Notes on the current edition
Library
1.
As to the creation of the human race by Prometheus, compare
Philemon in Stobaeus, Florilegium ii.27
;
Paus. 10.4.4
;
Lucian, Dial. Deorum i.1
;
Libanius, Declam. xxv.31, vol. ii. p. 552, ed. R. Foerster
;
Ov. Met. 1.82ff.
;
Juvenal xiv.35
. It is to be observed that in the earliest versions of the legend (
Hes. Th. 510ff.
Hes. WD 48ff.
;
Aesch. PB
) Prometheus appears only as the benefactor, not the creator, of mankind.
2.
Compare
Hes. WD 50ff.
,
Hes. Th. 565ff.
;
Aesch. PB 107ff.
;
Plat. Prot. 321
;
Hyginus, Fab. 144
;
Hyginus, Ast. ii.15
. According to
Serv. Verg. Ecl. 6.42
, Prometheus stole the fire by applying a torch to the sun's wheel. Stories of the original theft of fire are widespread among mankind. See Frazer's Appendix to Apollodorus, “Myths of the Origin of Fire.” The plant (
νάρθηξ) in which Prometheus is said to have carried the stolen fire is commonly identified with the giant fennel (Ferula communis). See
L. Whibley,
Companion to Greek Studies (Cambridge, 1916), p. 67
. Tournefort found the plant growing abundantly in Skinosa, the ancient Schinussa, a small deserted island south of
Naxos (
Pliny, Nat. Hist. iv.68
). He describes the stalk as about five feet high and three inches thick, with knots and branches at intervals of about ten inches, the whole being covered with a tolerably hard rind. “This stalk is filled with a white pith, which, being very dry, catches fire just like a wick; the fire keeps alight perfectly in the stalk and consumes the pith only gradually, without damaging the rind; hence people use this plant to carry fire from one place to another; our sailors laid in a supply of it. This custom is of great antiquity, and may serve to explain a passage in Hesiod, who, speaking of the fire which Prometheus stole from heaven, says that he carried it away in a stalk of fennel.” He tells us, further, that the Greeks still call the plant nartheca. See
P. de Tournefort,
Relation d'un Voyage du Levant (Amsterdam, 1718), i.93
. The plant is common all over
Greece, and may be seen in particular abundance at Phalerum, near
Athens. See
W. G. Clark,
Peloponnesus (London, 1858);, p. 111
;
J. Murr,
Die Pflanzenwelt in der griechischen Mythologie (Innsbruck, 1890), p. 231
. In
Naxos Mr. J. T. Bent saw orange gardens divided by hedges of tall reeds, and he adds: “In Lesbos this reed is still called
νάρθηκα (νάρθηξ), a survival of the old word for the reed by which Prometheus brought down fire from heaven. One can understand the idea well: a peasant today who wishes to carry a light from one house to another will put it into one of these reeds to prevent its being blown out.” See
J. T. Bent,
The Cyclades (London, 1885), p. 365
. Perhaps Bent mistook fennel for a reed. The rationalistic Diodorus Siculus explained the myth of the theft of fire by saying that Prometheus was the inventor of the fire-sticks, by the friction of which against each other fire is kindled. See
Diod. 5.67.2
. But Greek tradition attributed the invention of fire-sticks to Hermes. See the
HH Herm. 108ff.
3.
As to the release of Prometheus, see
Apollod. 2.5.11
.
