoras, Plato contrasts Prometheus with his dull-witted brother Epimetheus, “Afterthinker”.[42][43] In Plato’s dialogue Protagoras, Protagoras asserts that the gods created humans and all the other animals, but it was left to Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus 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 civilising arts.[44]
Athenian religious dedication and observance
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It is understandable that since Prometheus was considered a Titan (distinct from an Olympian) that there would be an absence of evidence, with the exception of Athens, for the direct religious devotion to his worship. Despite his importance to the myths and imaginative literature of ancient Greece, the religious cult of Prometheus during the Archaic and Classical periods seems to have been limited.[45] Writing in the 2nd century AD, the satirist Lucian points out that while temples for the major Olympians were everywhere, none for Prometheus is to be seen.[46]

Athens was the exception; here Prometheus was worshipped alongside Athena and Hephaestus.[47] The altar of Prometheus in the grove of the Academy was the point of origin for several significant processions and other events regularly observed on the Athenian calendar. For the Panathenaic festival, arguably the most important civic festival at Athens, a torch race began at the altar, which was located outside the sacred boundary of the city, and passed through the Kerameikos, the district inhabited by potters and other artisans who regarded Prometheus and Hephaestus as patrons.[48] The race then travelled to the heart of the city, where it kindled the sacrificial fire on the altar of Athena on the Acropolis to conclude the festival.[49] These footraces took the form of relays in which teams of runners passed off a flaming torch. According to Pausanias (2nd century AD), the torch relay, called lampadedromia or lampadephoria, was first instituted at Athens in honour of Prometheus.[50]
By the Classical period, the races were run by ephebes also in honour of Hephaestus and Athena.[51] Prometheus’ association with fire is the key to his religious significance[45] and to the alignment with Athena and Hephaestus that was specific to Athens and its “unique degree of cultic emphasis” on honouring technology.[52] The festival of Prometheus was the Prometheia (τὰ Προμήθεια). The wreaths worn symbolised the chains of Prometheus.[53] There is a pattern of resemblances between Hephaestus and Prometheus. Although the classical tradition is that Hephaestus split Zeus’s head to allow Athena’s birth, that story has also been told of Prometheus. A variant tradition makes Prometheus the son of Hera like Hephaestus.[54] According to that version, the Giant Eurymedon raped Hera when she was young, and she had Prometheus. After Zeus married Hera, he threw Eurymedon into Tartarus and punished Prometheus in Caucasus, using the theft of fire as an excuse.[55][56] Ancient artists depict Prometheus wearing the pointed cap of an artist or artisan, like Hephaestus, and also the crafty hero Odysseus. The artisan’s cap was also depicted as worn by the Cabeiri,[57] supernatural craftsmen associated with a mystery cult known in Athens in classical times, and who were associated with both Hephaestus and Prometheus. Kerényi suggests that Hephaestus may in fact be the “successor” of Prometheus, despite Hephaestus being himself of archaic origin.[58]
Pausanias recorded a few other religious sites in Greece devoted to Prometheus. Both Argos and Opous claimed to be Prometheus’ final resting place, each erecting a tomb in his honour. The Greek city of Panopeus had a cult statue that was supposed to honour Prometheus for having created the human race there.[44]
Aesthetic tradition in Athenian art
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Prometheus’ torment by the eagle and his rescue by Heracles were popular subjects in vase paintings of the 6th to 4th centuries 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 of the 5th century BC. A similar rendering is also found at the great altar of Zeus at Pergamon from the second century BC.
The event of the release of Prometheus from captivity was frequently revisited on Attic and Etruscan vases between the sixth and fifth centuries BC. In the depiction on display at the Museum of Karlsruhe and in Berlin, the depiction is that of Prometheus confronted by a menacing large bird (assumed to be the eagle) with Heracles approaching from behind shooting his arrows at it.[59] In the fourth century this imagery was modified to depicting Prometheus bound in a cruciform manner, possibly reflecting an Aeschylus-inspired manner of influence, again with an eagle and with Heracles approaching from the side.[60]
Other authors
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Some two dozen other Greek and Roman authors retold and further embellished the Prometheus myth from as early as the 5th century BC (Diodorus, Herodorus) into the 4th century AD. The most significant detail added to the myth found in, e.g., Sappho, Aesop and Ovid[61] was the central role of Prometheus in the creation of the human race. According to these sources, Prometheus fashioned humans out of clay.
Although perhaps made explicit in the Prometheia, later authors such as Hyginus, the Bibliotheca, and Quintus of Smyrna would confirm that Prometheus warned Zeus not to marry the sea nymph Thetis. She is consequently married off to the mortal Peleus, and bears him a son greater than the father – Achilles, Greek hero of the Trojan War. Pseudo-Apollodorus moreover clarifies a cryptic statement (1026–29) made by Hermes in Prometheus Bound, identifying the centaur Chiron as the one who would take on Prometheus’ suffering and die in his place.[44] Reflecting a myth attested in Greek vase paintings from the Classical period, Pseudo-Apollodorus places the Titan (armed with an axe) at the birth of Athena, thus explaining how the goddess sprang forth from the forehead of Zeus.[44]
Other minor details attached to the myth include: the duration of Prometheus’ torment;[62][63] the origin of the eagle that ate the Titan’s liver (found in Pseudo-Apollodorus and Hyginus); Pandora’s marriage to Epimetheus (found in Pseudo-Apollodorus); myths surrounding the life of Prometheus’ son, Deucalion (found in Ovid and Apollonius of Rhodes); and Prometheus’ marginal role in the myth of Jason and the Argonauts (found in Apollonius of Rhodes and Valerius Flaccus).[44]
“Variants of legends containing the Prometheus motif are widespread in the Caucasus” region, reports Hunt,[64] who gave ten stories related to Prometheus from ethno-linguistic groups in the region.
