In Prometheus Bound
Prometheus is credited with being the first to yoke horses to
a chariot. Poseidon, too, as god of horses, is portrayed as riding
his chariot through the waves, and giving chariots as gifts. There
are, however, two other deities closely associated with the chariot,
Helios (the Sun) and his son, Phaeton. Both of them also have
other ties with eastern Asia Minor. Helios was conceived of as
driving his four-horse chariot through the sky from his magical
palace in the East to the West each day (Handbook, p. 268).
As the father of Aeetes, Circe and Pasiphae, Helios sometimes
took them along in his chariot. He also lent a chariot, drawn
by winged dragons, to his granddaughter, Medea, Aeetes' daughter,
which she used in her travels in Greece.
Phaeton was Helios' son
by a goddess, Clymene, mother of Prometheus and Atlas. To learn
the truth about his heritage, Phaeton traveled to Helios' palace
in the East, and convinced his reluctant father to let him drive
the sun-chariot for one day. Phaeton's sisters, the Heliades,
yoked the horses, and the unskilled young god set out. But he
was unable to control the horses, who jumped up (creating the
Milky Way), then charged so close to the earth that the planet
was almost consumed in flames. Seeing the danger, Zeus hurled
a thunderbolt at Phaeton, killing him. In their grief, his sisters
turned into poplars weeping amber by the banks of the river in
which Phaeton's flaming body fell. The image of Helios and his
son Phaeton was adopted by Apollonius of Rhodes in his description
of Aeetes and his son, Apsyrtus. Apollonius actually uses Phaeton
("Shining One") as an epithet for Absyrtus:
"At daybreak too, Aeetes put on his breast the stiff cuirass which Ares had given him after slaying Mimas with his own hands in the field of Phlegra; and on his head he set his golden helmet with its four plates, bright as the Sun's round face when he rises fresh from Ocean Stream...Phaeton was close at hand, holding his father's swift horses and well-built chariot in readiness." (Argo, III.1225-45, p. 141-42).
38 Aeschylus, Prometheus
Bound, M. Griffith, ed. (Cambridge, 1983), lines 435-505;
M. Grant, Folktale, pp. 37, 66, 126 n.38.
39 Hesiod, Theogony,
508-70, pp. 18-20.
40 Handbook, pp.
499-501. Prometheus' son, Deucalion, also has ties to eastern
Asia Minor. Warned by his father about Zeus' plan to detroy humanity
in a flood, Deucalion and his wife Pyrrah (a daughter of Pandora)
board a boat full of provisions. They float on the water for nine
days before landing on a mountain. Deucalion and Pyrrah then repeople
the land by throwing stones behind them, over their shoulders.
Men sprang up from the stones Deucalion threw, women, from Pyrrha's
stones. The motif of rock-born beings is known from Hurrian and
Indo-Iranian myths (see in text ). Deucalion's grandson set out
from this land to occupy Greece, which was his allotted portion.
M. Grant, Folktale, pp. 65, 87, p. 127 n.40; Pindar, Olympia
9.44-46; Apollodorus 1.7. 1-2; Ovid, Metamorphoses, 1.318-415;
Handbook, p. 199; Dalley, Myths, pp. 7-8.
41 Prometheus Bound,
lines 300-308; see Griffith's commentary, ibid. pp. 160-61,
170-71, 173-74, 176, 213-14, 217-18, 228, 230-31.
42 Griffith, pp. 14-15.
In Athens, both gods shared an altar in the Academy, Griffith,
p. 85.
43 Homer, Iliad
1.571-608, pp. 63-64, 18.368-617, pp. 318-23, 20.73-74, p. 335,
21.328-382, pp. 353-54; Odyssey, 8.266-366, pp. 93-95;
Hesiod, Theogony, 570-572,p. 20, 927-929 p. 30, 945-946,
p.31; Argo, Book I.202-205, p. 41, I.850-860, p. 59.
44 Hesiod,Theogony,
570-612, pp. 20-21; Works and Days, 47-105, pp. 38-40;
M. Grant, Folktale, pp. 2, 7-8, 13-14, 59-62, 78, 83, 95,
106, 111 n.12,117n.76,126n.38.
45 Pindar, Pythia 1. 15-60
pp. 46-48.
46 Hesiod, Theogony,
853-69, p. 28; Iliad, II.781-83, pp. 81-82.
47 West, Theogony,
p. 67 n. 304; S. T. Eremyan, "Hayeri tseghayin miut'yune
Arme-Shupria erkrum [Tribal Union of the Armenians in the
land of Arme-Shupria"], Patma-banasirakan handes 3(1958)
pp. 59-72. Eremyan suggested that the Arimi were the Urumi mentioned
along with the Mushki and Apeshlai in the Assyrian annals, but
see I. M. Diakonoff, The Pre-history of the Armenian
People (Delmar, N.Y., 1984) pp. 120-21 and the same author's
Phyrgian (Delmar, N.Y., 1985) pp. xi, xvii n. 9.
48 West, Theogony,
p. 70 n. 860.
49 While there are conflicting
traditions about the Cyclopes, they appear to have been originally
outside the Olympian tradition, and only later integrated into
it. They were Titans, occasionally imprisoned in Tartarus, but
finally released by Zeus. They became the smiths of Zeus, constructing
his thunderbolts. They also made Poseidon's trident and Hades'
cap of invisibility. In Homer's Odyssey, Book IX.116-566,
pp. 102-111, the Cyclopes are depicted as pastoralists living
in caves on an island later equated with Sicily. Later tradition
makes the Cyclopes Hephaestus' craftsmen. T'ork', a god known
among the Armenians, has important parallels to the Cyclops Polyphemus,
see M. Ananikian," Armenian Mythology" in Mythology
of All Races, vol. 7 (New York, 1964, repr. of 1925 ed.) pp.
85-86, 98-100; N. Adontz, "Tarkhou chez les anciens armeniens",
Revue des etudes armeniennes 7(1927) pp. 185-94; Toumanoff,
Studies, pp. 299-303. Hephaestus was associated with Mihr
(Mithra) by later Armenian tradition, Ananikian, p. 33. On Prometheus-like
figures among the Georgians and Armenians see Ananikian, pp. 42-46,
and the Georgian references in note 4 above. Allen, "Ex Ponto
V", p. 86 suggested a connection, possibly etymological,
between Hephaestus and the Circassian god of metallurgy, Tleps,
known from the Sinope and Trebizond area.
50 Hesiod, Theogony,
295-332, p.12.
51 R. D. Barnett, "Ancient Oriental Influences on Archaic Greece", in The Aegean and the Near East, Saul S. Weinberg, ed. (Locust Valley, N.Y.,1956) p. 231. The mythical griffin, a favorite with Urartian metalworkers, may have influenced stories of the Arimaspi, a one-eyed people who fought with griffins for possession of the gold in their neighborhood, Herodotus 3.116, 4.13, 4.27.