Prometheia
Encyclopedia
The Prometheia is a trilogy of plays about the titan
Prometheus
. It was attributed in Antiquity
to the 5th-century BC Greek
tragedian Aeschylus
. Though an Alexandrian
catalogue of Aeschylean play titles designates the trilogy Hoi Prometheis ("the Prometheuses"), in modern scholarship the trilogy has been designated the Prometheia to mirror the title of Aeschylus' only extant trilogy, the Oresteia. Unlike the Oresteia, only one play from this trilogy -- Prometheus Bound
-- survives. Inasmuch as the authorship of Prometheus Bound continues to be debated, the very existence of a Prometheus trilogy is uncertain. To the extent that modern scholars postulate the existence of such a trilogy by a single author, the consensus holds that it comprised Prometheus Bound
, Prometheus Unbound
, and Prometheus the Fire-Bringer, in that order.
are Prometheus, Cratus (Power), Bia
(Violence), Hephaestus
, the mortal woman Io
, Oceanus
, Hermes
and a chorus
of Oceanids. The play is composed almost entirely of speeches and contains little plot since its protagonist is chained and immobile throughout. At the beginning, Cratus, Bia and Hephaestus the smith-god chain Prometheus to a mountain in the Caucasus and then depart. According to Aeschylus, Prometheus is being punished not only for stealing fire, but also for thwarting Zeus' plan to obliterate the human race. This punishment is especially galling since Prometheus was instrumental in Zeus' victory in the Titanomachy
. The Oceanids appear and attempt to comfort Prometheus by conversing with him. Prometheus cryptically tells them that he knows of a potential marriage that would lead to Zeus' downfall. Oceanus later arrives to commiserate with Prometheus, as well; he urges the Titan to make peace with Zeus, and departs. Prometheus is then visited by Io, a maiden pursued by a lustful Zeus. The Olympian transformed her into a cow, and a gadfly sent by Hera has chased her all the way from Argos; Prometheus forecasts her future travels, telling her that Zeus will eventually end her torment in Egypt, where she will bear a son named Epaphus. He adds that one of her descendants (Heracles), eleven generations hence, will release him from his own torment. Finally, Hermes the messenger-god is sent down by an angered Zeus to demand that Prometheus tell him who threatens to overthrow him. Prometheus refuses, and Zeus strikes him with a thunderbolt that plunges Prometheus into the abyss.
and predictions of future events made by the Titan himself in Prometheus Bound allow us to reconstruct a fairly detailed outline of this play. An erroneous list of Prometheus Bounds dramatis personae indicates that Gaea
and Heracles
both appear in this play. A fragment translated into Latin
by the Roman
statesman Cicero
demonstrates that the chorus of this play is constituted by a group of Titans, recently freed from Tartarus
by Zeus despite their defeat in the Titanomachy. This perhaps foreshadows Zeus' eventual reconciliation with Prometheus in the trilogy's third installment. Prometheus complains to them about his torment just as he had to the chorus of Oceanids in Prometheus Bound. It is then suggested that Gaea would be the next to visit Prometheus, in a role that echoes Oceanus' sympathetic turn in the first play. Finally, Heracles would visit Prometheus. Again mirroring events in the previous play, Prometheus would forecast Heracles' remaining travels as he completes his Twelve Labours
. Heracles then frees Prometheus from his chains and kills the eagle that tortured him daily. The play thus concludes with Prometheus free from the torments of Zeus, but the Titan and Olympian have yet to reconcile.
, whom Zeus wants to take as a lover, is fated to bear a child greater than its father. Lying with her, then, would result in Zeus' being overthrown just as he had overthrown his father, Cronus
. During the course of the drama, Prometheus decides to warn Zeus about Thetis. Rather than lie with her, Zeus marries her off to the mortal Peleus
, King of Aegina. The product of this union will indeed be a son greater than the father, namely Achilles
, Greek hero of the Trojan War
. Finally, Athenaeus
(a grammarian of the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD) wrote in Book 15.16 of his Deipnosophists the following regarding a contemporary Athenian festival dedicated to Prometheus: "Aeschylus clearly states in the Unbound that in honor of Prometheus we place a garland on the head as recompense of his bondage." Some scholars have taken this to mean that in the Unbound, Prometheus prophesies that eventually (in the Fire-Bringer), Zeus would reconcile with him, and establish some sort of festival in his honor. Given the title of the play, and taking a cue from the aetiology for the Athenian Areopagus
provided by Aeschylus' Eumenides
, it has been suggested that the drama concludes with Zeus' foundation of the yearly torch race that took place in Athens to honor Prometheus.