Prometheus finally makes an appearance in Athenian playwright Aristophanes‘s comedy The Birds, where he is seen living on Mount Olympus after the end of his long torture, apparently having reconciled with the other gods. He is presented not as the dauntless rebel who questioned Zeus, but rather as a timid god who goes to negotiate with the titular Birds disguised, so that Zeus will not notice him talking to the enemy.[65]
Zahhak, an evil figure in Iranian mythology, also ends up eternally chained on a mountainside – though the rest of his career is dissimilar to that of Prometheus.[66][67][68]
Late Roman antiquity
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The three most prominent aspects of the Prometheus myth have parallels within the beliefs of many cultures.[69] “The Prometheus myth of creation as a visual symbol of the Neoplatonic concept of human nature, illustrated in (many) sarcophagi, was evidently a contradiction of the Christian teaching of the unique and simultaneous act of creation by the Trinity.” This Neoplatonism of late Roman antiquity was especially stressed by Tertullian[70] who recognised both difference and similarity of the biblical deity with the mythological figure of Prometheus.
The imagery of Prometheus and the creation of man used for the purposes of the representation of the creation of Adam in biblical symbolism is also a recurrent theme in the artistic expression of late Roman antiquity. Of the relatively rare expressions found of the creation of Adam in those centuries of late Roman antiquity, one can single out the so-called “Dogma sarcophagus” of the Lateran Museum where three figures (commonly taken to represent the theological trinity) are seen in making a benediction to the new man. Another example is found where the prototype of Prometheus is also recognisable in the early Christian era of late Roman antiquity. This can be found upon a sarcophagus of the Church at Mas d’Aire[71] as well, and in an even more direct comparison to what Raggio refers to as “a coarsely carved relief from Campli (Teramo)[72] (where) the Lord sits on a throne and models the body of Adam, exactly like Prometheus”. Still another such similarity is found in the example found on a Hellenistic relief presently in the Louvre in which the Lord gives life to Eve through the imposition of his two fingers on her eyes recalling the same gesture found in earlier representations of Prometheus.[69]
In Georgian mythology, Amirani is a cultural hero who challenged the chief god and, like Prometheus, was chained on the Caucasian mountains where birds would eat his organs. This aspect of the myth had a significant influence on the Greek imagination. It is recognisable from a Greek gem roughly dated to the time of the Hesiod poems, which show Prometheus with hands bound behind his body and crouching before a bird with long wings.[73] This same image would also be used later in the Rome of the Augustan age as documented by Furtwangler.[74]
In the often cited and highly publicised interview between Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers on Public Television, the author of The Hero with a Thousand Faces presented his view on the comparison of Prometheus and Jesus.[75] Moyers asked Campbell the question in the following words, “In this sense, unlike heroes such as Prometheus or Jesus, we’re not going on our journey to save the world but to save ourselves.” To which Campbell’s well-known response was that, “But in doing that, you save the world. The influence of a vital person vitalizes, there’s no doubt about it. The world without spirit is a wasteland. People have the notion of saving the world by shifting things around, changing the rules […] No, no! Any world is a valid world if it’s alive. The thing to do is to bring life to it, and the only way to do that is to find in your own case where the life is and become alive yourself.” For Campbell, Jesus suffered mortally on the Cross while Prometheus suffered eternally while chained to a rock, and each of them received punishment for the gift which they bestowed to humankind, for Jesus this was the gift of propitiation from Heaven, and, for Prometheus this was the gift of fire from Olympus.[75]
It remains a continuing debate among scholars of comparative religion and the literary reception[76] of mythological and religious subject matter as to whether the typology of suffering and torment represented in the Prometheus myth finds its more representative comparisons with the narratives of the Hebrew scriptures or with the New Testament narratives. In the Book of Job, significant comparisons can be drawn between the sustained suffering of Job in comparison to that of eternal suffering and torment represented in the Prometheus myth. With Job, the suffering is at the acquiescence of heaven and at the will of the demonic, while in Prometheus the suffering is directly linked to Zeus as the ruler of Olympus. The comparison of the suffering of Jesus after his sentencing in Jerusalem is limited to the three days, from Thursday to Saturday, and leading to the culminating narratives corresponding to Easter Sunday. The symbolic import for comparative religion would maintain that suffering related to justified conduct is redeemed in both the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament narratives, while in Prometheus there remains the image of a non-forgiving deity, Zeus, who nonetheless requires reverence.[75]
Writing in late antiquity of the fourth and fifth century, the Latin commentator Marcus Servius Honoratus explained that Prometheus was so named because he was a man of great foresight (vir prudentissimus), possessing the abstract quality of providentia, the Latin equivalent of Greek promētheia (ἀπὸ τής πρόμηθείας).[77] Anecdotally, the Roman fabulist Phaedrus (c. 15 BC – c. 50 AD) attributes to Aesop a simple etiology for homosexuality, in Prometheus’ getting drunk while creating the first humans and misapplying the genitalia.[78]
Middle Ages
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Perhaps the most influential book of the Middle Ages upon the reception of the Prometheus myth was the mythological handbook of Fulgentius Placiades. As stated by Raggio,[79] “The text of Fulgentius, as well as that of (Marcus) Servius […] are the main sources of the mythological handbooks written in the ninth century by the anonymous Mythographus Primus and Mythographus Secundus. Both were used for the more lengthy and elaborate compendium by the English scholar Alexander Neckman (1157–1217), the Scintillarium Poetarum, or Poetarius.”[79] The purpose of his books was to distinguish allegorical interpretation from the historical interpretation of the Prometheus myth. Continuing in this same tradition of the allegorical interpretation of the Prometheus myth, along with the historical interpretation of the Middle Ages, is the Genealogiae of Giovanni Boccaccio. Boccaccio follows these two levels of interpretation and distinguishes between two separate versions of the Prometheus myth. For Boccaccio, Prometheus is placed “In the heavens where all is clarity and truth, [Prometheus] steals, so to speak, a ray of the divine wisdom from God himself, source of all Science, supreme Light of every man.”[80] With this, Boccaccio shows himself moving from the mediaeval sources with a shift of accent towards the attitude of the Renaissance humanists.
