Prometheus

The title of this publication, Prometheus, was selected for its powerful allusion to human nature and the human political condition. It represents, as the ancient Greek's knew so well, the eternal human quest to seek freedom and understanding in all its multifarious forms and break the bondage of authoritarian political control that permeates the ages. The Promethean myth is the most human of epics: that of a "man" following the quest of liberation from the whims of Kings and their Gods. For it was Prometheus who not only gave man fire, by Aescaleus’ account, but also the noblest arts of civilization (writing, mathematics, agriculture, medicine, and science): in short, freedom of though and action. It was Prometheus who was bound and punished eternally by pitiless Lord Zeus’ vulture: which would savour the hero’s liver for all time, were it not for his intrepid rescue by Hercules; whereupon, once again the Greeks defied the gods.

We refer to Aescaleus later version of Prometheus an inversion of Hesoid’s traditional hieratic account of the myth, which affirms Zeus’ role as a Solonic ruler of the rightly ordered cosmos. Aescaleus who comes much later during the Golden Age of Hellenic democracy and thought, casts Prometheus as a indominable benefactor of mankind, ever questing for knowledge, independence and human dignity.

It reminds us of Byron’s Prometheus, 1816

Amighty lesson we inherit;
Thou art a symbol and a sign
To mortal … fate and force;
Like thee, Man is part divine,


Triumphant where it dares defy,
And making Death a Victory.