A minority of scholars believe that Prometheus the Fire-Bringer is actually the first play in the trilogy. One reason is that Prometheus Bound begins in medias res
; some have observed that after the reconstructing the Bound and Unbound as the first and second play, there simply isn't enough mythic material left for a third-position Fire-Bringer. According to his theory, Prometheus the Fire-Bringer would dramatize the Titan's theft of fire as described in the Theogony.
Titan (mythology)
In Greek mythology, the Titans were a race of powerful deities, descendants of Gaia and Uranus, that ruled during the legendary Golden Age....
Prometheus
Prometheus
In Greek mythology, Prometheus is a Titan, the son of Iapetus and Themis, and brother to Atlas, Epimetheus and Menoetius. He was a champion of mankind, known for his wily intelligence, who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mortals...
. It was attributed in Antiquity
Classical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
to the 5th-century BC Greek
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
tragedian Aeschylus
Aeschylus
Aeschylus was the first of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose work has survived, the others being Sophocles and Euripides, and is often described as the father of tragedy. His name derives from the Greek word aiskhos , meaning "shame"...
. Though an Alexandrian
Alexandrian
Alexandrian is either:* an adjective referring to a place called Alexandria, as in Alexandrian text-type* a person from and/or inhabiting a city called Alexandria...
catalogue of Aeschylean play titles designates the trilogy Hoi Prometheis ("the Prometheuses"), in modern scholarship the trilogy has been designated the Prometheia to mirror the title of Aeschylus' only extant trilogy, the Oresteia. Unlike the Oresteia, only one play from this trilogy -- Prometheus Bound
Prometheus Bound
Prometheus Bound is an Ancient Greek tragedy. In Antiquity, this drama was attributed to Aeschylus, but is now considered by some scholars to be the work of another hand, perhaps one as late as ca. 415 BC. Despite these doubts of authorship, the play's designation as Aeschylean has remained...
-- survives. Inasmuch as the authorship of Prometheus Bound continues to be debated, the very existence of a Prometheus trilogy is uncertain. To the extent that modern scholars postulate the existence of such a trilogy by a single author, the consensus holds that it comprised Prometheus Bound
Prometheus Bound
Prometheus Bound is an Ancient Greek tragedy. In Antiquity, this drama was attributed to Aeschylus, but is now considered by some scholars to be the work of another hand, perhaps one as late as ca. 415 BC. Despite these doubts of authorship, the play's designation as Aeschylean has remained...
, Prometheus Unbound
Prometheus Unbound (Aeschylus)
Prometheus Unbound is a play by the Greek poet Aeschylus, concerned with the torments of the Greek mythological figure Prometheus and his suffering at the hands of Zeus...
, and Prometheus the Fire-Bringer, in that order.
Prometheus Bound
The dramatis personaeDramatis Personae
Dramatis Personae is a poetry collection by Robert Browning. It was published in 1864.- Background :Browning wrote the collection in London, where he had returned with his son after his wife's death. It was his first publication after a nine-year hiatus...
are Prometheus, Cratus (Power), Bia
BIA
- Acronym :* Bureau of Indian Affairs, a US government agency* Board of Immigration Appeals, a US government agency* The IATA airport code for Bastia - Poretta Airport, or, informally:** Baghdad International Airport...
(Violence), Hephaestus
Hephaestus
Hephaestus was a Greek god whose Roman equivalent was Vulcan. He is the son of Zeus and Hera, the King and Queen of the Gods - or else, according to some accounts, of Hera alone. He was the god of technology, blacksmiths, craftsmen, artisans, sculptors, metals, metallurgy, fire and volcanoes...
, the mortal woman Io
IO
Io, IO, I/O, i/o, or i.o. may refer to:-An abbreviation:* I.O., a theater in Chicago, Illinois dedicated to improvisational comedy* i.o., "in illo ordine", Latin phrase meaning "respectively"...
