Having stocked it with provisions, he embarked in it with Pyrrha. And when Zeus would destroy the men of the Bronze Age, Deucalion, by the advice of Prometheus, constructed a chest. He, reigning in the regions about Phthia, married Pyrrha, the daughter of Epimetheus (the brother of Prometheus) and Pandora (the first woman fashioned by the gods). That was the penalty that Prometheus paid for the theft of fire until Heracles afterwards released him. Every day an eagle swooped on him and devoured the lobes of his liver, which grew by night. Prometheus was nailed to the mountain and kept bound for many years. When Zeus learned of it, he ordered Hephaestus to nail Prometheus to Mount Caucasus, a Scythian mountain. From the Theogony of the Bibliotheca Īccording to the theogony of the Bibliotheca, Prometheus moulded men out of water and earth and gave them fire which, unknown to Zeus, he had hidden in a stalk of fennel. The Megarians told that Megarus, son of Zeus and a Sithnid nymph, escaped Deucalion's flood by swimming to the top of Mount Gerania, guided by the cries of cranes. The Bibliotheca gives this as an etymology for Greek Laos ( λᾱός, 'people') as derived from laas ('stone'). Then, at the bidding of Zeus, he threw stones behind him, and they became men, and the stones Pyrrha threw became women. When the rains ceased, he sacrificed to Zeus. Another account has him landing on a peak, probably Phouka, in Argolis, later called Nemea. An older version of the story told by Hellanicus has Deucalion's "ark" landing on Mount Othrys in Thessaly. Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha, after floating in the chest for nine days and nights, landed on Parnassus. The mountains in Thessaly were parted, and all the world beyond the Isthmus and Peloponnese was overwhelmed. All other men perished except for a few who escaped to high mountains. The Titan Prometheus advised his son Deucalion to build a chest. The Deucalion legend as told by the Bibliotheca has some similarity to other deluge myths such as the Epic of Gilgamesh (which Stephanie West writes was likely the source of this myth ) the story of Noah's Ark in the Judeo-Christian telling and the story of Manu's ark in the Hindu, Buddhist and Jain religions. In many traditions the Ogygian flood is said to have covered the whole world and was so devastating that Attica remained without kings until the reign of Cecrops. Others say he was the founder and king of Thebes. The name Ogyges and Ogygian is synonymous with "primeval", "primal" and "earliest dawn". The Ogygian flood is so called because it occurred in the time of Ogyges, a mythical king of Attica. In addition, the texts report that "many great deluges have taken place during the nine thousand years" since Athens and Atlantis were preeminent. Plato also alludes to a well-known event of great destruction, in Statesman (270), where "only a small part of the human race survives", presumably also referring to the flood of Deucalion. Ten thousand years before his time, as opposed to only "one or two thousand years that have elapsed" since the discovery of music, and other inventions. In Laws, Book III, argues that a great flood had occurred In Timaeus (22) and in Critias (111–112) he describes the "great deluge of all", specifying the one survived by Deucalion and Pyrrha, as having been preceded by 9,000 years of history before the time of Solon, during the 10th millennium BCE. Plato makes reference to great floods in several of his dialogues, including Timaeus, Critias, and Laws. The consequence is, that in comparison of what then was, there are remaining only the bones of the wasted body, as they may be called, as in the case of small islands, all the richer and softer parts of the soil having fallen away, and the mere skeleton of the land being left." Sources "Many great deluges have taken place during the nine thousand years, for that is the number of years which have elapsed since the time of which I am speaking and during all of this time and through so many changes, there has never been any considerable accumulation of the soil coming down from the mountains, as in other places, but the earth has fallen away all round and sunk out of sight. In addition to these floods, Greek mythology also says the world was periodically destroyed by fire, such as in the myth of Phaëton. Like most flood myths, these stories often involve themes of divine retribution, the savior of a culture hero, and the birth of a nation or nations. Differing sources refer to the flood of Ogyges, the flood of Deucalion, and the flood of Dardanus, though often with similar or even contradictory details. Greek mythology describes various great floods throughout ancient history. Great floods throughout ancient history as described in Greek mythology
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