Chained to a Caucasus peak with an eagle devouring his regenerating liver, Prometheus is one of mythology's most enduring images. But the real story is how humans rewrote him for 3,000 years to justify everything from ancient sacrifice practices to the atomic bomb. This deep dive follows the Titan's biography from Hesiod's subversive trickster to Aeschylus' champion of civilization, through Plato, medieval allegory and Renaissance philosophy, to the Romantics, Frankenstein and Oppenheimer.

We break down the names forethought and afterthought, the trick at Mekone in which Zeus chose glistening fat over hidden meat, the theft of fire in a fennel stalk, and why the eagle and the liver were chosen for the punishment. The episode then explores Athenian potters who worshipped him for kiln safety, the Promethea torch relay, his depiction in an art ...