PROMETHEUS (11paauest;s). The story of Prometheus takes dif ferent forms in the Greek legends, but they agree generally in repre senting the close connection between him and the human race. Ile is represented by iEschylus as one of the Titans, who incurred the resentment of Zeus for taking the part of mortals when Zeus intended to crush them and to send them to the abode of Hades, and also for giving them fire and teaching them all the arts. As a punishment, Zeus binds him to a rock in Scythia, and appoints a vulture to prey on his liver. This is the subject of the Prometheus Desmotes,' or Pro metheus Bound,' of iEschylus.
Another old form of the legend, which closely resembles that which 4Esehylus followed, is given in the Theogony ' of Hesiod. Healed says that when the gods and men were engaged in a controversy with one another at Meconc (an ancient name of Sicyon), Prometheus, wishing to deceive Zeus, took an ox, and dividing it, placed the flesh and the viscera in the hide, and the bones of the ox in the inside fat, and then asked Zeus to make his choice. Zeus, though aware of the deception, chose the bones and the fat, ",designing evil in his mind against mortal man," and in revenge withheld fire from man. Pro metheus however secretly stole fire from heaven and gave it to man, and Zeus in return bound Prometheus with chains to a pillar, and sent an eagle to prey upon his liver. Zeus also, in order to injure man, created Pandora, and, after bestowing upon her numerous gifts, sent her to man a " beautiful mischief, for from her is sprung the race of women, of whom the race is thoroughly destructive." Hesiod, in his poem entitled Works and Days,' gives at greater length the legend of Pandora, and says that Zeus sent her to Epimetheus ; and that he, not following the advice of Prometheus, who had told him never to receive a gift from *us, but to send it back again, took her into his house. These stories are supposed to have a meaning : Prometheus is the per sonification of fore-thought, and Epimetheus of after-thought.
There is another form of the legend respecting Prometheus, in which he is represented not merely as the friend and protector of the human race, but as their creator. This form is an old one, though neither
Ilesiod nor iEschylua has followed it. There is a fragment of Callimachus, in which he says, " If Prometheus formed thee, and thou art not sprung from some other clay." Plato has adopted this form of the legend in the Protagoras; but with the variation that Prometheus is not the creator, but only the person who endowed man with his senses. He says that the gods formed all mortal animals within the earth, out of the mixture of earth and fire, and of as many things as are mingled with earth and fire, and that they entrusted to Prometheus and Epimetheus the business of providing them with all the faculties necessary for their preservation. He then proceeds to say that Epimetheus begged of Prometheus that he might have the business himself iu the first place, and that Prometheus should overlook his work when he had done it. Epimetheus accordingly proceeds to his work, and bestows neon the different animals the means of preserving themselves; but when man came to be provided for, who was to be superior to all other animals, Epimetheua had been so prodigal of all his resources, that he had nothing left to bestow upon man. Pro metheus, being at a loss how to remedy the omission of Epimetheus, steals from Hephwstus and Athena fire and the intelligence which is displayed in works of art, and gave them to man ; so that by means of this wisdom, and fire as its instrument, men were endowed with the power of providing for themselves.
Some modern writers suppose that, in the earliest form of the legend, Prometheus was not considered as a deity, but simply as the representative of the human race, and that afterwards he was made a god, the friend and protector of man, and at last their creator.
Representations of Prometheus are frequent in the latter ages of ancient art, especially in allegorical representations of human life on sarcophagi, and in connection with the Fates, Eros and Psyche, and other legends. (Midler, Arehliolog,ie der Kunst,' § 396.)