Prometheus Makes Man
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| Greek Titan Prometheus |
Have you ever been so kind to someone that you get in trouble with other people because of it? Have you ever been left alone to finish a project because your partners didn't think about what would be needed ahead of time? Well, Prometheus basically created those situations.
Prometheus is the titan of forethought and is responsible for the creation of humans. He molded man out of clay to resemble the gods, and since Athena owed him one after he helped free her from Zeus's head, she breathed life to the figure. The gods don't stop there with these gifts, though. Prometheus and his brother, Epimetheus were asked by Zeus to design what every living thing looked like. I don't think Zeus thought too much about who he was assigning jobs to, since giving Epimetheus any type of responsibility was always a horrible idea. Epimetheus is the titan of an afterthought, so of course, he just threw around all of the fur, wings, and claws with no thought of what poor creature he would leave out. Yeah, and sadly, that poor creature he left out was us, humans. Thanks, Epimetheus!
Now, Zeus really didn't like the humans, but despite being the king of the gods, he just couldn't unmake them. So, being the whiny, always-gets-what-he-wants Zeus, he trapped them on earth and gave them mortality. Thankfully Prometheus liked humans much more than even his fellow gods and decided that humans should at least have something to help them survive their short time on earth.
By this time, Prometheus had royally angered Zeus, first, he made humans, gave them wisdom, fire, and tricked Zeus into taking only the bad parts of a sacrifice. Logically, Zeus wanted heads to roll, but since he couldn't kill an immortal, he settled with taking away fire and watching man freeze. Prometheus didn't take kindly to this and went back to the home of the gods, Olympus, and stole fire back from Hephaestus.
This was the last straw and Zeus had to punish Prometheus. He had the titan taken to the east where he chained him to a rock and sent his sacred animal, the eagle, to eat poor Prometheus's liver. The titan's liver was made to grow back every night and the process would begin again the next day. I'm not too sure if Prometheus liked humans very much after this.
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