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Rh and his dynasty came to the throne of heaven. Jove was supposed to have obtained his position by conspiracy against his father Saturn—an impiety in some sort justifiable, because Saturn had dispossessed his father Uranus by means not less outrageous. It is a curious question, What could have led the Greeks to rest the claims of their gods on such foundations?—but we cannot enter upon it here. Jove was aided, of course, in his enterprise, by the gods who, when he had succeeded, found places by his side; and Prometheus, at the first, was one of these. He had always been a pitying friend to the human race, and his mother Themis, or Right, had encouraged him in the hope that the reign of Jove would be beneficial to mankind. His name, Prometheus, means "forethought," and in his love of men is implied the lesson that forethought is the source of all human happiness. Hoping, then, to confer a blessing on mankind, he had helped to raise Zeus to power, at the expense of the old gods, and the Titans, his kindred; but he was disappointed at the result. Zeus entirely neglected mankind, or even sought to depress them more and more, till he should have put an end to the race altogether. To remedy their sad state, Prometheus carried down from heaven by stealth some sparks of fire concealed in a stalk of fennel, that men might learn to forge tools and instruments, and so arts and wealth might arise upon the earth. But to use this element of fire had been the special prerogative of the gods, and they would not have an inferior race strengthened by it; fearing, perhaps, lest, so equipped, mankind might aspire to supplant them