creation of mankind

the ancient Greeks did not place the origin and creation of mankind central in their religion. They saw that mankind was part of nature, made by the Gods. Some like Orphics delved into the origins of mankind and its sin. Most sources seem to the agree that they thought that Prometheus, the Titan of forethought made life on Earth. Well He and his brother Epimetheus. There are myths surrounding the creation of mankind by Prometheus who was helped by Epimetheus and Pallas Athena, how He stole fire from Olympos to give it to mankind and how He made it possible that how much of the animal sacrifice should go to the Gods. In this aspect, Prometheus was not only the creator of mankind, but also its ally. If it wasn’t for Him, we wouldn’t have been able to get this far. Seeing how most ancient Greeks didn’t concern themselves much with the origin of mankind, could explain why this wasn’t at the forefront of the religion like in most other cultures was the case. In response to that affront, Zeus ordered Hephaestos to make the first woman: Pandora. This was after Zeus imprisoned Prometheus on the rocks where a eagle ate his liver. Zeus had Pandora delivered to Epimetheus who was smitten with her. Prometheus warned to not open the box, the famous box of Pandora and in the end Pandora released it, causing all evils to be released in the world.

If you were wondering if this myth is a bit sexist, you are correct. Ancient Greeks were very patriarchal and myths detailing women reflect this attitude. Hesiodos is known to be misygonistic but he reveres Hekate above all others. In the stories, the myths, women don’t have a good, but in cult, Goddesses are treated differently than in myth. In myths, it is stated that Prometheus and Epimetheus made animals and mankind from clay.

Plato, Protagoras 320c – 322a (trans. Jowett) (Greek philosopher C4th B.C.) :
“Once upon a time there were gods only, and no mortal creatures. But when the time came that these also should be created, the gods fashioned them out of earth and fire and various mixtures of both elements in the interior of the earth; and when they were about to bring them into the light of day, they ordered Prometheus and Epimetheus to equip them, and to distribute to them severally their proper qualities. Epimetheus said to Prometheus : ‘Let me distribute, and do you inspect.’
This was agreed, and Epimetheus made the distribution [of claws and fur and other attributes] . . . Thus did Epimetheus, who, not being very wise, forgot that he had distributed among the brute animals all the qualities which he had to give-and when he came to man, who was still unprovided, he was terribly perplexed. Now while he was in this perplexity, Prometheus came to inspect the distribution, and he found that the other animals were suitably furnished, but that man alone was naked and shoeless, and had neither bed nor arms of defence. The appointed hour was approaching when man in his turn was to go forth into the light of day; and Prometheus, not knowing how he could devise his salvation, stole the mechanical arts of Hephaistos (Hephaestus) and Athene (Athena), and fire with them.”
[See “Prometheus & the Theft of Fire” (below) for the rest of this passage from Plato.] This myth clearly goes into detail on the creation of life on Earth and explains how life on Earth came to be and how mankind become so ingenious that they could craft things. Interesting to note that in myth, there were 5 races of mankind and iron was the last one. One variation of the myth states that mankind was already present during the time of the Titans.

Aesop, Fables 527 (from Chambry 303 and Phaedrus 4. 10) :
“Prometheus has given us two sacks to carry. One sack, which is filled with our own faults, is slung across our back, while the other sack, heavy with the faults of others, is tied around our necks. This is the reason why we are blind to our own bad habits but still quick to criticize others for their mistakes.”
[N.B. In Phaedrus’ Latin version of this fable, Prometheus is replaced by Zeus.]

Aesop, Fables 535 (from Life of Aesop 94) :
“Zeus once ordered Prometheus to show mankind the two ways: one the way of freedom and the other the way of slavery. Prometheus made the way of freedom rough at the beginning, impassable and steep, with no water anywhere to drink, full of brambles, and beset with dangers on all sides at first. Eventually, however, it became a smooth plain, lined with paths and filled with groves of fruit trees and waterways. Thus the distressing experience ended in repose for those who breath the air of freedom. The way of slavery, however, started out as a smooth plain at the beginning, full of flowers, pleasant to look at and quite luxurious, but in the end it became impassable, steep and insurmountable on all sides.”
[N.B. In another text, Prometheus is replaced by Tykhe (Fortune).]

Its weird to think that Aesop viewed the life of a slave as something that started smoothly and later became hard. One would assume that the life of a slave was always hard. You were devoid of any rights, any independence, any freedom of movement.

