Prometheus

Family: Titans · Role: Titan · First appears: Apollodorus, Library 1.2

🌐 Also appears in: The Metamorphoses of Ovid (as Prometheus) · Greek Tragedy — The Same Myth, Three Voices (as Prometheus)

Prometheus is a Titan. In Apollodorus, Iapetus and Asia are named as his parents, and he has Deucalion as a son. Hesiod names Clymene as his mother and places him among the children of Iapetus and Clymene, alongside Atlas, Menoetius, and Epimetheus: “clever Prometheus, full of various wiles, and scatter-brained Epimetheus.”

At the river Triton, Prometheus—or, according to another account, Hephaestus—struck Zeus’s head with an axe, from which Athena emerged fully armed. Later, Prometheus stole fire for mortals despite Zeus’s refusal to grant it to humanity: “the noble son of Iapetus outwitted him and stole the far-seen gleam of unwearying fire in a hollow fennel stalk.” When Zeus learned of the theft, he ordered Hephaestus to nail Prometheus to Mount Caucasus, where an eagle continually devoured his regenerating liver; strong bonds confined him despite his cunning.

Heracles eventually slew the eagle and freed Prometheus from his torment. Prometheus later advised Heracles not to seek the apples himself, but to send Atlas after them while first relieving him of the burden of the sphere.