Characters
- Asia — alternate mother in some later genealogies
- Atlas — holds the heavens at the world’s edge
- Clymene — Oceanid mother (Hesiodic)
- Epimetheus — forethought; fire-thief and sacrificial trickster
- Iapetus — Titan father
- Menoetius — hubristic brother; blasted to Erebus
- Uranus and Gaia — grandparents (Titan generation)
- Zeus — punisher of Atlas and Menoetius; adversary of Prometheus
Places
- Erebus — Menoetius’s place of casting-down
- Mecone — site of Prometheus’s sacrificial quarrel (cross-ref)
- Olympus — seat of judgment on the brothers
- Western edge of the earth — Atlas’s station
Themes
Narrative
Iapetus, a Titan son of Uranus and Gaia, takes as wife the Oceanid Clymene (in Hesiod; Asia in some later lists). She bears four sons who stand at the hinge between Titan order and Olympian rule. Atlas is set by Zeus at the western edge of the world to hold up the broad heaven with his head and tireless hands—punishment after the Titanomachy. Menoetius, violent and overweening, Zeus strikes with a thunderbolt and thrusts down to Erebus. Prometheus, cunning above all, quarrels with Zeus over sacrificial portions and fire; his binding and eagle are told elsewhere in this catalogue. Epimetheus (“Afterthought”), the foolish brother, receives Pandora against Prometheus’s warning and opens the mortal condition of toil and ills.
Together the Iapetids embody the Titan generation’s aftermath: endurance (Atlas), blasted hubris (Menoetius), forethought in conflict with Zeus (Prometheus), and afterthought that dooms humankind (Epimetheus). Catalogue the fraternal set as genealogy before the individual exploit files.