Hades was the most jealous of all his jealous family. Not one soul could he bear to lose from his kingdom. Cerberus the three-headed dog patrolled the gates. Few, very few, heroes circumvented or duped Thanatos and Cerberus and managed to visit Hades’ realm and return alive to the world above.
And so death became a constant in human life, as it remains to this day. But the world of the Silver Age, it should be understood, was very different from our own. Gods, demigods and all kinds of immortals still walked amongst us. Intercourse of the personal, social and sexual kind with the gods was as normal to men and women of the Silver Age as intercourse with machines and AI assistants is to us today. And, I dare say, a great deal more fun.
Prometheus Bound
With simmering fury Zeus watched the survival of Pyrrha and Deucalion and the rise of a new race of men and women from the stones of the earth. No one, not even the King of the Gods, could interfere with the will of Gaia. She represented an older, deeper, more permanent order than that of the Olympians and Zeus knew that he was powerless to prevent the repopulation of the world. But he could at least turn his attention to Prometheus. The day dawned when Zeus decided the Titan should pay for his betrayal. He looked down from Olympus and saw him in Phocis, assisting in the laying out of a new town, meddling as ever in the affairs of men.
Humankind had propagated in the twinkling of an immortal eye, which we would call the passage of several centuries. All this while Prometheus had, with titanic patience, encouraged the spread of civilization amongst Mankind 2.0 – once again teaching people all the arts, crafts and practices of agriculture, manufacture and building.
Adopting the form of an eagle Zeus swooped down and perched on the timbers of a half-built temple that was to be dedicated to himself. Prometheus, who had been carving scenes from the life of the young Zeus into the pediment, looked up and knew at once that the bird was his old friend. Zeus assumed his proper shape and inspected the carving.
‘If that’s supposed to be Adamanthea with me there, you’ve got the proportions all wrong,’ he said.
‘Artistic licence,’ said Prometheus, whose heart was beating fast. It was the first time the two had spoken since Prometheus stole the fire.
‘The time has come to pay for what you have done,’ said Zeus. ‘Now, I could call up the Hecatonchires to carry you forcibly to your destination, or you can choose to bow to the inevitable and come without fuss.’
Prometheus laid down his hammer and chisel and wiped his hands with a leather cloth. ‘Let’s go,’ he said.
They did not speak or pause for rest or refreshment until they reached the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains, where the Black and Caspian Seas meet. Along the journey Zeus had wanted to say something, had longed to take his friend by the shoulder and embrace him. A weeping apology might have allowed him to forgive and make up. But Prometheus remained silent. Zeus’s stinging sense of being wronged and ill-used flared up anew. ‘Besides,’ the god told himself, ‘great rulers cannot be seen to exhibit weakness, especially when it comes to betrayal by those close to them.’
Prometheus shaded his eyes and looked up. He saw the three Cyclopes standing on a great sloping wall of rock that formed one side of the tallest mountain.
‘I know you’re good at climbing up the sides of mountains,’ Zeus said with what he hoped was icy sarcasm, but which emerged even to his ears as something more like sulky muttering. ‘So climb.’
When Prometheus reached the place where the Cyclopes were, they bound and fettered him and stretched him out on his back, hammering his shackles into the rock with mighty pegs of unbreakable iron. Two beautiful eagles swept down from the sky and glided close to Prometheus, blocking the sunlight. He could hear the hot wind ruffling their feathers.
Zeus called up to him. ‘You will lie chained to this rock for ever. There is no hope of escape or forgiveness, not in all perpetuity. Each day these eagles will come to tear out your liver, just as you tore out my heart. They will eat it in front of your eyes. Since you are immortal it will grow back every night. This torture will never end. Each day the agony will seem greater. You will have nothing but time in which to consider the enormity of your crime and the folly of your actions. You who were named “foresight” showed none when you defied the King of the Gods.’ Zeus’s voice rang from the canyons and ravines. ‘Well? Have you nothing to say?’
Prometheus sighed. ‘You are wrong, Zeus,’ he said. ‘I thought my actions through with great care. I weighed my comfort against the future of the race of man. I see now that they will flourish and prosper independently of any immortals, even you. Knowing that is balm for any pain.’
Zeus stared at his former friend for a long time before speaking.
‘You are not worth eagles,’ he said with an awful coldness. ‘Let them be vultures.’
The two eagles immediately changed into rank, ugly vultures who circled the outstretched body once before falling upon it. Their razor-sharp talons sliced open the Titan’s side and with hideous screeches of triumph they began to feast.
Prometheus, mankind’s chief creator, advocate and friend, taught us, stole for us and sacrificed himself for us. We all possess our share of Promethean fire, without it we would not be human. It is right to pity and admire him but, unlike the jealous and selfish gods he would never ask to be worshipped, praised and adored.
And it might make you happy to know that, despite the eternal punishment to which he was doomed, one day a hero would arise powerful enough to defy Zeus, unbind humanity’s champion and set him free.
Persephone and the Chariot
The world over which Zeus ruled as sovereign lord of heaven was a bountiful mother to mankind. Men, women and children helped themselves to the fruit of the trees, the grains of the grasses, the fish of the waters and the beasts of the fields without effort or much labour. Demeter, goddess of fertility and the harvest, blessed the natural world. If there was hunger or deprivation, it came about only as a result of human cruelty and the workings of those terrible creatures let loose from Pandora’s jar, not as a result of divine neglect. All this was to change, however. Hades had a part in it and – who knows? – perhaps his plan all along was to hasten and increase death in the world and so increase the population of his kingdom. Intricate are the workings of Moros.
Demeter had a daughter, Persephone, by her brother Zeus. So beautiful and pure and lovely was she that the gods took to calling her KORE, or CORA, which means simply ‘the maiden’. The Romans called her PROSERPINA. All the gods, especially the unattached Apollo and Hermes, fell dizzily in love with her and even offered marriage. But the protective (some might say overprotective) Demeter hid her away in the remote countryside, far from the hungry eyes of gods and immortals, honourable and dishonourable alike, intending for her to remain – like Hestia, Athena and Artemis – for ever virgin and unattached. There was one powerful god, however, who had laid his covetous eyes upon the girl and had no intention of respecting Demeter’s wishes.
There was nothing the sweet and artless Persephone liked to do more than commune with nature. Very much her mother’s daughter, flowers and pretty growing things were her greatest source of joy. One golden afternoon, a little separated from the companions appointed by her mother to protect her, Persephone was chasing butterflies as they flitted from blossom to blossom in a sun-dappled, flowery meadow. Suddenly she heard a deep rending and roaring sound. It was like thunder yet seemed to be coming, not from the sky above, but from the ground beneath her feet. She looked about her in fear and bewilderment. The earth was shaking and the hillside in front of her split apart. From out of the opening there thundered a great chariot. Before the terrified girl had a chance to turn and run, the driver had scooped her up, swung the chariot round and driven it back through the cleft in the hillside. By the time Persephone’s alarmed companions had reached the place, the opening had sealed itself up, leaving no sign that it had ever been there.