Prometheus is grandly portrayed as the archetypal trickster and culture-god, the originator of all inventions and progress in the arts and the sciences. At the end of the play, Prometheus is still defiant, chained to his rock, and still refusing to reveal the secret of the marriage of Thetis.
In that resolution, Aeschylus presumably depicted Zeus as a god of wisdom who, through the suffering of Prometheus, established himself in the end as a triumphant, almighty god secure in his supreme power, brought about through his divine plan for reconciliation.
This divine plan of Zeus for reconciliation with a defeated Prometheus entailed the suffering of IO [eye'oh], a priestess of Hera who was loved by Zeus. Hera found out and turned Io into a white cow. Zeus rescued Io by sending Hermes to lull Argus to sleep and cut off his head. Frenzied, Io in her wanderings over the world encountered Prometheus.
The fulfillment of the will of Zeus was in the end accomplished. Lycaon and the Wickedness of Mortals. In the Age of Iron, Zeus took the form of a man to find out whether reports of the great wickedness of mortals were true. Lycaon even went so far as to slaughter a man and offer human flesh as a meal for Zeus, who in anger brought the house down in flames. Lycaon fled but was turned into a howling, bloodthirsty wolf, a kind of werewolf in fact, since in this transformation he still manifested his human, evil looks and nature.
Disgusted with the wickedness that he found everywhere he roamed, Zeus decided that the human race must be destroyed by a great flood. Deucalion and Pyrrha. When the flood subsided they found themselves in their little boat stranded on Mt.
They were dismayed to discover that they were the only survivors and consulted the oracle of Themis about what they should do. The goddess ordered them to toss the bones of their great mother behind their backs. Deucalion understood that the stones in the body of earth are her bones. And so the stones that Deucalion tossed behind his back were miraculously transformed into men, while those cast by Pyrrha became women.
In this way the world was repopulated. Hellen and the Hellenes. It cannot escape notice that many Greek myths that explain the creation of the world have been influenced by Near Eastern forerunners.
Commercial contact between the Greeks and the Near East seems the most likely conduit. This contact took place mainly in two distinct periods: the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries B. Five basic myths have proved especially fertile: the Creation, Succession, the Flood, the Descent to the Underworld, and the hero-king Gilgamesh. A number of peoples have told and retold these myth archetypes in many different versions. The most important of these civilizations, for our purposes, are the following:.
Sumerian, Babylonian, and Akkadian myths tell, like Hesiod, of order arising out of disorder, without an intelligent creator cf. These creation accounts, by their very nature, include myths of Succession, the Flood, and the creation and recreation of man.
Enuma Elish. Marduk, a god of the younger generation, usurps the rule of the god Enlil and battles Tiamat, much as Zeus battles Typhoeus. Tiamat is blown up like an enormous balloon and rent in two.
After the death of Tiamat, Marduk creates in the sky Esharra as a home for the gods. Marduk brings order to the world and creates human beings from the blood of Kingu, who by this time has been killed.
Human beings are to serve the gods. Both are akin to the Hebrew Noah and the Greek Prometheus god of wisdom and crafts and Deucalion survivor of the flood. Where did Zeus come from exactly, and how did he become king? Well, it all started with a prophecy. Gaia told Cronus that it was his fate to be overthrown by his sons, just as he had overthrown his own father.
Eventually, it was the actions brought on by this that led Zeus to become king. Zeus was the son of the Titans, Cronus and Rhea. Cronus, at the time, was king — a title he usurped from his father, Uranus. Cronus was told that one of his children would overthrow him.
As a result, he swallowed each of his children whole to prevent them from taking his throne. To prevent this from happening to Zeus, Rhea enlisted the help of Gaia.
She is known for being the protector of marriage and watching out for married women. She was tricked into being with Zeus. He courted her and she turned him down, so he turned into a cuckoo bird and she felt sorry for the bird and cradled it to herself. He turned back into his real form and raped her. She did not want to be shamed for the rape, so she married Zeus.
Hera drugged Zeus once, so that the other gods could revolt. Zeus was freed and hung Hera in the sky with chains. She cried all night and it kept Zeus awake so he agreed to release her if she would never again rebel against him. She kept to her promise of not rebelling; however she often outwits the god.
Two of her symbols include the peacock and the cow. He has a twin sister named Artemis. He plays a golden lyre and is the god of music. He has a silver bow and is known as the archer. He is the god of healing because he taught medicine to man and he is the god of truth because he cannot tell a lie. He is also the god of light and everyday he uses his chariot and four horses to drive the sun across the sky. Two of his symbols are the dolphin and the crow. She is known as the lady of wild things.
She hunts with silver arrows and all wild animals are sacred to her. She is the protector of the young and although a virgin goddess, she presides over childbirth. It is said that she caused her mother Leto no harm when she was born. Two of her symbols are the deer and the cypress tree.
Lets look at those key characters now. Before we actually get to the face off between Zeus and Cronus we have to dive into how Cronus came to be in power and be ruler of the universe. Uranus was the first ruler of the universe. He was the god of the sky, in fact he was more the embodiment of the sky. This was common with the primordial gods of Greek mythology. Instead of inhabiting and controlling a realm, they actually were the realm.
He ruled along side his wife Gaia who was the embodiment of the earth. Together they gave birth to a number of different groups of children. The most important were the titans of which there were 6 male titans including Cronus and 6 female titans including Rhea.
They also had some other children called the Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires. Uranus was disgusted by these deformed children and had them locked away in Tartarus, a high security prison deep beneath the earth. This greatly angered Gaia and Cronus. They therefore conspired to have Uranus overthrown. Cronus, with the help of 4 other titan brothers, ambushed Uranus. The four brothers held him down from the 4 corners of the sky and Cronus brought out a scythe and castrated his father.
His lifeless body fell into the ocean and Cronus assumed power. Cronus ruled much like his father. He was at times quite wicked and formed enemies quickly. Much like Uranus he decided to keep the Cyclopes and Hecatoncheires imprisoned away.
This of course angered Gaia. But, more importantly than that. He had received a prophecy from Uranus before he had died in which he stated that Cronus would also be overthrown by one of his children. This made Cronus into a paranoid and angry ruler.
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