Prometheus / Prometheus
Titan who stole fire for humankind
Prometheus is the Titan whose name means "forethought," the clever champion of humankind who moulded the first people from clay and stole fire from the gods to give them. Zeus punished him with an eternity chained to a mountain, but his gift made civilisation possible.
How they were born
Prometheus was born in the age of the Titans, the son of the Titan Iapetus and the Oceanid Clymene, and the brother of Atlas, Menoetius, and Epimetheus. Unlike most Titans he was not a brute force of nature but a thinker and a planner, which is why his name means "forethought" while his brother Epimetheus, "afterthought," only understood things too late. When the young gods of Olympus rose against the Titans, Prometheus and Epimetheus wisely sided with Zeus.
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The Creation of Mankind
After the war against the Titans, Zeus gave Prometheus and Epimetheus the task of populating the earth. Epimetheus gave all the good gifts, speed, claws, fur, and wings, to the animals, and had nothing left for humans. So Prometheus moulded the first people out of clay and water, shaping them in the image of the gods, and breathed life into them. Athena admired his work and breathed a soul into the clay figures, and Prometheus became their teacher and protector, showing them how to live.
The Trick at Mecone
At Mecone, where gods and humans met to agree on sacrifices, Prometheus played a trick on Zeus. He cut up a great ox and made two piles: one of good meat hidden inside the stomach, the least appetising part, and one of white bones covered in a tempting layer of fat. Zeus chose the fat-covered bones, and from then on humans kept the meat for themselves and burned only the bones for the gods. Zeus was furious at being outwitted, and in revenge he took fire away from humankind, leaving them cold and unable to cook their food.
The Theft of Fire
Seeing his people shivering in the dark, Prometheus crept up to Olympus, or to the sun's own chariot, and stole a spark of divine fire, hiding it in a hollow fennel stalk so it would not go out. He carried it down to earth and taught humans to use it for cooking, warmth, light, and metalwork. With fire came every craft: building, farming, sailing, medicine, writing, and counting. In Aeschylus's play Prometheus Bound, the Titan lists all these arts proudly, saying he gave humans everything they needed to rise above the animals.
Pandora, the First Woman
Zeus answered the theft with a punishment aimed at humankind itself. He ordered Hephaestus to mould the first woman out of earth and water, and each god gave her a gift: Athena taught her weaving, Aphrodite gave her beauty, and Hermes gave her a cunning, curious mind. She was named Pandora, "all-gifted," and sent to Prometheus's brother Epimetheus, who had been warned never to accept a gift from Zeus but married her anyway. Pandora opened the great jar she had been given, and out flew sickness, pain, old age, and every trouble of life, with only Hope left inside when she slammed the lid shut.
The Punishment and the Rescue
For Prometheus himself, Zeus reserved a crueller fate. He had the Titan chained to a rock in the Caucasus Mountains, where every day an eagle, Zeus's own bird, tore out his liver, and every night the organ grew back, so the torment never ended. Prometheus endured it for generations, refusing to beg and boasting that he knew a secret that would one day undo Zeus. At last the hero Heracles, on his way to fetch the golden apples of the Hesperides, shot the eagle with an arrow and broke the chains, freeing Prometheus with Zeus's grudging consent.
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Fun facts
- Prometheus's name means "forethought" in Greek, and his brother Epimetheus means "afterthought": one brother plans ahead, the other only understands things once they have happened.
- Mary Shelley subtitled her novel Frankenstein "The Modern Prometheus," comparing Victor Frankenstein, who steals the secret of life, to the Titan who stole fire.
- The chemical element promethium, discovered in 1945, was named after Prometheus because, like the Titan's stolen fire, it was a hard-won gift of science that carried great danger.
- The ancient Greeks believed the liver was the seat of the emotions, which is why Zeus chose that organ for the eagle to eat: the punishment struck at the very place Prometheus felt his love for humankind.
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