page_title: Prometheus
section_title: Other authors
hierarchical_section_title: Prometheus / Myths and legends / Other authors
caption_attribution_description: The creation of man by Prometheus. Marble relief, Italy, 3rd century CE.
context_page_description: In Greek mythology, Prometheus is a culture hero, and trickster figure who is credited with the creation of humanity from clay, and who defies the gods by stealing fire and giving it to humanity as civilization. Prometheus is known for his intelligence and as a champion of humankind and also seen as the author of the human arts and sciences generally. He is sometimes presented as the father of Deucalion, the hero of the flood story.
  The punishment of Prometheus as a consequence of the theft of fire and giving it to humans is a popular subject of both ancient and modern culture. Zeus, king of the Olympian gods, sentenced the Titan to eternal torment for his transgression. The immortal was bound to a rock, where each day an eagle, the emblem of Zeus, was sent to eat Prometheus' liver, which would then grow back overnight to be eaten again the next day. Prometheus was eventually freed by the hero Heracles.
  In another myth, Prometheus establishes the form of animal sacrifice practiced in ancient Greek religion.
  Evidence of a cult to Prometheus himself is not widespread.
context_section_description: 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 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. 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.
  Other minor details attached to the myth include: the duration of Prometheus' torment; the origin of the eagle that ate the Titan's liver (found in 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).
  "Variants of legends containing the Prometheus motif are widespread in the Caucasus" region, reports Hunt, who gave ten stories related to Prometheus from ethno-linguistic groups in the region.
  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.
caption: Creation of humanity by Prometheus as Athena looks on (Roman-era relief, 3rd century AD)
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