AboutIrulan Serena Expertise Able to answer any question dealing with Greco-Roman mythology. Experience comes from teaching classical literature in all levels of the school curriculum from middle school to university level for thirty-eight years.
While I am well versed in Hesiod and Aeschylus--in particular the latter's Prometheia--I do not actually have any idea of the age of the myth of Prometheus itself. Obvioulsy far older than the eighth century BC;. The question is: how much older?
I know there can be no definitive answer. I was just wondering if there is a generally accepted broad figure of the age of the myth--even in which millennia BC--the 4th, or perhaps even earlier? (I have heard it argued that the myth, for instance, of Jason and the Argonauts goes as far back as perhpas 5000 BC.)
Regards,
Dan O'Hanlon
Answer Hello Dan,
Your question is not going to have a cut and dry or accurate answer for several reasons.
1 The myths were not dated by the authors or the re-tellers of the myths.
2 There are three accepted chronologies of Greek myths and none of them coincide.
3 The modern day archeological chronology places the Bronze age at three different stages and we don't really know at which stage Prometheus was first told / written.
3300 EARLY BRONZE AGE
2000 MIDDLE BRONZE AGE
1500 LATE BRONZE AGE
Now to explain each reasons:
THREE ACCEPTED CHRONOLOGIES:
1 The Marmor Parium The Parian Marble (otherwise known as the Parian Chronicle or the Marmor Parium) is the earliest extant example of a Greek chronological table. It has been in Oxford since 1667. - This marble does not place Prometheus at any time during the Bronze Age = no help.
2 Denis Pétau (DIONYSIUS PETAVIUS) - His chronology does not place Prometheus anywhere during the Bronze Age either = not help.
3 Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) places Prometheus at 2143 BC
NOTE: The Titan Prometheus is usually regarded as one of the greatest friends of mankind, and the saviour of all men because when Zeus attempted to destroy the men of the Bronze Age through The Flood, he gave instructions to his son Deucalion 1, so that he could survive and mankind could start anew. By this time the fire had been stolen and man had developed into an organized society and with the help of fire man learned to cook his food, warm himself, protect himself from animals and enemies, develop tools and weapons.
The development of weapons gave man the ability to protect himself so that man learned to fight and make war against each other and in the process forget about honoring the gods - this last fact is what ticked off Zeus. This whole process must have taken many years, so my deduction is that Prometheus created the fourth human race at the first stage of the Greek Bronze Age and Zeus destroyed it with the flood during the Late Bronze age, approximately 1500 years later.
The Flood, according to some archeologists, is said to have happened at the third stage of the Greek Bronze Age, 1459, but then other archeologists claim that it happened in the first stage of the Greek Bronze Age.... no way of determinng the actual time.
The source either does not place Prometheus in a definite era, or gives conflicting years = contradictions which leads to the only answer we can reach = No decisive answer.
