Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/106

 74 HISTORY OF GREECE. As the Homeric theogony generally appears much expanded in Hesiod, so also does the family of lapetus, with their varied adventures. Atlas is here described, not as the keeper of the intermediate pillars between heaven and earth, but as himself condemned by Zeus to support the heaven on his head and hands ; ! while the fierce Mencetius is thrust down to Erebus as a punish- ment for his ungovernable insolence. But the remaining two brothers, Prometheus and Epimetheus, are among the most in teresting creations of Grecian legend, and distinguished in more than one respect from all the remainder. First, the main battle between Zeus and the Titan gods is a contest of force purely and simply mountains are hurled and thunder is launched, and the victory remains to the strongest. But the competition between Zeus and Prometheus is one of craft and stratagem : the victory does indeed remain to the former, but the honors of the fight belong to the latter. Secondly, Prometheus and Epirnetheus (the fore-thinker and the after-thinker 2 ) are char- acters stamped at the same mint and hy the same effort, the express contrast and antithesis of each other. Thirdly, mankind are here expressly brought forward, not indeed as active partners in the struggle, but as the grand and capital subjects interested, as gainers or sufferers by the result. Prometheus appears in the exalted character of champion of the human race, even against lhe formidable superiority of Zeus. In the primitive or Hesiodic legend, Prometheus is not the creator or moulder of man ; it is only the later additions which invest him with this character. 3 The race are supposed as exist- 1 Hesiod, Thcog. 516. "ArAaf amf (Pyth. v. 25), Excuse, the offspring of After-thought. 3 Apollodor. i. 7. 1. Nor is he such either in ^Eschylns, or in the Platonic fable (Protag. c. 30), though this version became at last the mof t popular. Some hardened lumps of clay, remnants of that which had been employed by Prometheus in moulding man, were shown to Pausanias at Panopctis in Phokis(Paus. x. 4, 3). The first Epigram of Erinna (Anthol. i. p. 58, cd. Brunck) seems to alludu