, Oceanus
Oceanus
Oceanus ; , Ōkeanós) was a pseudo-geographical feature in classical antiquity, believed by the ancient Greeks and Romans to be the world-ocean, an enormous river encircling the world....
, Hermes
Hermes
Hermes is the great messenger of the gods in Greek mythology and a guide to the Underworld. Hermes was born on Mount Kyllini in Arcadia. An Olympian god, he is also the patron of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of the cunning of thieves, of orators and...
and a chorus
Greek chorus
A Greek chorus is a homogenous, non-individualised group of performers in the plays of classical Greece, who comment with a collective voice on the dramatic action....
of Oceanids. The play is composed almost entirely of speeches and contains little plot since its protagonist is chained and immobile throughout. At the beginning, Cratus, Bia and Hephaestus the smith-god chain Prometheus to a mountain in the Caucasus and then depart. According to Aeschylus, Prometheus is being punished not only for stealing fire, but also for thwarting Zeus' plan to obliterate the human race. This punishment is especially galling since Prometheus was instrumental in Zeus' victory in the Titanomachy
Titanomachy
In Greek mythology, the Titanomachy or War of the Titans , was the ten-year series of battles fought in Thessaly between the two camps of deities long before the existence of mankind: the Titans, based on Mount Othrys, and the Olympians, who would come to reign on Mount Olympus...
. The Oceanids appear and attempt to comfort Prometheus by conversing with him. Prometheus cryptically tells them that he knows of a potential marriage that would lead to Zeus' downfall. Oceanus later arrives to commiserate with Prometheus, as well; he urges the Titan to make peace with Zeus, and departs. Prometheus is then visited by Io, a maiden pursued by a lustful Zeus. The Olympian transformed her into a cow, and a gadfly sent by Hera has chased her all the way from Argos; Prometheus forecasts her future travels, telling her that Zeus will eventually end her torment in Egypt, where she will bear a son named Epaphus. He adds that one of her descendants (Heracles), eleven generations hence, will release him from his own torment. Finally, Hermes the messenger-god is sent down by an angered Zeus to demand that Prometheus tell him who threatens to overthrow him. Prometheus refuses, and Zeus strikes him with a thunderbolt that plunges Prometheus into the abyss.
Prometheus Unbound
Only eleven fragments of Prometheus Unbound survive, in the form of quotations preserved by later authors.http://www.theoi.com/Text/AeschylusFragments2.html#PrometheusLyomenos Nonetheless, our knowledge of the Prometheus myth as told by HesiodHesiod
Hesiod was a Greek oral poet generally thought by scholars to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. His is the first European poetry in which the poet regards himself as a topic, an individual with a distinctive role to play. Ancient authors credited him and...
and predictions of future events made by the Titan himself in Prometheus Bound allow us to reconstruct a fairly detailed outline of this play. An erroneous list of Prometheus Bounds dramatis personae indicates that Gaea
Gaia (mythology)
Gaia was the primordial Earth-goddess in ancient Greek religion. Gaia was the great mother of all: the heavenly gods and Titans were descended from her union with Uranus , the sea-gods from her union with Pontus , the Giants from her mating with Tartarus and mortal creatures were sprung or born...
and Heracles
Heracles
Heracles ,born Alcaeus or Alcides , was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus...
both appear in this play. A fragment translated into Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
by the Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
statesman Cicero
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
demonstrates that the chorus of this play is constituted by a group of Titans, recently freed from Tartarus
Tartarus
In classic mythology, below Uranus , Gaia , and Pontus is Tartarus, or Tartaros . It is a deep, gloomy place, a pit, or an abyss used as a dungeon of torment and suffering that resides beneath the underworld. In the Gorgias, Plato In classic mythology, below Uranus (sky), Gaia (earth), and Pontus...
by Zeus despite their defeat in the Titanomachy. This perhaps foreshadows Zeus' eventual reconciliation with Prometheus in the trilogy's third installment. Prometheus complains to them about his torment just as he had to the chorus of Oceanids in Prometheus Bound. It is then suggested that Gaea would be the next to visit Prometheus, in a role that echoes Oceanus' sympathetic turn in the first play. Finally, Heracles would visit Prometheus. Again mirroring events in the previous play, Prometheus would forecast Heracles' remaining travels as he completes his Twelve Labours
Twelve Labours
The twelve labours of Hercules or dodekathlon are a series of archaic episodes connected by a later continuous narrative, concerning a penance carried out by Heracles, the greatest of the Greek heroes, whose name was later romanised as Hercules...