Aesop, Fables 517 (from Phaedrus 4.16) :
“Someone asked Aesop why lesbians and effeminates had been created, and old Aesop explained, ‘The answer lies once again with Prometheus, the original creator of our common clay. All day long, Prometheus had been separately shaping those natural members which modesty conceals beneath our clothes, and when he was about to apply these private parts to the appropriate bodies Liber [Dionysos] unexpectedly invited him to dinner. Prometheus came home late, unsteady on his feet and with a good deal of heavenly nectar flowing through his veins. With his wits half asleep in a drunken haze he stuck the female genitalia on male bodies and male members on the ladies. This is why modern lust revels in perverted pleasures.’” This fable of the Roman poet seems to tr to explain why there are lesbians and womenlike men around. Plato told the story where there were three genders at first: male, female and hermaphrodite. The last one was cojoined so that they were two people connected with eachother. The reason they got seperated is because of Zeus who used lightning to seperate them. This story as Plato explains it, is a way to explain why people look for soulmates as those conjoined people were part of one soul that got seperated. I guess in his time, people also thought in terms of soul mates, but i wonder, is it in the same context as we do think about it today or is it different?

Aesop, Fables 515 (from Chambry 322) :
“Following Zeus’s orders, Prometheus fashioned humans and animals. When Zeus saw that the animals far outnumbered the humans, he ordered Prometheus to reduce the number of the animals by turning them into people. Prometheus did as he was told, and as a result those people who were originally animals have a human body but the soul of an animal.”

Aesop, Fables 247 (from Chambry 210) :
“The lion often found fault with the way he had been designed by Prometheus. Admittedly, Prometheus had made the lion very large and handsome, supplying him with sharp fangs in his jaw and arming him with claws on his feet; in short he had made the lion more powerful than all the other animals. ‘Yet great though I may be,’ said the lion, ‘I am terribly afraid of roosters!’ Prometheus replied, ‘Why waste your time blaming me? You have every good quality that I was able to create, and you are afraid of absolutely nothing, except for roosters.’”
[N.B. This same fable is found in Achilles Tatius, Leucippe and Cleitophon 2. 21.]

Aesop, Fables 530 (from Phaedrus, Appendix 5) :
“Prometheus, that potter who gave shape to our new generation, decided one day to sculpt the form of Veritas (Truth) [the spirit Aletheia], using all his skill so that she would be able to regulate people’s behaviour. As he was working, an unexpected summons from mighty Jupiter [Zeus] called him away. Prometheus left cunning Dolus (Trickery) [a daimon (spirit), named Dolos in Greek] in charge of his workshop, Dolus had recently become one of the god’s apprentices.
Fired by ambition, Dolus (Trickery) used the time at his disposal to fashion with his sly fingers a figure of the same size and appearance as Veritas (Truth) [Aletheia] with identical features. When he had almost completed the piece, which was truly remarkable, he ran out of clay to use for her feet. The master returned, so Dolus (Trickery) quickly sat down in his seat, quaking with fear. Prometheus was amazed at the similarity of the two statues and wanted it to seem as if all the credit were due to his own skill. Therefore, he put both statues in the kiln and when they had been thoroughly baked, he infused them both with life: sacred Veritas (Truth) [Aletheia] walked with measured steps, while her unfinished twin stood stuck in her tracks. That forgery, that product of subterfuge, thus acquired the name of Mendacium (Falsehood) [the spirit Pseudologos], and I readily agree with people who say that she has no feet: every once in a while something that is false can start off successfully, but with time Veritas (Truth) is sure to prevail.”

Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1. 45 (trans. Aldrich) (Greek mythographer C2nd A.D.) :
“Prometheus, after forming men from water and earth, gave them fire.”

Callimachus, Iambi Fragments 1 & 8 (trans. Trypanis) (Greek poet C3rd B.C.) :
“It was that year when the winged fowl and the dweller in the sea and the four-footed creature talked even as the clay of Prometheus . . . Zeus the just, dispensing injustice, he robbed four-footed things of speech.”

Callimachus, Fragment 493 :
“If Prometheus has moulded you, and you are not made of another clay.”

Pausanias, Description of Greece 2. 14. 4 (trans. Jones) (Greek travelogue C2nd A.D.) :
“For Aras [one of the first men], they say, was a contemporary of Prometheus, the son of Iapetos (Iapetus), and three generations of men older than Pelasgos (Pelasgus) the son of Arkas (Arcas).”

Pausanias, Description of Greece 10. 4. 4 :
“At Panopeus [in Phokis (Phocis)] . . . [in a] ravine there lie two stones, each of which is big enough to fill a cart. They have the colour of clay, not earthly clay, but such as would be found in a ravine or sandy torrent, and they smell very like the skin of a man. They say that these are remains of the clay out of which the whole race of man was fashioned by Prometheus.”

Aelian, On Animals 1. 53 (trans. Scholfield) (Greek natural history C2nd A.D.) :
“The Goat . . . inhales through its ears as well as through its nostrils, and has a sharper perception than any other cloven-hoofed animal. The cause of this I am unable to tell . . . But if the Goat also was a creation of Prometheus, what the intention of this contrivance was, I leave him to determine.”

Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 142 (trans. Grant) (Roman mythographer C2nd A.D.) :
“Prometheus, son of Iapetus, first fashioned men from clay. Later Vulcanus [Hephaistos (Hephaestus)], at Jove’s [Zeus’] command, made a woman’s form from clay. Minerva [Athena] gave it life, and the rest of the gods each gave come other gift. Because of this they named her Pandora. She was given in marriage to Prometheus’ brother Epimetheus. Pyrrha was her daughter, and was said to be the first mortal born.”

Pseudo-Hyginus, Astronomica 2. 42 :
“[The Planets :] One of them is the star of Jove [Zeus], Phaenon by name, a youth whom Prometheus made excelling all others in beauty, when he was making man, as Heraclides Ponticus [Greek academic C4th B.C.] says. When he intended to keep him back, without presenting him to Jove as he did the others, Cupid [Eros] reported this to Jove, whereupon Mercurius [Hermes] was sent to Phaenon and persuaded him to come to Jove and become immortal. Therefore he is placed among the stars.”

Ovid, Metamorphoses 1. 82 ff (trans. Melville) (Roman epic C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.) :
“In the sea the shining fish were set to swim; the land received the beasts, the gusty air the birds. A holier creature, of a loftier mind, fit master of the rest, was lacking still. Then man was made, perhaps from seed divine formed by the great World’s Creator (Origo Mundi), so to found a better world, perhaps the new-made earth, so lately parted from the ethereal heavens, kept still some essence of the kindred sky–earth that son of Iapetus [Prometheus] moulded, mixed with water, in likeness of the gods that govern the world–and while the other creatures on all fours look downwards, man was made to hold his head erect in majesty and see the sky, and raise his eyes to the bright stars above. Thus earth, once crude and featureless, now changed put on the unknown form of humankind. The Golden Age (Aetas Aurea) was that first age which unconstrained.”

Ovid, Metamorphoses 1. 363 ff :
“[Deukalion (Deucalion) speaks aloud, after the Great Deluge has wiped out all of mankind :] ‘O for my father’s [Prometheus’] magic to restore mankind again and in the moulded clay breathe life and so repopulate the world!’”

Propertius, Elegies 3. 5 (trans. Goold) (Roman elegy C1st B.C.) :
“O primal clay, so ill-starred for Prometheus’ fashioning hand! The making of man’s reason he performed with too little care. Arranging our bodies in so small a space he noticed not the wits: the mind ought first to have had its path made straight.”

Statius, Thebaid 8. 295 ff (trans. Mozley) (Roman epic C1st A.D.) :
“The handiwork of Prometheus [men] and the stones of Pyrrha [women].”

Oppian, Halieutica 5. 4 (trans. Mair) (Greek poet C3rd A.D.) :
“Someone created men to be a race like unto the blessed gods, albeit he gave them inferior strength: whether it was the son of Iapetos (Iapetus), Prometheus of the many devices, who made man in the likeness of the blessed ones, mingling earth with water, and anointed his heart with the anointing of the gods; or whether we are born of the blood divine that flowed from the Titanes (Titans); for there is nothing more excellent than men, apart from the gods.”

Suidas s.v. Gigantiai (trans. Suda On Line) (Byzantine Greek lexicon C10th A.D.) :
“[A rationalisation of the Prometheus myth :] Prometheus : According to the Judges of the Judaeans, Prometheus was known amongst the Greeks [as the one] who first discovered scholarly philosophy. He it is of whom they say that he moulded men, inasmuch as he made some idiots understand wisdom. And Epimetheus, who discovered music.”

