Previously… Prometheus’s love for man had made him cross the line and went against his king, and best friend Zeus’s order. He had taken divine fire from the forges of heaven and had gifted it to man. He thought man the remarkable things one can do with fire, he saw it as a means to help man to achieve the status they deserved as the finest creations of god. Zeus did not share this sentiment and the fate of Prometheus was questionable, will he be pardoned or punished?
The Ploy Of Zeus
Zeus’s anger was not a pleasant thing in heaven for the other god’s to witness, everyone thought Prometheus was going to be killed in the most brutal way such that nothing will be left of him. But he first wanted to punish man, for daring to appropriate fire. Zeus had thoughts where mankind would rise to great heights with fire. Man would lose his fear of gods and think of himself as their equal and would cease to give the gods offering and stop praying altogether. Zeus himself was appalled that he had entertained such thoughts.
After thinking for a long time, he sought Hephaestus and asked him to create the most beautiful feminine being ever. He modelled it after the most beautiful Greek goddesses, and his wife Aphrodite breathed life into her. She was Pandora, the first female to be molded from clay like how Prometheus molded man.
The End of The Golden Age
Prometheus knew Zeus would do something, so he told his brother Epimetheus to be wary of anyone from Olympus or anything they might give him, and he set off to distant lands. This was the start of what would be called as the end of golden era. The messenger of the Gods, Hermes went to the residence of Prometheus and Epimetheus, and presented him with a woman who was holding a jar, he introduced her as his wife to be, Pandora. Epimetheus was blinded by her beauty and sought her, but he didn’t heed his brother's warning and married her, knowing his brother would never accept her so he was swift in that decision. Pandora and Epimetheus were married, little did she know the jar (which has been mistranslated as box in current versions) which Zeus gave her as a “gift” would spell doom. Curiosity got the better of her, she was plagued with thoughts of opening the box every day and every night, the temptation was strong even though Zeus had told her to never open it. This reverse psychology of Zeus was a clever ploy to tempt her to open it. She decided she had enough and thought “what’s the worst that could happen”, like every teenager and adult reason themselves before taking a stupid decision. As she opened the box, things were set off in motion, the box presented by Zeus had every catastrophe man knows today, disease, malevolence, deceit, war, hate and many more, all these were unleashed on mankind, before anything else could go, she closed the jar. There was only one thing left in the jar. Hope.
The Silver Age
Pandora went on to be the mother of many children including Phyrra, Prometheus too fathered a son, Deucalion, Everyone was elated when these two fell in love and got married. Prometheus knew Zeus’s anger was yet to be sated, as his son came of age he thought him everything he knew. Humanity was now self sustaining, there were men and women who multiplied rapidly and their numbers grow and grow, The titans Prometheus and Epimetheus could be considered the patriarchs of the human race. The king of the gods from his throne in Olympus, saw the humans growing in number and saw them as a plague, not as the weak playthings he first saw them as.
The Great Deluge
Zeus was angered upon his numerous visits to earth. Man had started to use fire to burn offerings to convey devotion to god, many kings disrespected Zeus, One of the kings had burnt up his own son and offered them to Zeus on a plate, this angered him tremendously and bought the boy back to life and turned him into a man-wolf who would kill his father, Zeus was looking for a reason to end mankind and he found them. It was time to draw the curtain on this human experiment and conclude it once and for all. The Heavenly king summoned a rain storm so violent that it drowned humanity, all except Phyrra and Deucalion.
