The Beginning

Once upon a time there were gods only, and no mortal creatures.

But when the time came that these also should be created, the gods fashioned them out of earth and fire and various mixtures of both elements in the interior of the earth.

When they were about to bring them into the light of day, they ordered Prometheus and Epimetheus to:

• equip them, and
• distribute to them severally their proper qualities.

Epimetheus said to Prometheus:

‘Let me distribute, and do you inspect.’

There were some to whom he gave strength without swiftness, while he equipped the weaker with swiftness.

Some he armed, and others he left unarmed; and devised for the latter some other means of preservation, making some large, and having their size as a protection, and others small, whose nature was to fly in the air or burrow in the ground; this was to be their way of escape.

Thus, he compensated them with the view of preventing any race from becoming extinct.

When he had provided against their destruction by one another, he contrived also a means of protecting them against the seasons of heaven.

He clothed them with close hair and thick skins sufficient to defend them against the winter cold and able to resist the summer heat, so that they might have a natural bed of their own when they wanted to rest; also he furnished them with hoofs and hair and hard and callous skins under their feet.

Then he gave them varieties of food:

• herb of the soil to some
• to others fruits of trees
• to others roots
• to some he gave other animals as food

Some he made to have few young ones, while those who were their prey were very prolific; and in this manner the race was preserved.

Epimetheus was not very wise. He forgot that he had distributed among the brute animals all the qualities which he had to give.

When he came to man, who was still unprovided, he was terribly perplexed.

Prometheus came to inspect the distribution. He found that the other animals were suitably furnished, but that man alone was naked and shoeless, and had neither bed nor arms of defence.

Prometheus did not know how he to devise man’s salvation. So he stole the mechanical arts of Hephaestus and Athene, and fire with them (they could neither have been acquired nor used without fire), and gave them to man.

Thus, man had the wisdom necessary to the support of life, but political wisdom he had not; for that was in the keeping of Zeus.

The power of Prometheus did not extend to entering into the citadel of heaven, where Zeus dwelt, who moreover had terrible sentinels.

But he did enter by stealth into the common workshop of Athene and Hephaestus, in which they used to practise their favourite arts, and carried off Hephaestus’ art of working by fire, and also the art of Athene, and gave them to man.

In this way, man was supplied with the means of life.

But Prometheus is said to have been afterwards prosecuted for theft, owing to the blunder of Epimetheus.

Thus man had a share of the divine attributes. He was at first the only one of the animals who had any gods, because he alone was of their kindred.

He would raise altars and images of them. He was not long in inventing articulate speech and names.

He also constructed houses and clothes and shoes and beds, and drew sustenance from the earth. Thus provided, mankind at first lived dispersed, and there were no cities.

But the consequence was that they were destroyed by the wild beasts, for they were utterly weak in comparison of them, and their art was only sufficient to provide them with the means of life, and did not enable them to carry on war against the animals:

food they had, but not as yet the art of government, of which the art of war is a part. After a while the desire of self-preservation gathered them into cities; but when they were gathered together, having no art of government, they evil intreated one another, and were again in process of dispersion and destruction.

Zeus feared that the entire race would be exterminated, and so he sent Hermes to them, bearing reverence and justice to be the ordering principles of cities and the bonds of friendship and conciliation.

Hermes asked Zeus how he should impart justice and reverence among men:—Should he distribute them as the arts are distributed; that is to say, to a favoured few only, one skilled individual having enough of medicine or of any other art for many unskilled ones?

‘Shall this be the manner in which I am to distribute justice and reverence among men, or shall I give them to all?’ ‘To all,’ said Zeus; ‘I should like them all to have a share; for cities cannot exist, if a few only share in the virtues, as in the arts. And further, make a law by my order, that he who has no part in reverence and justice shall be put to death, for he is a plague of the state.’

This is why, Socrates, the Athenians and mankind in general, when the question relates to carpentering or any other mechanical art, allow but a few to share in their deliberations.

When any one else interferes, then, as you say, they object, if he be not of the favoured few; which, as I reply, is very natural.

But when they meet to deliberate about political virtue, which proceeds only by way of justice and wisdom, they are patient enough of any man who speaks of them, as is also natural, because they think that every man ought to share in this sort of virtue, and that states could not exist if this were otherwise.