Using a similar interpretation to that of Boccaccio, Marsilio Ficino in the fifteenth century updated the philosophical and more sombre reception of the Prometheus myth not seen since the time of Plotinus. In his book written in 1476–77 titled Quaestiones Quinque de Mente, Ficino indicates his preference for reading the Prometheus myth as an image of the human soul seeking to obtain supreme truth. As Raggio summarises Ficino’s text, “The torture of Prometheus is the torment brought by reason itself to man, who is made by it many times more unhappy than the brutes. It is after having stolen one beam of the celestial light […] that the soul feels as if fastened by chains and […] only death can release her bonds and carry her to the source of all knowledge.”[80] This sombreness of attitude in Ficino’s text would be further developed later by Charles de Bouelles‘ Liber de Sapiente of 1509 which presented a mix of both scholastic and Neoplatonic ideas.
Renaissance
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After the writings of both Boccaccio and Ficino in the late Middle Ages about Prometheus, interest in the Titan shifted considerably in the direction of becoming subject matter for painters and sculptors alike. Among the most famous examples is that of Piero di Cosimo from about 1510 presently on display at the museums of Munich and Strasburg (see Inset). Raggio summarises the Munich version[81] as follows; “The Munich panel represents the dispute between Epimetheus and Prometheus, the handsome triumphant statue of the new man, modelled by Prometheus, his ascension to the sky under the guidance of Minerva; the Strasburg panel shows in the distance Prometheus lighting his torch at the wheels of the Sun, and in the foreground on one side, Prometheus applying his torch to the heart of the statue and, on the other, Mercury fastening him to a tree.” All the details are evidently borrowed from Boccaccio‘s Genealogiae.
The same reference to the Genealogiae can be cited as the source for the drawing by Parmigianino presently located in the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City.[82] In the drawing, a very noble rendering of Prometheus is presented which evokes the memory of Michelangelo’s works portraying Jehovah. This drawing is perhaps one of the most intense examples of the visualisation of the myth of Prometheus from the Renaissance period.
Writing in the late British Renaissance, William Shakespeare uses the Promethean allusion in the famous death scene of Desdemona in his tragedy of Othello. Othello in contemplating the death of Desdemona asserts plainly that he cannot restore the “Promethean heat” to her body once it has been extinguished. For Shakespeare, the allusion is clearly to the interpretation of the fire from the heat as the bestowing of life to the creation of man from clay by Prometheus after it was stolen from Olympus. The analogy bears direct resemblance to the biblical narrative of the creation of life in Adam through the bestowed breathing of the creator in Genesis. Shakespeare’s symbolic reference to the “heat” associated with Prometheus’ fire is to the association of the gift of fire to the mythological gift or theological gift of life to humans.
Post-Renaissance
[edit]

See also: Prometheus in popular culture
The myth of Prometheus has been a favourite theme of Western art and literature in the post-renaissance and post-Enlightenment tradition and, occasionally, in works produced outside the West.
Post-Renaissance literary arts
[edit]
For the Romantic era, Prometheus was the rebel who resisted all forms of institutional tyranny epitomised by Zeus – church, monarch, and patriarch. The Romantics drew comparisons between Prometheus and the spirit of the French Revolution, Christ, the Satan of John Milton‘s Paradise Lost, and the divinely inspired poet or artist. Prometheus is the lyrical “I” who speaks in Goethe‘s Sturm und Drang poem “Prometheus” (written c. 1772–74, published 1789), addressing God (as Zeus) in misotheist accusation and defiance. In Prometheus Unbound (1820), a four-act lyrical drama, Percy Bysshe Shelley rewrites the lost play of Aeschylus so that Prometheus does not submit to Zeus (under the Latin name Jupiter), but instead supplants him in a triumph of the human heart and intellect over tyrannical religion. Lord Byron‘s poem “Prometheus” also portrays the Titan as unrepentant. As documented by Raggio, other leading figures among the great Romantics included Byron, Longfellow and Nietzsche as well.[39] Mary Shelley‘s 1818 novel Frankenstein is subtitled “The Modern Prometheus”, in reference to the novel’s themes of the over-reaching of modern humanity into dangerous areas of knowledge.
Goethe’s poems
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Duration: 2 minutes and 7 seconds.2:07
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Prometheus is a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in which a character based on the mythic Prometheus addresses God (as Zeus) in a romantic and misotheist tone of accusation and defiance. The poem was written between 1772 and 1774. It was first published fifteen years later in 1789. It is an important work as it represents one of the first encounters of the Prometheus myth with the literary Romantic movement identified with Goethe and with the Sturm und Drang movement.
The poem has appeared in Volume 6 of Goethe’s poems (in his Collected Works) in a section of Vermischte Gedichte (assorted poems), shortly following the Harzreise im Winter. It is immediately followed by “Ganymed”, and the two poems are written as informing each other according to Goethe’s plan in their actual writing. Prometheus (1774) was originally planned as a drama but never completed by Goethe, though the poem is inspired by it. Prometheus is the creative and rebellious spirit rejected by God and who angrily defies him and asserts himself. Ganymede, by direct contrast, is the boyish self who is both adored and seduced by God. As a high Romantic poet and a humanist poet, Goethe presents both identities as contrasting aspects of the Romantic human condition.
The poem offers direct biblical connotations for the Prometheus myth which was unseen in any of the ancient Greek poets dealing with the Prometheus myth in either drama, tragedy, or philosophy. The intentional use of the German phrase “Da ich ein Kind war…” (“When I was a child”): the use of Da is distinctive, and with it Goethe directly applies the Lutheran translation of Saint Paul‘s First Epistle to the Corinthians, 13:11: “Da ich ein Kind war, da redete ich wie ein Kind…” (“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things”). Goethe’s Prometheus is significant for the contrast it evokes with the biblical text of Corinthians rather than for its similarities.
