The Myth of Prometheus | From His Clash with Zeus to the Punishment of Fire

There was a time when gods and mortals still sat together at one table, deciding who would have what. At a place called Mecone, where a great ox had been slaughtered and portions were being divided, Prometheus was present. The way he divided the meat that day became the starting point for every event that followed.

Hesiod tells this story across two works. The Theogony begins with the division at Mecone and traces the theft of fire, the punishment, and the final scene in which Heracles appears, while Works and Days separately tells how that same theft of fire brought consequences back upon all of humankind. Let us follow the two works in order.

The Two Portions Divided at Mecone

According to the Theogony, Prometheus slaughtered an ox and divided it into two portions. On one side he placed the meat and the entrails, covering them with unappealing stomach hide; on the other, he gathered only the bones and carefully wrapped them in gleaming fat. It was arranged so that, by outward appearance alone, the fat-wrapped portion looked far more appetizing. Prometheus had Zeus choose one of these two portions.

Zeus's Choice and the Hidden Fire

Zeus saw through the trick, but deliberately picked up the portion of bones wrapped in fat. When he saw what was inside, Zeus was furious, and he rebuked Prometheus harshly for trying to deceive him. And with this incident, he took away and concealed the fire that humans had until then been able to use.

The Fire Hidden in a Fennel Stalk

When fire vanished, Prometheus once again defied Zeus's will. He stole the flame by hiding it inside a hollow fennel stalk, where it could be seen from afar, and in this way returned fire to human hands.

The Bonds, the Eagle, and a Punishment Repeated Every Day

Zeus answered this theft with a heavy price. The Theogony tells of Prometheus's punishment like this: he was bound with unbreakable chains and his body pierced with a shaft, and an eagle with long wings was sent to feed on his liver. As much of the liver as the eagle devoured during the day grew back during the night, and so the punishment repeated itself without end.

Heracles Puts an End to the Eagle

It was Heracles who brought this punishment to an end. Heracles, the valiant son of Alcmene, killed the eagle and freed Prometheus from his long suffering. The Theogony tells us that this was not against Zeus's will but was, on the contrary, something the Zeus of Olympus permitted. Zeus allowed it so that the glory of Heracles, born of Thebes, would grow even greater than before.

Works and Days: Another Price That Fell Upon Humankind

The punishment given to Prometheus was not the end of the story. Hesiod's other work, Works and Days, takes up the same theft of fire again, but this time tells that Zeus turned his gaze not toward Prometheus but toward humankind.

It was humans who received the fire, so Zeus made humans pay a price as well. Works and Days tells that, as a result, Zeus sent an evil upon humankind. And the figure who appears in this story of evil is Pandora.

One distinction should be made here, however. The division at Mecone, the fire in the fennel stalk, the bonds and the eagle, and the story of Heracles destroying the eagle all fall within what the Theogony recounts, while the story in which Pandora appears belongs to the narrative of Works and Days alone. Both events branched out from the same theft of fire, but the works that tell them and the scope they cover differ.

What a Single Deception Left Behind in Two Strands

This story, which began the moment the portions were divided at Mecone, continues along two strands. One was the price Prometheus himself paid—a punishment of being bound in chains while an eagle pecked at his liver, ended by the hand of Heracles. The other was the price humankind paid in his place—the evil delivered through Pandora.

When the two stories are read together rather than apart, it becomes all the clearer how far the single division of portions at Mecone reached.

Figures Who Lead into the Next Stories

The story of Zeus, king of the gods who faced off against Prometheus, continues in the myth of Zeus. The story of Pandora, the evil he sent to humankind, is covered in detail in the myth of Pandora.

If you are curious about the genealogy of all the Greek gods to whom Prometheus belongs, you can check it in the Greek mythology family tree, and the story of the same Titan lineage continues in the myth of Cronus.