Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/111

 PROMETHEUS AKD HIS SUFFERINGS. 79 beget some new breed. 1 Moreover, new relations between Prome- theus and Zeus are superadded by JEschylus. At the commence- ment of the struggle between Zeus and the Titan gods, Prometheus had vainly attempted to prevail upon the latter to conduct it with prudence ; but when he found that they obstinately declined all wise counsel, and that their ruin was inevitable, he abandoned their cause and joined Zeus. To him and to his advice Zeus owed the victory : yet the monstrous ingratitude and tyranny of the latter is now manifested by nailing him to a rock, for no other crime than because he frustrated the purpose of extinguishing the human race, and furnished to them the means of living with tolerable comfort.' 3 The new ruler Zeus, insolent with his victory over the old gods, tramples down all right, and sets at naught sympathy and obliga- tion, as well towards gods as towards man. Yet the prophetic Prometheus, in the midst of intense suffering, is consoled by the foreknowledge that the time will come when Zeus must again send for him, release him, and invoke his aid, as the sole means of averting from himself dangers otherwise insurmountable. The security and means of continuance for mankind have now been placed beyond the reach of Zeus whom Prometheus proudly defies, glorying in his generous and successful championship, 3 de- spite the terrible price which he is doomed to pay for it. As the ^schylean Prometheus, though retaining the old linea- ments, has acquired a new coloring, soul and character, so he has also become identified with a special locality. In Hesiod, there is no indication of the place in which he is imprisoned ; but JEs- chylus places it in Scythia, 4 and the general belief of the Greeks supposed it to be on Mount Caucasus. So long and so firmly did 1 JEsch. Prom. 231. Pporuv de rtjv TaTiamupuv "kbyov OVK eaxev oitdev', uW uiaTuaac yevof Td TTU.V, e^pT/fev d/lAo Qtriiaat veov. 6ia TI/V TJiav ^i^orrira fipor&v. 3 JEsch. Prom. 169-770. 4 Prometh. 2. See also the Fragments of the Prometheus Solutus, 177- 179, cd. Dindorf, -where Caucasus is specially named ; but v. 719 of the Pro- metheus Vinctus seems to imply that Mount Caucasus is a place different from that to which the suffering prisoner is chained.
 * ;Esch. Prom. 198-222. 123.