In his book titled Prometheus: Archetypal Image of Human Existence, C. Kerényi states the key contrast between Goethe’s version of Prometheus with the ancient Greek version.[83] As Kerényi states, “Goethe’s Prometheus had Zeus for father and a goddess for mother. With this change from the traditional lineage the poet distinguished his hero from the race of the Titans.” For Goethe, the metaphorical comparison of Prometheus to the image of the Son from the New Testament narratives was of central importance, with the figure of Zeus in Goethe’s reading being metaphorically matched directly to the image of the Father from the New Testament narratives.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Percy Shelley published his four-act lyrical drama titled Prometheus Unbound in 1820. His version was written in response to the version of myth as presented by Aeschylus and is orientated to the high British Idealism and high British Romanticism prevailing in Shelley’s own time. Shelley, as the author himself discusses, admits the debt of his version of the myth to Aeschylus and the Greek poetic tradition which he assumes is familiar to readers of his own lyrical drama. For example, it is necessary to understand and have knowledge of the reason for Prometheus’ punishment if the reader is to form an understanding of whether the exoneration portrayed by Shelley in his version of the Prometheus myth is justified or unjustified. The quote of Shelley’s own words describing the extent of his indebtedness to Aeschylus has been published in numerous sources publicly available.
The literary critic Harold Bloom in his book Shelley’s Mythmaking expresses his high expectation of Shelley in the tradition of mythopoeic poetry. For Bloom, Percy Shelley’s relationship to the tradition of mythology in poetry “culminates in ‘Prometheus’. The poem provides a complete statement of Shelley’s vision.”[84] Bloom devotes two full chapters in this 1959 book to Shelley’s lyrical drama Prometheus Unbound.[85] Following his 1959 book, Bloom edited an anthology of critical opinions on Shelley for Chelsea House Publishers where he concisely stated his opinion as, “Shelley is the unacknowledged ancestor of Wallace Stevens‘ conception of poetry as the Supreme Fiction, and Prometheus Unbound is the most capable imagining, outside of Blake and Wordsworth, that the Romantic quest for a Supreme Fiction has achieved.”[86]
Within the pages of his Introduction to the Chelsea House edition on Percy Shelley, Bloom also identifies the six major schools of criticism opposing Shelley’s idealised mythologising version of the Prometheus myth. In sequence, the opposing schools to Shelley are given as: (i) The school of “common sense”, (ii) The Christian orthodox, (iii) The school of “wit”, (iv) Moralists, of most varieties, (v) The school of “classic” form, and (vi) The Precisionists, or concretists.[87] Although Bloom is least interested in the first two schools, the second one on the Christian orthodox has special bearing on the reception of the Prometheus myth during late Roman antiquity and the synthesis of the New Testament canon. The Greek origins of the Prometheus myth have already discussed the Titanomachia as placing the cosmic struggle of Olympus at some point in time preceding the creation of humanity, while in the New Testament synthesis there was a strong assimilation of the prophetic tradition of the Hebrew prophets and their strongly eschatological orientation. This contrast placed a strong emphasis within the ancient Greek consciousness as to the moral and ontological acceptance of the mythology of the Titanomachia as an accomplished mythological history, whereas for the synthesis of the New Testament narratives this placed religious consciousness within the community at the level of an anticipated eschaton not yet accomplished. Neither of these would guide Percy Shelley in his poetic retelling and re-integration of the Prometheus myth.[88]
To the Socratic Greeks, one important aspect of the discussion of religion would correspond to the philosophical discussion of ‘becoming’ with respect to the New Testament syncretism rather than the ontological discussion of ‘being’ which was more prominent in the ancient Greek experience of mythologically oriented cult and religion.[89] For Shelley, both of these reading were to be substantially discounted in preference to his own concerns for promoting his own version of an idealised consciousness of a society guided by the precepts of High British Romanticism and High British Idealism.[90]
Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus
[edit]
Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus, written by Mary Shelley when she was 18, was published in 1818, two years before Percy Shelley’s above-mentioned play.[91] It has endured as one of the most frequently revisited literary themes in twentieth century film and popular reception with few rivals for its sheer popularity among even established literary works of art. The primary theme is a parallel to the aspect of the Prometheus myth which concentrates on the creation of man by the Titans, transferred and made contemporary by Shelley for British audiences of her time. The subject is that of the creation of life by a scientist, thus bestowing life through the application and technology of medical science rather than by the natural acts of reproduction. The short novel has been adapted into many films and productions ranging from the early versions with Boris Karloff to later versions including Kenneth Branagh‘s 1994 film adaptation.
Twentieth century
[edit]

Franz Kafka wrote a short piece titled “Prometheus“, outlining what he saw as his perspective on four aspects of this myth:
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.[92]
This short piece by Kafka concerning his interest in Prometheus was supplemented by two other mythological pieces written by him. As stated by Reiner Stach, “Kafka’s world was mythical in nature, with Old Testament and Jewish legends providing the templates. It was only logical (even if Kafka did not state it openly) that he would try his hand at the canon of antiquity, re-interpreting it and incorporating it into his own imagination in the form of allusions, as in ‘The Silence of the Sirens,’ ‘Prometheus,’ and ‘Poseidon.'”[93] Among 20th century poets, Ted Hughes wrote a 1973 collection of poems titled Prometheus on His Crag. The Nepali poet Laxmi Prasad Devkota (d. 1949) also wrote an epic titled Prometheus (प्रमीथस).
