 clay, a role which is assigned to Zeus in other variations of the creation myth. According to the myths, Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus were ordered by Cronus to make creatures that would populate the earth. Prometheus carefully crafted a creature after the shape of the gods: A man. Prometheus and Epimetheus journeyed to Earth from Olympus, then ventured to the Greek province of Boitia and made clay figures. Zeus took the figures and breathed life into them. The figures that Prometheus had created became human beings and honored him. The figures that his brother Epimetheus had created, meanwhile, became the beasts, which turned and attacked him.
Zeus was angered by the actions of Prometheus and Epimetheus, and he forbade the pair from teaching humanity the ways of civilization. Athena chose to go against Zeus and taught Prometheus so that he might teach humanity. For their actions, Zeus demanded that a sacrifice be made to the Gods from human beings to demonstrate that they were obedient and worshipful. The gods and mortal man had arranged a meeting at Mecone where the matter of division of sacrifice was to be settled. Prometheus slew a large ox, and divided it into two piles. In one pile he put all the meat and most of the fat, cleverly covering it with the ox's grotesque stomach, while in the other pile, he dressed up the bones artfully with shining fat.
Prometheus then invited Zeus to choose a pile for the gods. Zeus, however, saw through the trick, but nonetheless chose the pile of bones, since he realized that in willfully getting tricked he would have an excuse to vent his anger upon mortal humans. Alternative sources claim that Zeus did not, in fact, see through this ruse.  This provides a mythological explanation for the common practice in ancient Greece whereby worshipers would sacrifice only bones to the gods, while keeping the meat and fat for themselves.
In his wrath, Zeus denied humankind the secret of fire. In the wake of this punishment, Prometheus watched his creations as they shivered tho