Humanity's Heroes I

I want to thank the people uniting together during and after the Hurricane Irene. I dedicated this post to Prometheus. father of humanity  

Prometheus is the Titan God of Forethought and Crafty counsel and Benefactor of Mankind. He is the son of Titan Iapetus and Titaness Themis or Oceanid Clymene. Among his brothers there are the Titan General Atlas and Titan of the Past and History, Epimetheus. This means he is the cousin of Lord Zeus and his siblings. When Zeus and siblings rose against his father, Cronus, and wanted to become the supreme ruler of the gods, Iapetus and the other Titans sided with Cronus, but Prometheus the Titan and his brother Epimetheus took Zeus's side.

He is the benefactor of mankind. According to some, Prometheus (the "forethought") and his brother Epimetheus (the "afterthought") had to give different abilities to the animals and to man. Epimetheus was in charge with abilities to animals and Prometheus was in charge to gave abilities to humans Epimetheus gave animals all kind of abilities (to run, to fly, to hide underground) and weapons (claws, fangs) until there was nothing left for the man. When Prometheus saw this, he decided to give man something different in order to be able to survive. So he enlisted help from the gods to make mankind more civilized. Hephaestus, Athena and Prometheus taught humanity in the arts, skills and build management. Demeter taught man agriculture. Priapus gives some of men big dick and Pan taught man the art of masturbation.

Man used to sacrifice to the gods the best portions of the animal was offered to the Olympians, leaving little for the people. So Prometheus tricked Zeus into choosing one pile of offerings, cleverly disguised to look delicious, but instead hiding fat and bones. Zeus fell for the trick and impulsively chose the wrong pile, and from then on humans got to keep the good and tasty parts of the animal offerings, giving to Zeus the useless portions. This embarrassed Zeus in front of the mortals and the gods pissing him over, so he punished Prometheus, who was laughing at him. Zeus took fire away from Man - "Let them eat their meat raw!" he shouted.

Zeus knew that he would seem ungrateful if he directly hurt Prometheus, since the Titan had helped him become King of Olympus, so he did the next best thing - Swearing revenge; he punished humans by taking away their fire.

Well, that didn't sit well with Prometheus. He looked down with sadness upon man, watching them shiver in the cold and try to eat their food raw. Slowly they began to die and Prometheus could no longer sit by idly.  Prometheus arranged a meeting with Hermes and Athena and beseeched them for help. They kindly revealed to Prometheus a hidden backstairs entrance to Olympus and he gained entrance to the Palace of the Sun, one of few to do so.

Upon arriving he lit a torch from the fiery chariot of the sun god, as Helios passed by. Breaking off a fragment of glowing charcoal, he hid the fire inside the hollow of a giant fennel-stalk. Blowing out his torch in case he was spotted by Zeus, Prometheus then worked his way down the side of Mount Olympus.

Prometheus made it to earth and proudly gave the fire to the humans, who were overjoyed, needless to say. Soon Zeus smelled the tantalizing scent of cooked meat drifting up to Olympus from earth and when he looked down he was outraged! There were the humans he had supposedly punished, happily cooking their food and keeping warm around their fires. Zeus was furious!

That was twice that Prometheus had made the King of the Olympians look bad and this time Zeus was not holding back any punches. Forgetting all that Prometheus had done for him in the war against the Titans, Zeus had our hero arrested. He summoned from the Underworld the three ferocious hundred- handed Giants, Gyes, Cottus, and Briareus, and had them take Prometheus to the highest peak of Mount Caucasus. To top it off; each day an enormous eagle (some say a vulture), sent by Zeus, would arrive and eat at Prometheus' liver, feasting on the helpless Titan. The liver would grow back overnight and the whole ordeal would be repeated the following day. Talk about cruel and unusual punishment!

After awhile Zeus felt bad. He wasn't a mean-spirited god, after all, and deep down he admired Prometheus for sticking to his ideals. So he offered a slim glimmer of hope to our hero: Zeus told the Titan that he could go free if two conditions were met:

An Immortal would have to give up his life for Prometheus

A mortal would have to slay the liver-eating eagle

The Centaur named Chiron, a wise and immortal mentor of many Greek heroes, had been accidentally shot and wounded by one of Heracles' (Hercules) poisoned arrows. The arrows were deadly, having being dipped in the blood of the dying Hydra. But being an Immortal, the gentle Centaur could not die, but lived in horrid pain from the lethal poison.

Hearing of the dilemma of courageous Prometheus, Chiron volunteered to die in his stead so that his unbearable pain would cease, at the same time conferring his immortality upon the chained Titan. It was a mutually beneficial move and fulfilled the first part of Zeus' terms.

Passing by Mount Caucasus one day the world's greatest hero, mighty Heracles, saw Prometheus bound to the rock, with the frightful eagle merrily munching on his liver. This would not do! Heracles was famous for always taking the side of the just, the powerless and the overwhelmed. He killed eagle with only one arrow straight to its heart. Zeus apologized to Prometheus for the extreme punishment. Prometheus accepted the apology and told him about the prophecy about Thetis.

The name of brave Prometheus has endured throughout the ages as the world's first rebel and the champion of humanity. He fought against divine authority for his ideals and ultimately paid a heavy price for his Foresight.

The best of Humanity