In his 1952 book, Lucifer and Prometheus, Zvi Werblowsky presented the speculatively derived Jungian construction of the character of Satan in Milton’s celebrated poem Paradise Lost. Werblowsky applied his own Jungian style of interpretation to appropriate parts of the Prometheus myth for the purpose of interpreting Milton. A reprint of his book in the 1990s by Routledge Press included an introduction to the book by Carl Jung. Some Gnostics have been associated with identifying the theft of fire from heaven as embodied by the fall of Lucifer “the Light Bearer”.[94]
Ayn Rand cited the Prometheus myth in Anthem, The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged, using the mythological character as a metaphor for creative people rebelling against the confines of modern society in The Fountainhead and for the punishment given to “Men of Production” for their productivity and ability in Atlas Shrugged.
The Eulenspiegel Society began the magazine Prometheus in the early 1970s;[95] it is a decades-long-running magazine exploring issues important to kinksters, ranging from art and erotica, to advice columns and personal ads, to conversation about the philosophy of consensual kink. The magazine now exists online.[95]
The artificial chemical element promethium is named after Prometheus.
Saturn’s moon Prometheus is named after him.
American Prometheus is a book released in 2005 about Robert J. Oppenheimer, the “father of the atomic bomb“.[96]
Post-Renaissance aesthetic tradition
[edit]
Visual arts
[edit]

Prometheus has been depicted in a number of well-known artworks, including Mexican muralist José Clemente Orozco‘s Prometheus fresco at Pomona College[97][98] and Paul Manship‘s bronze sculpture Prometheus at Rockefeller Center in Manhattan.
Classical music, opera, and ballet
[edit]
Works of classical music, opera, and ballet directly or indirectly inspired by the myth of Prometheus have included renderings by some of the major composers of both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In this tradition, the orchestral representation of the myth has received the most sustained attention of composers. These have included the symphonic poem by Franz Liszt titled Prometheus from 1850, among his other Symphonic Poems (No. 5, S.99).[99] Alexander Scriabin composed Prometheus: Poem of Fire, Opus 60 (1910),[100] also for orchestra.[101] In the same year Gabriel Fauré composed his three-act opera Prométhée (1910).[102] Charles-Valentin Alkan composed his Grande sonate ‘Les quatre âges’ (1847), with the 4th movement entitled “Prométhée enchaîné” (Prometheus Bound).[103] Beethoven composed the score to a ballet version of the myth titled The Creatures of Prometheus (1801).[104]
An adaptation of Goethe’s poetic version of the myth was composed by Hugo Wolf, Prometheus (Bedecke deinen Himmel, Zeus, 1889), as part of his Goethe–lieder for voice and piano,[105] later transcribed for orchestra and voice.[106] An opera of the myth was composed by Carl Orff titled Prometheus (1968),[107][108] using Aeschylus’ Greek language Prometheia.[109] A tradition has of course grown among critics of finding allusions to Prometheus Bound in Richard Wagner‘s Ring cycle.[110]
Rudolf Wagner-Régeny composed the Prometheus (opera) in 1959. Another work inspired by the myth, Prometeo (Prometheus), was composed by Luigi Nono between 1981 and 1984 and can be considered a sequence of nine cantatas. The libretto in Italian was written by Massimo Cacciari, and selects from texts by such varied authors as Aeschylus, Walter Benjamin and Rainer Maria Rilke and presents the different versions of the myth of Prometheus without telling any version literally.
Genealogy
hidePrometheus’s family tree[111] |
---|
UranusGaiaPontusOceanusTethysHyperionTheiaCriusEurybiaThe RiversThe OceanidsHeliosSelene[112]EosAstraeusPallasPersesCronusRheaCoeusPhoebeHestiaHeraHadesZeusLetoAsteriaDemeterPoseidonIapetusClymene (or Asia)[113]Mnemosyne(Zeus)ThemisAtlas[114]MenoetiusPROMETHEUS[115]EpimetheusThe MusesThe Horae |
See also
[edit]
- Enki
- Lucifer
- Prometheism
- Tityos, a Giant chained in Tartarus punished by two vultures who eat his regenerating liver.
- Hubris, extreme pride or overconfidence, often in combination with arrogance.
- Faust
- Jason Reza Jorjani, a philosopher who has also labelled his movement “Prometheism”, which is something different from the geopolical concept mentioned above.
- Victor Frankenstein, title character in Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein.
Footnotes
[edit]
- ^ In this interpretation, Angelo Casanova is joined by some editors of Theogony.
- ^ Some of these changes are rather minor. For instance, rather than being the son of Iapetus and Clymene Prometheus becomes the son of Themis who is identified with Gaia. In addition, the chorus makes a passing reference (561) to Prometheus’ wife Hesione, whereas a fragment from Hesiod’s Catalogue of Women fr. 4 calls her “Pryneie”, a possible corruption for Pronoia.
Notes
[edit]
- ^ Jump up to:a b Smith, “Prometheus” Archived 2021-02-25 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ “Prometheus | Description & Myth”. Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 2020-09-10. Retrieved 2020-09-08.
- ^ The Longman Anthology of British Literature: Volume 2A: The Romantics and Their Contemporaries. United States: Pearson Education, Inc. 2006. p. 704. ISBN 0-321-33394-2.
- ^ William Hansen, Classical Mythology: A Guide to the Mythical World of the Greeks and Romans (Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 32, 48–50, 69–73, 93, 96, 102–104, 140; as trickster figure, p. 310.
- ^ Weiner, Jesse; Stevens, Benjamin Eldon; Rogers, Brett M., eds. (2018). Frankenstein and Its Classics: The Modern Prometheus from Antiquity to Science Fiction. Bloomsbury Academic. doi:10.5040/9781350054912.0006. ISBN 978-1-350-05491-2.
- ^ Dougherty, C. (2006). Prometheus. Abingdon: Routledge.
- ^ West, S. (1994). Prometheus Orientalized. Museum Helveticum, 51(3), 129–149.
- ^ Apollodorus, 1.7.1 Archived 2021-10-23 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ Hesiod, Theogony 526–8
- ^ Greenberg, Mike; PhD (2020-05-04). “Prometheus: The Complete Guide to the Greek Titan (2021)”. Archived from the original on 2021-05-11. Retrieved 2021-05-11.