. Heracles then frees Prometheus from his chains and kills the eagle that tortured him daily. The play thus concludes with Prometheus free from the torments of Zeus, but the Titan and Olympian have yet to reconcile.
Prometheus the Fire-Bringer
Only one fragment survives from this play.http://www.theoi.com/Text/AeschylusFragments2.html#PrometheusPyrphoros Despite the paucity of direct evidence, Prometheus' foreshadowing of future events in the trilogy's first play suggests that the final play concerned itself with Prometheus' knowledge of a secret that could potentially lead to Zeus' downfall, and how the revelation of this secret leads to reconciliation between the Titan and Olympian. The secret is this: the sea nymph ThetisThetis
Silver-footed Thetis , disposer or "placer" , is encountered in Greek mythology mostly as a sea nymph or known as the goddess of water, one of the fifty Nereids, daughters of the ancient one of the seas with shape-shifting abilities who survives in the historical vestiges of most later Greek myths...
, whom Zeus wants to take as a lover, is fated to bear a child greater than its father. Lying with her, then, would result in Zeus' being overthrown just as he had overthrown his father, Cronus
Cronus
In Greek mythology, Cronus or Kronos was the leader and the youngest of the first generation of Titans, divine descendants of Gaia, the earth, and Uranus, the sky...
. During the course of the drama, Prometheus decides to warn Zeus about Thetis. Rather than lie with her, Zeus marries her off to the mortal Peleus
Peleus
In Greek mythology, Pēleus was a hero whose myth was already known to the hearers of Homer in the late 8th century BCE. Peleus was the son of Aeacus, king of the island of Aegina, and Endeïs, the oread of Mount Pelion in Thessaly; he was the father of Achilles...
, King of Aegina. The product of this union will indeed be a son greater than the father, namely Achilles
Achilles
In Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greek hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad.Plato named Achilles the handsomest of the heroes assembled against Troy....
, Greek hero of the Trojan War
Trojan War
In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, including the Iliad...
. Finally, Athenaeus
Athenaeus
Athenaeus , of Naucratis in Egypt, Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourished about the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century AD...
(a grammarian of the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD) wrote in Book 15.16 of his Deipnosophists the following regarding a contemporary Athenian festival dedicated to Prometheus: "Aeschylus clearly states in the Unbound that in honor of Prometheus we place a garland on the head as recompense of his bondage." Some scholars have taken this to mean that in the Unbound, Prometheus prophesies that eventually (in the Fire-Bringer), Zeus would reconcile with him, and establish some sort of festival in his honor. Given the title of the play, and taking a cue from the aetiology for the Athenian Areopagus
Areopagus
The Areopagus or Areios Pagos is the "Rock of Ares", north-west of the Acropolis, which in classical times functioned as the high Court of Appeal for criminal and civil cases in Athens. Ares was supposed to have been tried here by the gods for the murder of Poseidon's son Alirrothios .The origin...
provided by Aeschylus' Eumenides
Eumenides
Eumenides may refer to:* Another name for the Erinyes, Greek deities of vengeance* The Eumenides, the third part of Aeschylus' Greek tragedy, the Oresteia...
, it has been suggested that the drama concludes with Zeus' foundation of the yearly torch race that took place in Athens to honor Prometheus.
A minority of scholars believe that Prometheus the Fire-Bringer is actually the first play in the trilogy. One reason is that Prometheus Bound begins in medias res
In medias res
In medias res or medias in res is a Latin phrase denoting the literary and artistic narrative technique wherein the relation of a story begins either at the mid-point or at the conclusion, rather than at the beginning In medias res or medias in res (into the middle of things) is a Latin phrase...
; some have observed that after the reconstructing the Bound and Unbound as the first and second play, there simply isn't enough mythic material left for a third-position Fire-Bringer. According to his theory, Prometheus the Fire-Bringer would dramatize the Titan's theft of fire as described in the Theogony.