Prometheus

/preuh mee"thee euhs, -thyoohs/, n. Class. Myth.

a Titan, the father of Deucalion and brother of Atlas and Epimetheus, who taught humankind various arts and was sometimes said to have shaped humans out of clay and endowed them with the spark of life. For having stolen fire from Olympus and given it to humankind in defiance of Zeus, he was chained to a rock where an eagle daily tore at his liver, until he was finally released by Hercules.

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In Greek religion, one of the Titans and a god of fire.

He was a master craftsman and a supreme trickster, and he was sometimes associated with the creation of humans. According to legend, Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to humans. In vengeance, Zeus created Pandora, who married Prometheus's brother and set loose all the evils of the world. Another tale held that Zeus had Prometheus chained to a mountain and sent an eagle to devour his liver, which regenerated every night so that he could suffer the same torment the next day.

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▪ Greek god

      in Greek religion, one of the Titans, the supreme trickster, and a god of fire. His intellectual side was emphasized by the apparent meaning of his name, Forethinker. In common belief he developed into a master craftsman, and in this connection he was associated with fire and the creation of mortals.

      The Greek poet Hesiod related two principal legends concerning Prometheus. The first is that Zeus, the chief god, who had been tricked by Prometheus into accepting the bones and fat of sacrifice instead of the meat, hid fire from mortals. Prometheus, however, stole it and returned it to Earth once again. As the price of fire, and as punishment for humankind in general, Zeus created the woman Pandora and sent her down to Epimetheus (Hindsight), who, though warned by Prometheus, married her. Pandora took the great lid off the jar she carried, and evils, hard work, and disease flew out to plague humanity. Hope alone remained within.

      Hesiod relates in his other tale that, as vengeance on Prometheus, Zeus had him nailed to a mountain in the Caucasus and sent an eagle to eat his immortal liver, which constantly replenished itself; Prometheus was depicted in Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus, who made him not only the bringer of fire and civilization to mortals but also their preserver, giving them all the arts and sciences as well as the means of survival.

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