Æschylus’ Prometheus bound witnesses to an archaic cosmology which originated in the Near East and in Egypt. Caucasus and Atlas were two mountains supposedly placed at the two opposite edges of earth, where the sun rises and sets. A magical cauldron was used by Helios in these places in order to navigate on the ocean and reach the opposite part of the earth during the night, but also by Herakles to reach the island Erythia, and by Medea to give youth to a ram. This corresponds to an Egyptian myth of Osiris. Atlas and Prometheus were forced to stay near these two mountains, which were supposed to be the columns of the sky. In the ancient Near East many myths were told concerning the morning star, which defied the god of the sky and was finally thrown into the hell, exactly as it occurred to Prometheus at the end of the Æschylean tragedy.
The Caucasus in the Geographic and Cosmological Conception of the Greeks in the Archaic Period
MASTROCINQUE, Attilio
2017-01-01
Abstract
Æschylus’ Prometheus bound witnesses to an archaic cosmology which originated in the Near East and in Egypt. Caucasus and Atlas were two mountains supposedly placed at the two opposite edges of earth, where the sun rises and sets. A magical cauldron was used by Helios in these places in order to navigate on the ocean and reach the opposite part of the earth during the night, but also by Herakles to reach the island Erythia, and by Medea to give youth to a ram. This corresponds to an Egyptian myth of Osiris. Atlas and Prometheus were forced to stay near these two mountains, which were supposed to be the columns of the sky. In the ancient Near East many myths were told concerning the morning star, which defied the god of the sky and was finally thrown into the hell, exactly as it occurred to Prometheus at the end of the Æschylean tragedy.
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