- ^ Thomas, Lowell (1964). Book of the High Mountains. Julian Messner. p. 159.
- ^ “Prometheus – Greek Titan God of Forethought, Creator of Mankind”. www.theoi.com. Archived from the original on 2022-03-25. Retrieved 2022-04-04.
- ^ Lewis Richard Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1896), vol. 1, pp. 36, 49, 75, 277, 285, 314, 346
- ^ Carol Dougherty, Prometheus (Routledge, 2006), pp. 42ff
- ^ Quoted in Kerényi (1997), p. 50.
- ^ Kerényi (1997), pp. 50, 63.
- ^ Fortson, Benjamin W. (2004). Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction. Blackwell Publishing, p. 27; Williamson 2004, 214–215; Dougherty, Carol (2006). Prometheus. p. 4.
- ^ Cook, Arthur Bernard (1914). Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion, Volume 1. Cambridge University Press. p. 329. Retrieved 5 February 2019.
- ^ Diodurus quoted in Cook (1914), p. 325.
- ^ Jump up to:a b Stephanie West. “Prometheus Orientalized” page 147 Museum Helveticum Vol. 51, No. 3 (1994), pp. 129–149 (21 pages)
- ^ M. L. West commentaries on Hesiod, W.J. Verdenius commentaries on Hesiod, and R. Lamberton’s Hesiod, pp. 95–100.
- ^ Jump up to:a b Casanova, Angelo (1979). La famiglia di Pandora: analisi filologica dei miti di Pandora e Prometeo nella tradizione esiodea. Florence.
- ^ Angelo Casanova is a professor of Greek literature at the University of Florence.
- ^ Hesiod, Theogony, 526–533.
- ^ Jump up to:a b Dietz, Karl-Martin (1989). “Prometheus – vom Göttlichen zum menschlichen Wissen”. Metamorphosen des Geistes. Vol. 1. Stuttgart. p. 66.
- ^ Reinhardt, Karl. Aischylos als Regisseur und Theologe, p. 30.
- ^ West, M. L. (2002). “‘Eumelos’: A Corinthian Epic Cycle?”. The Journal of Hellenic Studies. 122: 109–133. doi:10.2307/3246207. JSTOR 3246207, pp. 110–111.
- ^ Philippson, Paula (1944). Untersuchungen uber griechischen Mythos: Genealogie als mythische Form. Zürich, Switzerland: Rhein-Verlag.
- ^ Jump up to:a b West (2002), pp. 114, and 110–118 for general discussion of Titanomachy.
- ^ Jump up to:a b Aeschylus. “Prometheus Bound”. Theoi.com. Archived from the original on 2019-11-18. Retrieved 2012-05-18.
- ^ Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 235.
- ^ William Lynch, S.J. Christ and Prometheus. University of Notre Dame Press.
- ^ Lynch, pp. 4–5.
- ^ Bloom, Harold (2002). Bloom’s Major Dramatists: Aeschylus. Chelsea House Publishers.
- ^ de Romilly, Jacqueline (1968). Time in Greek Tragedy. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1968), pp. 72–73, 77–81.
- ^ “Bloom’s Major Dramatists,” pp. 14–15.
- ^ Rosenmeyer, Thomas (1982). The Art of Aeschylus. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982, pp. 270–71, 281–83.
- ^ Harold Bloom. Bloom’s Guides: Oedipus Rex, Chelsea Press, New York, 2007, p. 8.
- ^ Jump up to:a b Raggio, Olga (1958). “The Myth of Prometheus: Its Survival and Metamorphoses up to the Eighteenth Century”. Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes. 21 (1/2): 44–62. doi:10.2307/750486. JSTOR 750486. S2CID 195045738.
- ^ Plato (1958). Protagoras, p. 320 ff.
- ^ Raggio (1958), p. 45.
- ^ Plato, Protagoras
- ^ Hansen, Classical Mythology, p. 159.
- ^ Jump up to:a b c d e “Theoi Project: Prometheus”. Theoi.com. Archived from the original on 2012-05-28. Retrieved 2012-05-18.
- ^ Jump up to:a b Dougherty, Prometheus, p. 46.
- ^ Lucian, Prometheus 14.
- ^ Kerényi (1997), p. 58.
- ^ On the association of the cults of Prometheus and Hephaestus, see also Scholiast to Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus 56, as cited by Robert Parker, Polytheism and Society at Athens (Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 472.
- ^ Pausanias 1.30.2; Scholiast to Plato, Phaedrus 231e; Dougherty, Prometheus, p. 46; Peter Wilson, The Athenian Institution of the Khoregia: The Chorus, the City and the Stage (Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 35.
- ^ Pausanias 1.30.2.
- ^ Possibly also Pan; Wilson, The Athenian Institution of the Khoregia, p. 35.
- ^ Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States, vol. 1, p. 277; Parker, Polytheism and Society at Athens, p. 409.
- ^ Aeschylus, Suppliants frg. 202, as cited by Parker, Polytheism and Society at Athens, p. 142.
- ^ Kerényi (1997), p. 59.
- ^ Scholium on the Iliad 14.295
- ^ Gantz, pp. 16, 57; Hard, p. 88.
- ^ Kerényi (1997), pp. 50–51.
- ^ Kerényi (1997), pp. 57–59.
- ^ O. Jahn, Archeologische Beitrage, Berlin, 1847, pl. VIII (Amphora from Chiusi).
- ^ Milchhofer, Die Befreiung des Prometheus in Berliner Winckelmanns-Programme, 1882, p. 1ff.
- ^ Cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses, I, 78ff.
- ^ “30 Years”. Mlahanas.de. 1997-11-10. Archived from the original on 2012-05-30. Retrieved 2012-05-18.
- ^ “30,000 Years”. Theoi.com. Archived from the original on 2012-05-11. Retrieved 2012-05-18.
