The Hellenic Saga
Gaia (Earth)
Uranus (Heaven)
Oceanus = Tethys
Iapetus (Titan) = Clymene Themis
- Prometheus Epimetheus = Pandora
- Menoetius
Atlas
Prometheus
• “Prometheus made humans out of earth and water, and he also gave them fire…” (Apollodorus Library 1.7.1)
• … “and scatter-brained Epimetheus from the first was a mischief to men who eat bread; for it was he who first took of Zeus the woman, the maiden whom he had formed” (Hesiod Theogony ca. 509)
Prometheus and Zeus
• Zeus concealed the secret of life • Trick of the meat and fat • Zeus concealed fire • Prometheus stole it and gave it to man
• Freidrich H. Fuger, 1751 - 1818
• Zeus ordered the creation of Pandora • Zeus chained Prometheus to a mountain
• The accounts here are many and confused
Maxfield Parish Prometheus 1919
Prometheus Chained Dirck van Baburen 1594 - 1624
Prometheus
Nicolas-Sébastien Adam 1705 - 1778
Frankenstein:
The Modern Prometheus
• Novel by Mary Shelly • First published in 1818. • The first true Science Fiction novel • Victor Frankenstein is Prometheus
• As with the story of Prometheus, the novel asks about cause and effect, and about responsibility.
• Is man accountable for his creations? • Is God? • Are there moral, ethical constraints on man’s creative urges?
Mary Shelly
• “I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion. Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world” (Introduction to the 1831 edition)
Did I request thee, from my clay To mould me man? Did I solicit thee From darkness to promote me?
John Milton, Paradise Lost 10. 743 – 45. Printed on the inside cover of the 1818 edition.
Pandora William Waterhouse 1896
Pandora
• The name means “all gifts” • Hephaestus made Pandora from earth and water in the shape of the goddesses
• Aphrodite gave her grace • Athena gave her skill • Hermes gave her deceit and shamelessness. • Each god gave her an evil, all in one jar
Pandora and Epimetheus
• Zeus gave Pandora to Epimetheus • Pandora opened her gift-jar and the evils that make human existence difficult were released on the world
• Only Hope remained in the jar.
• Is it the point that Hope is one of the things that plague mankind, and
Zeus withheld it!?
• Pandora’s ‘Box’ is a mistranslation by Erasmus
- Pandora
- Deucalion
• Son of Prometheus • Married Pyrrha • Zeus decided to destroy humanity with a flood • Prometheus warned Deucalion, he and Pyrrha escaped in a wooden chest
• Stones of Deucalion Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (1609 – 1664)
Autochthony
‘Born of the Earth’
Deucalion = Pyrrha
Hellen Amphictyon Protogeneia = Zeus
Dorus Xuthus Aeolus
• The descendants of Hellen are the Hellenes, the
Greeks
• His sons divided Greece • Amphictyon became king of Athens
• We will return to him later…
Aeolus
Dorus
- Pelasgians
- Pelasgians
Xuthus