Prometheus, Part 1: What We Can Learn from the Liminal Hero

In part 1 of this series, we learn about Prometheus, who sided with Zeus against his own kind, the Titans.

A mural by Jean-Baptiste Mauzaisse of Prometheus (C), who is known for creating man and giving him the gift of fire. Marie-Lan Nguyen / CC BY-SA 2.5

One of the most fascinating characters in the whole of Ancient Greek mythology is Prometheus.

I’ve written about gods and of heroes, but much less so of those beings who occupy a liminal space between gods and humans. Prometheus is neither a god, nor a human: He is a Titan, or more exactly, the son of a Titan. He’s one of the old order of beings whom the supreme god Zeus overthrew.

The old world’s order was disorderly—that is, chaos—which Zeus overcame. Essentially, the rule of Kronos (father of Zeus and king of the Titans) was really the rule of dog-eat-dog and might-is-right. If they were strong enough, they did whatever they wanted.

Zeus destroyed the power and the reign of the Titans after a 10-year war called the Titanomachy. It’s likely that the duration 10 years was not arbitrary. Across ancient cultures, the number 10 frequently symbolized completion and cosmic order. In the Hebrew tradition, the Ten Commandments similarly mark the transition from chaos to covenant—from bondage to ethical civilization—underscoring divine authority through a concise legal code.

"Fall of the Titans,” 1638, by Jacob Jordaens. Public Domain

Whether in mythic warfare or sacred lawgiving, 10 signals a full cycle, a period of trial that ends with the foundation of a new world. The Ancient Greeks, too, through Pythagorean thought, regarded 10 as a number of perfection. It’s the sum of the first four integers (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10), forming the tetractys, a symbol of harmony and balance.

Both Zeus and Yahweh are portrayed as lawgivers whose authority emerges not arbitrarily but through a numerically meaningful period of conflict and resolution.

So, having consigned the Titans to Tartarus—a hell beneath the hell of Hades—Zeus established a real order. Its characteristics were rationality, hierarchy, law, justice, peace, stability and, surprisingly, beauty, among others. More surprising still, although Zeus was the number one, all-powerful god, he too was bound by its rules: The order, the justice, the laws that he himself had initiated, these rules applied to him.

Once Zeus confined the defeated Titans to Tartarus, the forces of disorder were rendered impotent and irrelevant. How, then, was Prometheus not consigned there? Part of the answer to this question has to do with the fact that the name Prometheus means “forethought”: He was someone who could see ahead; what he saw was that the Titans would lose the war against Zeus. He aligned himself with Zeus and became an ally.

Hubris and Retribution

The alliance between Prometheus and Zeus was short-lived because Prometheus committed two dire acts of hubris that are of interest to human beings. First, Prometheus tricked Zeus during a sacrificial offering by wrapping bones in rich fat, while hiding the edible meat under entrails. When Zeus chose the worse portion, it established a ritual precedent where humans keep the good meat. This myth explains why gods receive only the smoke and bones in sacrifices. It’s also an early example of Prometheus, humankind’s creator, outwitting divine authority for human benefit.

But, of course, it is not easy to trick the king of the gods, especially since Zeus once swallowed whole the Titaness, Metis, a being who incarnates cunning itself. Thus, in attempting to trick Zeus for humanity’s benefit, Prometheus incurred wrath both upon himself and against his beloved humans.

In this case, it is against the humans that the wrath of Zeus extends: He punishes humans by withholding fire from them. The fact that the gods only received the less worthy cuts of the sacrifice was in reality not important, for they didn’t eat meat anyway. They imbibed heavenly nectar and ambrosia; it was only humans who needed to eat meat. But removing fire reduced humanity to the status of animals who also ate—had to eat—raw food. So, the hubris was not about the quality of the food sacrificed to the gods, but about the attempt to trick and short-change them.

The Gift of Fire

It is not just Prometheus who was a liminal being—neither a god nor a human. Humans, too, are liminal in being neither gods nor animals. But Zeus’s punishment would end that liminal in-betweenness and humans would revert to pure animality.

In the very essence of liminality, something that is threatening and strange appears. Shakespeare’s Hamlet refers to this when he famously observes, humankind is “in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god,” yet ultimately, “the quintessence of dust.” It is a line that encapsulates our paradoxical condition—poised somewhere between the divine and the mortal, between Prometheus’s fire and the clay from which, in some versions of the myth, he fashioned us. Like Hamlet, the myth of Prometheus reminds us that human greatness—our reason, creativity, and striving—exists alongside frailty, suffering, and the inevitable consequence of dust. We reach for the heavens, yet are bound to the earth.

At this point, Prometheus (Forethought) seeing that his trick has gone terribly wrong, doubles down. His precious humans cannot be allowed to perish for want of fire or be allowed to revert to the status of beasts. So, he steals fire from the gods. Specifically, Prometheus steals fire from the forge of Hephaistos, the god of blacksmiths, and in doing so bestows upon humanity the raw tools of technology and survival.

“Hephaestus at the Forge,” 1742, by Guillaume Coustou the Younger. Louvre. Public Domain

In a deeper, symbolic sense, he also steals from Athena, goddess of wisdom, craft, and civic order. The fire Prometheus brings is not merely warmth or flame—it is the spark of techne and logos, of skill and reason. Fire represents light and, in the mental sense, illumination.

Curiously, Prometheus does not carry fire to mortals in some grand vessel or stolen treasure, but in a hollow fennel stalk—the narthex. This humble detail, often overlooked, is rich in significance. In Ancient Greece, the narthex was a fibrous, fire-resistant plant stem commonly used to preserve and transport embers. By choosing such a natural, everyday object, Prometheus embodies the trickster who uses cunning rather than force, turning a plant into a symbol of technological and cultural revolution.

The fennel stalk becomes the humble conduit through which divine power is smuggled into human hands. In later Greek ritual, notably the Dionysian mysteries, the narthex reappears as the thyrsus—a staff of ecstatic transformation—suggesting a further link between fire, inspiration, and spiritual awakening. Prometheus’s use of it suggests a deeper truth: Civilization is often built on small, practical acts that turn the ordinary into the extraordinary.

“Prometheus Brings Fire” by Heinrich Friedrich Füger. Public Domain

Clearly, the punishment that Zeus is going to mete out for this transgression is going to be more extreme than his initial withdrawal of fire from humankind; but what that is, and what it means we’ll see in the second part of this article.

For now, let’s conclude by filling in a little more of the backstory of Prometheus, and why this issue of fire is so terribly significant. The backstory involves Epimetheus, Prometheus’s brother.

Epimetheus means “after thought,” the opposite of forethought: Sadly, Epimetheus fails to see the consequences of his actions before he has done them. Being charged with creating the animals of the world, he assigns all of them with special qualities which enable them to survive: for some it’s speed, others can fly, others have camouflage or sharp claws, some have size or strength, and so on. The point is, when he gets to mankind, there are no qualities left in the box (as it were) to enable humans to compete with these wild animals. Thus, without the fire, mankind is doomed!

Therefore, this is the context in which it is imperative for mankind to have fire, and in which Prometheus— loving humanity—must steal it, knowing as he surely does (through Foresight) what the implications will be for him as he has to face the wrath of Zeus.

In part 2 we will see what Zeus does and how the punishments fit the crime: both for Prometheus and for humanity.

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