The Sacred Fire
Prometheus the ancient Greek god of fire defied Zeus and brought the gift of fire to humanity. Prometheus’s punishment was to be chained and pinned to a rock where a giant eagle descended every day to eat his liver. Being immortal, Prometheus’s wounds healed every night only to undergo the same torment each day for eternity. Prometheus’s only solitude was knowing that he had angered the gods by bestowing such a gift to humanity. Eventually after Prometheus helped Heracles with one of his labors, Zeus’s anger waned, and he released Prometheus who spent his days a bit more behaved. The deed, however, was done.
This is the ancient Greek mythological explanation for man’s mastery over fire. This achievement deserves a myth. Arguably it is the mastery of fire that has allowed the human species to dominate the globe. The ability to master fire provided light, warmth, defense against the elements, and predators. It also facilitated early engineering feats. It allowed man to fashion the environment to suit his needs.
Long before the Greco Roman pantheon, there existed a domestic religion, out of which, laws, private property rights, and many of the institutions that eventually gave rise to city states in the Mediterranean arose. The ancient Greeks and ancient pre–Roman Italians worshipped their ancestors as localized deities. Families had their own unique deities. The father was the priest and in charge of the domestic religion. It was the worship of entombed ancestors that gave rise to private property rights as land was passed down to the eldest son. One of the greatest fears was that there would be nobody around to place offerings for a person after they died, as they believed this sustenance was necessary to survive in the next world.
Even as this domestic religion evolved into cities, the pr
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