How Mankind Was Created Feraco English 9 English 9 3 December 2010

More Than One  The Greeks had more than one “creation myth” regarding humans, and I have two favorites  The first involves Prometheus and his (slightly less competent) brother, Epimetheus  Once the world was essentially cleared of monsters, the gods delegated the task of creating humans to the two  As Hamilton points out, their names are important: “Prometheus” means “forethought,” indicating wisdom, whereas “Epimetheus” (i.e., “afterthought”) was far more impulsive  Act first, think later vs. Think through your actions before taking them

The Incompetence of Epimetheus  Just as the gods delegated the task of human-building to the two brothers, Prometheus delegates the task to Epimetheus…not the wisest decision, ironically  After being handed what amounted to a “pile of stuff” – wings, claws, fangs, scales, etc. – Epimetheus was commanded to build men and animals from it  In his excitement, Epimetheus gave all of the best things to the animals – strength and cunning for the predators, speed and hearing for the prey, feathers for the birds, armored scales for the reptiles, and so on  But when he finishes with the animals, he realizes he left nothing for the men – just soft flesh and little teeth

Salvation  Realizing he’s made a mistake, Epimetheus asks Prometheus for help  Prometheus looked at what was left to work with – “no good was left for men, no protective covering and no quality to make them a match for the beasts” – and decides to focus on the latter  First, he changed their posture; the other animals essentially crawled, but Prometheus made men walk upright (in the fashion of the gods)  Next, he gave them fire, and with it the ability to learn and reason; this allowed men to protect themselves from far more physically imposing creatures

The Five Ages  My other favorite is the Five Ages story  In this version, the gods essentially build race after race of humans, tinkering with the formula until they arrive at us  The first age belongs to the golden race; they were the best of us, literally made of metal, and while they could die, they lived virtuously and peacefully  When their time came to an end, they evolved into spirits who watched over the other four races

The Silver Age  For the second age, the gods enjoyed their earlier experiments with metal races, and thus made one from silver  But each race reflects the characteristics of its native metal, and just as silver tarnishes exceptionally easily, the silver people proved inferior to the golden ones  They were clumsy and unintelligent, “unable to avoid injuring each other,” and their spirits died with them

The Brass and Heroic Ages  For the next race, the gods made men out of brass, the metal of weaponry and shields  Unsurprisingly, they were brutal, warlike, and fierce, and quickly killed themselves off  After that, the gods briefly ceased their metallic experimentations, making a race of heroes instead  These were second only to the golden race; they are the source of our greatest stories, legends, and songs  When their time passed, they headed off to “the isles of the blessed, where they live in perfect bliss forever”

The Iron Age  But the fifth race – the race “which is now upon the earth” – was metallic once again  The iron race followed the heroes, and if you’ve ever left a bicycle outside in the rain, you know how easily iron rusts – i.e., degenerates  Hamilton: “They live in evil times and their nature too has much of evil, so that they never have rest from toil and sorrow. As the generations pass, they grow worse; sons are always inferior to their fathers. A time will come when they have grown so wicked that they worship power; might will be right to them, and reverence for the good will cease to be. At last when no man is angry any more at wrongdoing or feels shame in the presence of the miserable, Zeus will destroy them too. And yet even then something might be done, if only the common people would arise and throw off that which oppresses them.”

The Big Question  I re-tell the Five Ages story to my seniors in the Search for Human Potential class every year, and ask them to consider whether we’re living in the Iron Age  For the most part, people agree that we aren’t…but their justification for why we aren’t tends to be faulty, or at least problematic  Before I explain why, I’d like you to consider a slightly different question. Which race best correlates with the age are we living in – the golden, silver, brass, heroic, or iron one?  Discussion to follow…