is ring and decided to wear it thereafter for eternity, technically fulfilling the conditions of Zeus' earlier decree.
To punish human beings for the offenses of Prometheus, Zeus told Hephaestus to "mingle together all things loveliest, sweetest, and best, but look that you also mingle therewith the opposites of each." So Hephaestus took gold and dross, wax and flint, snow and mud, honey and gall, the bloom of the rose and the toad's venom, the voice of laughing water and the peacocks squall, the sea's beauty and its treachery, the dog's fidelity and the wind's inconstancy, and the mother bird's heart of love and the cruelty of the tiger. All these and other contraries beyond enumeration he blended cunningly into one substance and this he molded into the shape that Zeus had described to him. What resulted was a maiden as beautiful as a goddess, who Zeus named Pandora which meant "all gifted." Zeus breathed upon her image, and it lived. The king of the gods sent her to wed Prometheus' brother, Epimetheus, and although Prometheus had warned his brother never to accept gifts from the Olympians, Epimetheus was love-stricken, and he and Pandora wed. The gods adorned the couple with many wedding gifts, and Zeus presented them with a beautifully wrought box, known today as Pandora's Box. When Pandora opened the box, all suffering and despair was unleashed upon humankind, and Zeus had finally taken his revenge.
As the introducer of fire and inventor of crafts, Prometheus was seen as the patron of human civilization, thus, it is not surprising that he was commemorated to some extent in Greek worship. A small shrine to Prometheus was located in the Kerameikos, or potter's quarter, of Athens, not far from Plato's Academy. As is common in many altars and votive reliefs to Prometheus, he was honored in an altar with Hephaestus. In the Akademia, located just outside of Athens, there stood another altar to Prometheus, from which athletes raced to the city carrying burning torches. The contest involved keeping the torch alight while running; if the torch of the lead runner came to be extinguished, he lost his claim to victory. The festival during which these torch races took place was known as Promethia. In Argos, the chief city of Argolis in Southern Greece, the citizens kept a tomb of Prometheus and honored him as a dead hero. The city of Opous in Central Greece also claimed to honor a grave of Prometheus.
The myth of Prometheus is one of the most popular Greek myths, and has enjoyed reverberations in art, literature, and even science. His story has inspired many authors, composers, and artists throughout the centuries, and various works have been created that either allude to Prometheus or use his story as a template. Among the most famous of these are the play Prometheus Bound, traditionally attributed to Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.E.), and Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein, the alternative title of which is The Modern Prometheus. The following year, Shelley's husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, also contributed a play with similar themes entitled Prometheus Unbound. Shelley, among other Romantics, saw Prometheus as the prototypical genius. Prometheus inspired a number of poems in which he was the titular character, such as those by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Lord Byron. Ludwig van Beethoven provided a musical composition inspired by the Promethean myth entitled Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus, op. 43. Additionally, Prometheus is alluded to in the works of literary giants such as Shakespeare, Franz Kafka, James Joyce, and Thomas Hardy. In the twentieth and twenty-first century, Prometheus has also been a subject of numerous avenues of popular culture in general, spanning a gamut of mainstream media including fiction, film, and comic books.
Additionally, Prometheus has also been widely acknowledged by science, as he represents the continuous unraveling of human understanding. As such, many scientific discoveries have been given his name. One of Saturn's inner satellites is named Prometheus after the Titan, as is the asteroid 1809 Promet