2. There are four figures in this painting, from your left they are an
eagle, so the next figure must be Zeus, the boy is Ganymede, and
the final figure is Prometheus stealing fire from Mt. Olympus for
his mortals. Zeus originally took fire from humans to punish
Prometheus for tricking him with the sacrifice. The pitcher and
two-handled drinking cup next to Ganymede are in the same
shapes as those used in ancient Greece. We’ll encounter Zeus
and Ganymede in the next reading assignment
3. An old photo of a great stone relief depicting
Prometheus on Mt. Olympus stealing fire (a glowing
ember) on the end of a fennel staff. He is sneaking
away from the workshop of Hephaestus and the
Cyclopes
4. Jan Cossier Prometheus brings Fire to Humanity
Painting by Heinrich Friedrich Füger in 1817
5. What follows here is one photo
depicting a scene from classical myth,
created and staged by a myth student.
Note the fabulous modernization and
interpretation of this scene.
Know that this will be your assignment
in the second half of this course
6. • Take a good
look… at
Prometheus
stealing
fire…
10. One tradition states that Prometheus
fashioned the first man from mud.
Here he is shaping him. Athena
(Roman Minerva) stands by. Notice
that Athena is recognizable through
her helmet, the only goddess who
wears one
11. After Prometheus stole the fire
from Mt. Olympus, Zeus
punished both Prometheus and
his beloved humans. He had
his henchman Kratos and Bia
(Greek for Power and Strength)
chain Prometheus to the
Caucasus mountains, beyond
the edge of civilization.
To give you some perspective,
here’s Athens and Troy
12.
13. Every day an eagle (or vulture) ate Prometheus’ liver
which would grow back every night. Prometheus, a son
of a Titan, was immortal, so this punishment was
unending...
16. The inside
image of a
Greek drinking
cup: Atlas on
the left is
holding up the
sky, and
there’s our
buddy
Prometheus
again.
Prometheus
was eventually
saved by
Heracles…but
that’s another
story…
17. Another student
photo—
interpretation of
the Prometheus
and Eagle scene.
Keep this future
assignment in
mind as you read
subsequent
assignments…
18. Before Prometheus
(Greek: pro-metis = for-
thinker) was taken away,
he told his brother
Epimetheus (epi-metis =
backwards thinker) not to
accept anything from Zeus.
But Zeus had other plans.
He planned to punish
Prometheus’ men by
creating and sending a
terrible thing: woman.
Hermes delivered the first
woman, called Pandora, to
Epimetheus. She had a jar
(later called a box)...
19. …which she was not supposed to open…but she did. The box contained all the evils in
the world. She shut the box before all could get out, leaving only HOPE (so is hope a
good or bad thing?). Thus we have an etiological story (KNOW THIS TERM) for three
things: how and why women were created, why evils exist in the world, and marriage
(Pandora married Epimetheus). The story explicitly blames woman for introducing evils
into the world, just as Adam pointed the finger at Eve, who encouraged Adam to eat the
apple. The artist of these paintings is John Waterhouse.
20.
21. More of Waterhouse’s work: he seems to
use the same female in every painting.
We’ll encounter these works in several
weeks
22. Pandora is a
commonly
depicted
mythological
character, as
a search of
Google’s
images will
prove
23.
24. The next five images are from
the story of Zeus turning King
Lycaon into a wolf, the flood
story, then Deucalion and
Pyrrha creating another race of
mortals
