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Myth of Prometheus
Prometheus was a Titan from Greek myth, born from the union of the Titan Iapetus and the Nymph Asia. He
was one of four children born to the pair. The siblings of Prometheus included his twin brother Epimetheus ,
Menoetius, and Atlas, all of them Titans. The name Prometheus means “foresight,” and his twin brother's
name Epimetheus means “hindsight.”
Their father, Iapetus led the revolt against the Gods. His children Menoetius and Atlas joined with him,
while his other two sons, Prometheus and Epimetheus sided with the Gods. Menoetius was killed during the
revolt and Atlas was given the weight of the world to bear for his actions during the revolt.
Prometheus and Epimetheus journeyed from Mt. Olympus to Earth and visited the Greek province of Boitia
where they made clay figures. Athena took the figures and breathed life into them. The clay figures that
Prometheus had created became Man and honored him. The figures that his brother Epimetheus created
became the beasts, which turned and attacked him.
Zeus was angered by the brothers’ actions of creating people and animals, and he forbade the pair from
teaching Man the ways of civilization, Athena chose to cross her father Zeus and taught Prometheus so that
he might teach Man.
Zeus was angered by the actions of Man and Prometheus. He forbade the Gods to give fire to Man.
Prometheus was upset with Zeus' proclamation and was determined to bring fire to Man, but Zeus had
guarded the entrance to Olympus. Athena told Prometheus about an unguarded back entrance to Olympus
where he would be able to enter with ease. Prometheus wanted Man to have all the benefits and progress
that fire would bring.
Prometheus covertly entered Olympus at night through the back entrance that Athena had told him about. He
made his way to the Chariot of the Sun and lit a torch from the fires that burned there. He touched the
torch to coal, then extinguished the torch. Prometheus then carried the still hot coals down the mountain in
a pithy fennel stalk to prevent anyone from discovering the fiery coals. Upon reaching the lands of Men,
Prometheus gave them the coals, breaking Zeus' order by giving fire to Man. In some versions of this myth,
Athena did not breathe life into Prometheus’ clay figures to make the people. Instead, the myth explains that
Prometheus needed the energy of the fire to give the clay figures the “spark of life.”
Zeus was extremely angered by Prometheus' actions since he had not wanted fire to be given to Man. Zeus
set out to make a trap for Prometheus. Zeus gathered the gifts of the Gods and created Pandora and her
box. Into the box he placed all the horrors of the world. Pandora was sent to Prometheus as a gift from Zeus
himself.
Prometheus (with his foresight) saw the curse that Pandora and her box carried. He refused the gift, giving
it instead to his brother Epimetheus who opened the box and released the chained horrors upon the world.
Zeus was upset at having his plan thwarted. Prometheus had refused a direct “gift” from the chief God,
after all. At Zeus order Prometheus was chained to a rock in the Caucasus Mountains where his torture was
to be carried out. Every day a great Eagle would come to Prometheus and eat his liver, leaving only at
nightfall when the liver would begin to grow back once more. At daybreak, the eagle would return to the
chained Prometheus and again attack his body, eating his liver. The daily ritual would repeat itself into
eternity…or so it seemed.
Zeus offered to free Prometheus (who still had the gift of foresight) if he would tell the secret of the
prophecy that told of the dethroning of Zeus one day. Prometheus refused. The mother of Prometheus, the
Nymph Asia, also had the gift of foresight. Her son’s continuing torture plagued her, so she finally went to
Zeus and told him the secret of the prophecy. The prophecy explained that the offspring of Zeus and the
Nymph Clymene would one day rise up and destroy Zeus and Gods.
Zeus sent Heracles to free Prometheus from the rock once he learned the revelation of the prophecy. He still
required that Prometheus be bound to a rock for the rest of eternity. A link of the chain he had been bound
with was set with a chip of the rock. Prometheus was required to carry it with him always. Men on Earth
also created rings with stones and gems set into them to commiserate with him and to honor Prometheus for
the actions he had taken on their behalf.
Myth of Gaea
Gaea is the Earth goddess in Greek mythology, Terra Mater, the eldest of the gods, who emerged out of
Chaos and gave birth as she slept to her son Uranus (Ouranos), the Sky god. He showered fertile rain upon
her secret clefts as he gazed down fondly upon her from the mountains, and she bore grass, flowers, trees,
and birthed the astounding array of birds and beasts to populate them. The fertile rain of Uranus also made
the rivers flow and lakes and seas came into being when the hollow places filled with water.
She mated with her son and husband Uranus to produce the Titans, who joined their brothers in prison. First
came the hundred-handed Hecatoncheires, the giants Briareus, Gyges and Cottus. The three one-eyed
Cyclopes (the "Wheel-eyed") were next, master smiths and builders of gigantic walls. Their names were
Brontes, Steropes and Arges.
But their relationship was so passionate, and the embrace of Uranus and Gaea (Sky and Earth) was so
overwhelming, that their offspring could not emerge from her womb.
You see, Uranus was afraid that one of his Titan children would end up overthrowing him and taking over
rule of the Universe. The Titans were thus imprisoned by Uranus in Tartarus, a region of the Underworld. It
was said that it would take a falling anvil nine days to reach its bottom.
This caused Mother Earth great grief, so she conceived a sharp sickle that one of her children, Cronus, used
to severe his father's genitals. The god Uranus was emasculated and the Sky separated from the Earth. From
the blood of Uranus that fell on her, Gaea conceived the Eirynes (Furies), the avenging goddesses who
pursued and punished murderers and evil-doers. The Eirynes were called "those who walk in the darkness".
The nymphs of the ash-tree, called the Meliae, also sprang from that blood.
Uranus thus faded from the mythological scene and Cronus married his sister Rhea, becoming supreme ruler
of the Universe. This was regarded by the Greeks as the Golden Age of the Titans. But Cronus was just as
paranoid as his father, and, heeding the warning of an oracle, in turn he swallowed all the children he
fathered with his wife Rhea, afraid that they would do to him as he did to Uranus.
On the advice of Gaea, Rhea gave Cronus a stone wrapped in baby blankets, and the gullible Cronus
"swallowed" the ruse, instead of his baby boy Zeus. The child was secretly taken to the island of Crete and
raised by the Nymphs. Eventually Zeus grew up to free his swallowed siblings and with their help indeed
overthrew Cronus and became the supreme Olympian.
Gaea may have saved Zeus from a fate similar to his father's when she warned him that any child born by
Metis ('Thought'), whom Zeus desired as wife, would grow up to supplant him as King of the gods. Heeding
Gaea's advice, Zeus swallowed Metis and in due time the goddess Athena sprang from his head.
Mother Earth even proved helpful to Zeus in his fight versus Atlas and the Titans, shortly after taking power.
However, she and Zeus parted company once her twenty-four sons, the Giants, attacked Olympus. (Many
claim that this battle represented the last attempt to reassert female leadership over the heavens, symbolizing
the war fought between those who preferred matriarchal (women-ruled) philosophies over those who wanted
patriarchal ones.)
Even though Gaea was one of the most prominent figures in the earliest myths, Mother Earth suffered a
greatly diminished status with the eventual transfer of power to patriarchal (men-ruled) societies. She drifts
between being an individual character and a personified conceptual entity representing the original life
force of the earth.