- ^ p. 14. Hunt, David. 2012. Legends of the Caucasus. London: Saqi Books.
- ^ Nicholls, Angus (2014). Myth and the Human Sciences: Hans Blumenberg’s Theory of Myth. Routledge. p. 176. ISBN 978-0-415-88549-2.
- ^ Davis, Dick (2016). Introduction. Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings. By Ferdowsi, Abolqasem. Translated by Davis, Dick. New York: Penguin Books. p. xxi.
- ^ Stoneman, Richard (2015). “The Religion of Xerxes”. Xerxes: A Persian Life. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 104–105.
- ^ Davis, Dick (1992). “In the Enemy’s Camp: Homer’s Helen and Ferdowsi’s Hojir”. Iranian Studies. 25 (3/4): 17–26. doi:10.1080/00210869208701777. JSTOR 4310801. S2CID 163137676.
- ^ Jump up to:a b Raggio (1958), p. 48.
- ^ Tertullian. Apologeticum XVIII, 3.
- ^ Wilpert, J. (1932), I Sarcofagi Christiani, II, p. 226.
- ^ Wilpert, I, pl CVI, 2.
- ^ Furtwangler, Die Antiken Gemmen, 1910, I, pl. V, no. 37.
- ^ Furtwangler, op. cit., pl. XXXVII, nos. 40, 41, 45, 46.
- ^ Jump up to:a b c Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
- ^ Dostoevski, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov, chapter on “The Grand Inquisitor”.
- ^ Servius, note to Vergil‘s Eclogue 6.42 Archived 2017-03-07 at the Wayback Machine: Prometheus vir prudentissimus fuit, unde etiam Prometheus dictus est ἀπὸ τής πρόμηθείας, id est a providentia.
- ^ “Dionysos”. Theoi.com. Archived from the original on 2012-07-08. Retrieved 2012-05-18.
- ^ Jump up to:a b Raggio (1958), p. 53.
- ^ Jump up to:a b Raggio (1958), p. 54.
- ^ Munich, Alte Pinakothek, Katalog, 1930, no. 8973. Strasburg, Musee des Beaux Arts, Catalog, 1932, no. 225.
- ^ Parmigianino: The Drawings, Sylvie Beguin et al. ISBN 88-422-1020-X.
- ^ Kerényi (1997), p. 11.
- ^ Bloom, Harold (1959). Shelley’s Mythmaking, Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut, p. 9.
- ^ Bloom (1959), Chapter 3.
- ^ Bloom, Harold (1985). Percy Bysshe Shelley. Modern Critical Editions, p. 8. Chelsea House Publishers, New York.
- ^ Bloom, Harold (1985). Percy Bysshe Shelley. Modern Critical Editions, p. 27. Chelsea House Publishers, New York.
- ^ Bloom, Harold (1959). Shelley’s Mythmaking, Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut, p. 29.
- ^ Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time.
- ^ Bloom, Harold (1985). Percy Bysshe Shelley. Modern Critical Editions, p. 28. Chelsea House Publishers, New York.
- ^ Scott, A. O. (October 21, 2023). “Are Fears of A.I. and Nuclear Apocalypse Keeping You Up? Blame Prometheus. – How an ancient Greek myth explains our terrifying modern reality”. The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 21, 2023. Retrieved October 21, 2023.
- ^ Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir. See Glatzer, Nahum N., ed. “Franz Kafka: The Complete Stories” Schocken Book, Inc.: New York, 1971.
- ^ Stach, Reiner (3013). Kafka: The years of Insight, Princeton University Press, English translation.
- ^ R.J. Zwi Werblowsky, Lucifer and Prometheus, as summarized by Gedaliahu G. Stroumsa, “Myth into Metaphor: The Case of Prometheus”, in Gilgul: Essays on Transformation, Revolution and Permanence in the History of Religions, Dedicated to R.J. Zwi Werblowsky (Brill, 1987), p. 311; Steven M. Wasserstrom, Religion after Religion: Gershom Scholem, Mircea Eliade, and Henry Corbin at Eranos (Princeton University Press, 1999), p. 210
- ^ Jump up to:a b “Welcome Back, ‘Prometheus’ | The Eulenspiegel Society”. www.tes.org. Archived from the original on 2017-08-10. Retrieved 2017-07-07.
- ^ Kifer, Andy (2023-07-10). “Behind ‘Oppenheimer,’ a Prizewinning Biography 25 Years in the Making”. The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2023-07-11. Retrieved 2024-07-05.
- ^ “José Clemente Orozco’s Prometheus”. Pomona College. Archived from the original on 2 July 2021. Retrieved 18 May 2020.
- ^ Sutton, Frances (28 February 2020). “Framed: ‘Prometheus’ — the hunk without the junk at Frary”. The Student Life. Archived from the original on 2 July 2021. Retrieved 18 May 2020.
- ^ Liszt: Les Preludes / Tasso / Prometheus / Mephisto Waltz No. 1 by Franz Liszt, Georg Solti, London Philharmonic Orchestra and Orchestre de Paris (1990).
- ^ Scriabin: Symphony No. 3 The Divine Poem, Prometheus Op. 60 The Poem of Fire by Scriabin, Richter and Svetlanov (1995).
- ^ Scriabin: Complete Symphonies/Piano Concerto/Prometheus/Le Poeme de l’extase by A. Scriabin (2003), Box Set.
- ^ Prométhée; Tragédie Lyrique En 3 Actes De Jean Lorrain & F.a. Hérold (French Edition) by Fauré, Gabriel, 1845–1924, Paul Alexandre Martin, 1856–1906. Prométhée, . Duval and A.-Ferdinand (André-Ferdinand), b. 1865. Prométhée, Herold (Sep 24, 2012).
- ^ Grand Sonata, Op. 33, “Les quatre ages” (The four ages): IV. 50 ans Promethee enchaine (Prometheus enchained): Extrement lent, Stefan Lindgren.
