The First Humans

According to several sources it was Prometheus who created man, molding them out of clay. This image is a popular one seen in many myths around the world including Babylonian, Egyptian, Chinese, African and others.

Hesiod lists Five Ages of Man whilst Ovid lists Four- The Golden Age, The Silver Age, The Bronze Age, the Heroic Age and The Iron Age. Ovid excludes the Heroic Age. Each age grows worse and worse with mankind growing from noble daemons who looked youthful even when old and died peacefully, to cruel, warlike beings.
The Golden Age ended with the usupering of Cronus by Zeus. In the Silver Age mankind did not live long and refused to worship the gods prompting Zeus to destroy them. The Bronze Age was ended by the great deluge/flood after King Lycaon sacrificed his own son and tried to trick Zeus into eating him to prove that the gods were not omnipotent.


Prometheus gifted man with fire against Zeus' will, in anger Zeus had imprisoned to a rock with an eagle to devour his liver daily whilst it renewed itself nightly. According to Hesiod Zeus had hidden fire from man in anger when Prometheus tricked him into picking the lesser sacrifice of meat for himself and the gods. Prometheus had hidden the meat in the stomach whilst wrapping the bones in fat and got Zeus to pick one, he picked the latter being deceived by the fat.

To punish mankind for having fire Zeus had Hephaestus mold the first woman out of the earth. Following the timeline of the myths one would assume that women had actually existed before this woman but were perhaps wiped out with the rest of mankind. It is implied that each generation of mankind in The Ages of Man were different, worse in their ways, so we can assume that this woman was the first woman for the generation of The Bronze Age of Man.
Her name was Pandora, Athena dressed her and taught her needlework and weaving, Aphrodite gave her grace, Hermes made her deceitful and gave her speech and a name and the Charites and Horae gave her jewellery. The Olympians also gave her a jar, which in later translations became a box.
Pandora is given to Prometheus' brother Epimetheus as a wife despite Prometheus warning Epimetheus not to accept gifts from Zeus. Pandora then, out of curiosity, opened her jar and unleashed all the evils onto the world, only hope remained.

Pandora and Epimetheus had a daughter, Pyrrha, who married Prometheus and the Okeanid Hesione/Pronoia's son Deucalion. When Zeus unleashed the deluge these pair were the only two of mankind to survive, by dwelling in a chest. Themis told them how to repopulate the world, by throwing the bones of their mother over their shoulders, this meant the rocks of the earth/Gaia. They obeyed and Pyrrha's rocks turned into women and Deucalion's into men.

It is thought that this deluge could be linked to the Minoan eruption of Thera, a volcanic eruption on the island of Thera/Santorini, which may have caused a tsunami. It is thought that this ocurred during the Middle Bronze Age, in the second millenium BC, around either the 1620s BC or 1520s BC. Of course this means that the deluge did not end the Bronze Age, as the Iron Age did not begin until approx 1200s BC. Yet given the story it is easy to see how history inspired myth.

It's interesting to see how both Prometheus and Pandora become villainised in different tales. Prometheus comes across as both a trickster and a hero for mankind, he created them, he gave them fire and, according to some stories, he gave them wisdom and their traits, he even tried to protect them from the wiles of Pandora. Yet to accept Prometheus as the hero we must then accept Zeus as the villain and so, to prevent this happening, Prometheus becomes the villain. He is the reason for man's toil and misery, bringing it upon them by defying the just Zeus. He is a thief and a deceiver, traits not usually found in noble heroes.

Pandora of course can be compared to Eve, the first woman who brought sin down on man due to her curiosity. Eve took of the apple despite warnings thanks to prompting from the serpent and Pandora opened the jar and Epimetheus took her as his wife despite Prometheus' warnings. So people like to say that she is evil, Hermes made her a deceiver after all, and gave her the gift to lie with her tongue, and she cursed all of mankind by unleashing the evils of the jar onto the world. Yet given her newness and youth and the fact that it was the Olympians who created this jar with the evils in it and gave it to her with the intention that she open it, surely she is just a victim, a tool and a scapegoat. Surely it is the Olympians who were deceitful, vengeful and in a way evil whilst Pandora is just a naive innocent doomed because of the flaw of curiosity.