Promētheus
（
Προμηθεύς, “forethought”). A son of
the Titan Iapetus and the Ocean-nymph Clymené, brother of Atlas, Menoetius, and
Epimetheus, father of
Deucalion (q.v.). The most
ancient account of him, as given by Hesiod (
Theog. 521-616) is as follows: When
the gods, after their conquest of the Titans, were negotiating with mankind about the honour
to be paid them, Prometheus was charged with the duty of dividing a victim offered in
sacrifice to the gods. He endeavoured to impose upon Zeus by dividing it in such a way as
cleverly to conceal the half which consisted of flesh and the edible vitals under the skin of
the animal, and to lay thereon the worst part, the stomach, while he heaped the bones together
and covered them with fat.
Zeus divined the stratagem, but, out of enmity towards man, purposely chose the worst
portion, and avenged himself by refusing mortals the use of fire. Thereupon Prometheus stole
it from Olympus and brought it to men in a hollow reed (
νάρθηξ). As a set-off to this great blessing, Zeus resolved to send them an
equally great evil. He caused Hephaestus to make of clay a beautiful woman named
Pandora—that is, the all-gifted; for the gods presented her with all manner of
charms and adornments, coupled however with lies, flattering words, and a crafty mind. Hermes
brought her, with a jar as her dowry, in which every evil was shut up, to the brother of
Prometheus, named Epimetheus (i. e. the man of afterthought, for he never thought of what he
did until it had brought him into trouble). In spite of his brother's warning not to receive
any present from Zeus, he was ensnared by her charms and took her to wife. Pandora opened the
jar, and out flew all manner of evils, troubles, and diseases, before unknown to man, and
spread over all the earth. Only delusive Hope remained in the jar, since, before she could
escape, Pandora put the lid on the jar again (
Op. et D. 54-105). But Prometheus
met with his punishment. Zeus had him bound in adamantine fetters to a pillar with an eagle to
consume in the day-time his liver, which grew again in the night. At last Heracles, with the
consent of Zeus, who desired to increase his son's renown, killed the eagle, and set the son
of Iapetus free. According to this account, the guile of Prometheus, and his opposition to the
will of Zeus, brought on man far more evil than good.
Aeschylus, on the other hand, taking the view suggested by the Attic cult of Prometheus, in
which the fire-bringing god was honoured as the founder of human civilization, gave the myth
an entirely different form in his trilogy of
Prometheus the Fire-bearer, Prometheus
Bound, and
Prometheus Released. In these Prometheus is still, of
course, the opponent of Zeus; but, at the same time, he is represented as
full of the most devoted love for the human race. See
Aeschylus.
Aeschylus makes him son of Themis, by whom he is put in possession of all the secrets of the
future. In the war with the Titans, his advice assisted Zeus to victory. But when the god,
after the partition of the world, resolved on destroying the rude human race, and to create
other beings in their stead, Prometheus alone concerned himself with the fate of wretched
mortals, and saved them from destruction. He brought them the fire he had stolen from
Hephaestus at Lemnos, the fire that was to become the source of all discoveries and of mastery
over nature; and raised them to a higher civilization by his inventive skill and by the arts
which he taught mankind. For this he was punished by being chained on a rock beside the sea in
the wilds of Scythia. Oceanus advised him to bend beneath the might of Zeus; but he consoled
himself with the knowledge that, if the god begat a son by a certain goddess known to himself
alone (Thetis), the son would dethrone his father. When no menaces could tear from him the
secret, Zeus hurled him with a thunderbolt into Tartarus together with the rock to which he
was chained. From this abode he first emerged into the light of day a long time after, to be
fastened on Mount Caucasus and torn by the eagle until another immortal voluntarily entered
Hades for him. At last Heracles, on his journey to the Hesperides, shot the eagle; the centaur
Chiron (q.v.), suffering from his incurable wound,
gladly renounced his immortality; and, after Prometheus had revealed the name of the goddess,
he was set free. But, as a sign of his punishment, he ever after bore on his finger an iron
ring and on his head a willow crown. He returned to Olympus, and once more became adviser and
prophet of the gods. Legends related that he moulded men and animals of clay, and either
animated these himself with the heavenly fire or induced Zeus or Athené to do so
(Ovid,
Met. i. 81;
Hor. Carm. i.
16, 13). In Athens Prometheus shared with Hephaestus a common altar in the Academy, in
the sacred precinct of Athené, and was honoured with a torchrace in a yearly
festival called the Prometheia. There are monographs on the myth of Prometheus, by Weiske
(1842); Lasaulx
(1843); Holle
(1879); and
Milchhöfer
(1882); see also
Kuhn, Die Herabkunft des
Feuers (1886); and E. B.
Tylor, Researches into the Early History
of Mankind (1865). The story of Prometheus has been made the subject of two
fine poems by Shelley and Mrs. Browning.