- ^ Beethoven: Creatures of Prometheus by L. von Beethoven, Sir Charles Mackerras and Scottish Chamber Orchestra (2005).
- ^ Goethe lieder. Stanislaw Richter. Audio CD (July 25, 2000), Orfeo, ASIN B00004W1H1.
- ^ Orff, Carl. Prometheus. Voice and Orchestra. Audio CD (February 14, 2006), Harmonia Mundi Fr., ASIN B000BTE4LQ.
- ^ Orff, Carl (2005). Prometheus, Audio CD (May 31, 2005), Arts Music, ASIN B0007WQB6I.
- ^ Orff, Carl (1999). Prometheus, Audio CD (November 29, 1999), Orfeo, ASIN B00003CX0N.
- ^ Prometheus libretto in modern Greek and German translation, 172 pages, Schott; Bilingual edition (June 1, 1976), ISBN 3795736412.
- ^ Bell, Richard H. (2020). Theology of Wagner’s Ring Cycle I: The Genesis and Development of the Tetralogy and the Appropriation of Sources, Artists, Philosophers, and Theologians. Wipf and Stock Publishers. p. 124. ISBN 9781498235648.
- ^ Hesiod, Theogony 132–138 Archived 2021-12-28 at the Wayback Machine, 337–411 Archived 2021-03-04 at the Wayback Machine, 453–520 Archived 2021-01-26 at the Wayback Machine, 901–906, 915–920 Archived 2020-08-01 at the Wayback Machine; Caldwell, pp. 8–11, tables 11–14.
- ^ Although usually the daughter of Hyperion and Theia, as in Hesiod, Theogony 371–374 Archived 2023-07-27 at the Wayback Machine, in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes (4), 99–100 Archived 2021-05-10 at the Wayback Machine, Selene is instead made the daughter of Pallas the son of Megamedes.
- ^ According to Hesiod, Theogony 507–511 Archived 2021-02-24 at the Wayback Machine, Clymene, one of the Oceanids, the daughters of Oceanus and Tethys, at Hesiod, Theogony 351 Archived 2021-02-28 at the Wayback Machine, was the mother by Iapetus of Atlas, Menoetius, Prometheus, and Epimetheus, while according to Apollodorus, 1.2.3 Archived 2021-01-06 at the Wayback Machine, another Oceanid, Asia was their mother by Iapetus.
- ^ According to Plato, Critias, 113d–114a Archived 2021-01-06 at the Wayback Machine, Atlas was the son of Poseidon and the mortal Cleito.
- ^ In Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 18, 211, 873 (Sommerstein, pp. 444–445 n. 2 Archived 2021-01-06 at the Wayback Machine, 446–447 n. 24 Archived 2021-01-06 at the Wayback Machine, 538–539 n. 113 Archived 2020-01-07 at the Wayback Machine) Prometheus is made to be the son of Themis.
References
[edit]
Library resources about
Prometheus
- Alexander, Hartley Burr. The Mythology of All Races. Vol 10: North American. Boston, 1916.
- Beall, E.F., “Hesiod’s Prometheus and Development in Myth”, Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 52, No. 3 (Jul. – Sep., 1991), pp. 355–371. doi:10.2307/2710042. JSTOR 2710042.
- Bertagnolli, Paul A. 2007. Prometheus in Music: Representations of the Myth in the Romantic Era. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.
- Dougherty, Carol. Prometheus. Taylor & Francis, 2006. ISBN 978-0-415-32406-9
- Gisler, Jean-Robert. 1994. “Prometheus.” In Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae. Zurich and Munich: Artemis.
- Griffith, Mark. 1977. The Authenticity of Prometheus Bound. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
- Hynes, William J., and William G. Doty, eds. 1993. Mythical Trickster Figures: Contours, Contexts, and Criticisms. Tuscaloosa and London: Univ. of Alabama Press.
- Kerényi, C. (1997). Prometheus: Archetypal Image of Human Existence. Translated by Mannheim, Ralph. Princeton University Press.
- Kraus, Walther, and Lothar Eckhardt. 1957. “Prometheus.” Paulys Real-Encylopādie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft 23:653–702.
- Kreitzer, L. Joseph. 1993. Prometheus and Adam: Enduring Symbols of the Human Situation. Lanham, MD: Univ. Press of America.
- Lamberton, Robert. Hesiod, Yale University Press, 1988. ISBN 0-300-04068-7
- Loney, Alexander C. 2014. “Hesiod’s Incorporative Poetics in the Theogony and the Contradictions of Prometheus.” American Journal of Philology 135.4: 503–531.
- Michelakis, Pantelis. 2013. Greek Tragedy on Screen. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
- Miller, Clyde L. 1978. “The Prometheus Story in Plato’s Protagoras.” Interpretations: A Journal of Political Philosophy 7.2: 22–32.
- Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Birth of Tragedy, Chapter 10.
- Raggio, Olga. 1958. “The Myth of Prometheus: Its Survival and Metamorphoses up to the XVIIIth Century.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 21:44–62. doi:10.2307/750486. JSTOR 750486.
- Smith, William. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London (1873).
- Verdenius, Willem Jacob, A Commentary on Hesiod: Works and Days, vv. 1–382, Brill, 1985, ISBN 90-04-07465-1
- Vernant, Jean-Pierre. 1990. The Myth of Prometheus. In Myth and Society in Ancient Greece, 183–201. New York: Zone.
- West, Martin L., ed. 1966. Hesiod: Theogony. Oxford: Clarendon.
- West, Martin L., ed. 1978. Hesiod: Works and Days. Oxford: Clarendon.
External links
[edit]

Look up Prometheus or Promethean in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
- The Warburg Institute Iconographic Database (images of Prometheus)
- Media related to Prometheus at Wikimedia Commons
- Quotations related to Prometheus at Wikiquote