PROMETHEUS & THE SACRIFICIAL SHARE

Hesiod, Theogony 511 ff (trans. Evelyn-White) (Greek epic C8th or C7th B.C.) :
“And ready-witted Prometheus he [Zeus] bound with inextricable bonds, cruel chains, and drove a shaft through his middle, and set on him a long-winged eagle, which used to eat his immortal liver; but by night the liver grew as much again everyway as the long-winged bird devoured in the whole day. That bird Herakles (Heracles), the valiant son of shapely-ankled Alkmene (Alcmena), slew; and delivered the son of Iapetos from the cruel plague, and released him from his affliction–not without the will of Olympian Zeus who reigns on high, that the glory of Herakles the Theban-born might be yet greater than it was before over the plenteous earth.
This, then, he regarded, and honoured his famous son; though he was angry, he ceased from the wrath which he had before because Prometheus matched himself in wit with the almighty son of Kronos (Cronus). For when the gods and mortal men had a dispute at Mekone (Mecone), even then Prometheus was forward to cut up a great ox and set portions before them, trying to befool the mind of Zeus. Before the rest he set flesh and inner parts thick with fat upon the hide, covering them with an ox paunch; but for Zeus he put the white bones dressed up with cunning art and covered with shining fat. Then the father of men and of gods said to him : ‘Son of Iapetos (Iapetus), most glorious of all lords, good sir, how unfairly you have divided the portions!’
So said Zeus whose wisdom is everlasting, rebuking him. But wily Prometheus answered him, smiling softly and not forgetting his cunning trick : ‘Zeus, most glorious and greatest of the eternal gods, take which ever of these portions your heart within you bids.’
So he said, thinking trickery. But Zeus, whose wisdom is everlasting, saw and failed not to perceive the trick, and in his heart he thought mischief against mortal men which also was to be fulfilled. With both hands he took up the white fat and was angry at heart, and wrath came to his spirit when he saw the white ox-bones craftily tricked out: and because of this the tribes of men upon earth burn white bones to the deathless gods upon fragrant altars. But Zeus who drives the clouds was greatly vexed and said to him : ‘Son of Iapetos, clever above all! So, sir, you have not yet forgotten your cunning arts!’
So spake Zeus in anger, whose wisdom is everlasting; and from that time he was always mindful of the trick, and would not give the power of unwearying fire to the Melian race of mortal men who live on the earth. But the noble son of Iapetos outwitted him and stole the far-seen gleam of unwearying fire in a hollow fennel stalk. And Zeus who thunders on high was stung in spirit, and his dear heart was angered when he saw amongst men the far-seen ray of fire. Forthwith he made an evil thing for men as the price of fire; for the very famous Limping God [Hephaistos (Hephaestus)] formed of earth the likeness of a shy maiden as the son of Kronos willed . . . So it is not possible to deceive or go beyond the will of Zeus; for not even the son of Iapetos, kindly Prometheus, escaped his heavy anger, but of necessity strong bands confined him, although he knew many a wile.”

Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 482 ff (trans. Weir Smyth) (Greek tragedy C5th B.C.) :
“[After stealing fire from the gods Prometheus instructed man in the arts including the reading of the signs of the sacrifice :] ‘I marked out many ways by which they might read the future . . . The smoothness of their [the sacrificial animal’s] entrails, and what color the gall must have to please the gods, also the speckled symmetry of the liver-lobe; and the thigh-bones, wrapped in fat, and the long chine I burned and initiated mankind into an occult art. Also I cleared their vision to discern signs from flames, which were obscure before this.’”

Pseudo-Hyginus, Astronomica 2. 15 (trans. Grant) (Roman mythographer C2nd A.D.) :
“When the men of old with great ceremony used to carry on the sacrificial rites of the immortal gods, they would burn the victims entire in the flame of the sacrifice. And so, when the poor were prevented from making sacrifices on account of the great expense, Prometheus, who with his wonderful wisdom is thought to have made men, by his pleading is said to have obtained permission from Jove [Zeus] for them to cast only a part of the victim into the fire, and to use the rest for their own food. This practice custom later established. Since he had obtained this permission, not as from a covetous man, but easily, as from a god, Prometheus himself sacrifices two bulls. When he had first placed their entrails on the altar, he put the remaining flesh of the two bulls in one heap, covering it with an oxhide. Whatever bones there were he covered with the other skin and put it down between them, offering Jove [Zeus] the choice of either part for himself. Jupiter, although he didn’t act with divine forethought, nor as a god who ought to foresee everything, was deceived by Prometheus–since we have started to believe the tale!–and thinking each part was a bull, shoe the bones for his half. And so after this, in solemn rites and sacrifices, when the flesh of victims has been consumed, they burn with fire the remaining parts which are the gods. But, to come back to the subject, Jupiter [Zeus], when he realized what had been done, in anger took fire from mortals, lest the favour of Prometheus should seem to have more weight than the power of the gods, and that uncooked flesh should not be useful to men.”

THE CHAINING, TORTURE & RELEASE OF PROMETHEUS

Prometheus was a creator Titan God who was instrumental in the creation of life on Earth and also mankind. Through Deukalion, He is connected with the flood. the flood myth probably originated form survivors who fled the black sea bassin after it was flooded thousands of years ago and survivors spread in all directions and the first written mention of it, was in the epic of Gilgameshj where Gilgamesh in the Underworld met the survivor of that flood. For the ancient Greeks and later the Romans, it wasn’t as important how we got here. We are here and that was good enough for them. They like all cultures tried to find an answer to the question where we came from and how we came to be in this world, but the emphasis lied elsewhere. If it was really important, Prometheus would be central to the religion, and that is not the case it seems.

source:

The Theoi project Prometheus Titan

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