- Iapetus (mythology)
In
Greek mythology , Iapetus, also Iapetos or Japetus ( _el. Ἰαπετός), was a Titan, the son of Uranus and Gaia, and father (by anOceanid namedClymene or Asia) of Atlas,Prometheus , Epimetheus, andMenoetius and through Prometheus, Epimetheus and Atlas an ancestor of the human race.Myth of Iapetus
Iapetus is the one Titan mentioned by
Homer in the "Iliad " (8.478–81) as being inTartarus withCronus .Iapetus' wife is normally a daughter of
Oceanus and Tethys namedClymene or Asia.In
Hesiod 's "Works and Days " Prometheus is addressed as "son of Iapetus", and no mother is named. InAeschylus 's play "Prometheus Bound", Prometheus is son of the goddessThemis with no father named (but still with at least Atlas as a brother). However, inHorace 's Odes, in Ode 1.3 Horace describes how "audax Iapeti genus/ Ignem fraude mala gentibus intulit"; "The bold offspring of Iapetus [i.e. Prometheus] / brought fire to peoples by wicked deceit".Since mostly the Titans indulge in marriage of brother and sister, it might be that Aeschylus is using an old tradition in which Themis is Iapetus' wife but that the
Hesiod ic tradition preferred that Themis andMnemosyne be consorts ofZeus alone. But it would have been quite within Achaean practice for Zeus to have taken the wives of the Titans as his mistresses after throwing down their husbands.Pausanias (8.27.15) writes:
:As I have already related, the boundary between Megalopolis and Heraea is at the source of the river Buphagus. The river got its name, they say, from a hero called Buphagus, the son of Iapetus and Thornax. This is what they call her in
Laconia also. They also say thatArtemis shot Buphagus on Mount Pholoe because he attempted an unholy sin against her godhead.Buphagus is a tributary of the river Alpheus, Thornax is a mountain between Sparta and Sellasia, and Pholoe is a mountain between
Arcadia andElis .Stephanus of Byzantium quotesAthenodorus of Tarsus ::Anchiale, daughter of Iapetus, founded Anchiale (a city near Tarsus): her son was Cydnus, who gave his name to the river at Tarsus: the son of Cydnus was Parthenius, from whom the city was called Parthenia: afterwards the name was changed to Tarsus.This may be the same Anchiale who appears in the "
Argonautica " (1.1120f)::And near it they heaped an altar of small stones, and wreathed their brows with oak leaves and paid heed to sacrifice, invoking the Mother of Dindymum, Most Venerable, Dweller in
Phrygia , and Titias and Cyllenus, who alone of many are called dispensers of doom and assessors of the Idaean Mother, – the Idaean Dactyls ofCrete , whom once the nymph Anchiale, as she grasped with both hands the land of Oaxus, bare in the Dictaean cave.Iapetus and Japheth
Iapetus has (for example, by
John Milton ) been equated withJapheth (יֶפֶת), the son of Noah, based on the similarity of their names and on old Jewish traditions, that held Japheth as the ancestor of theGreeks , theSlavs , the Italics, the Teutons etc. (see Josephus, "Antiquities of the Jews "). The myth ofDeucalion opposes this allegation. (SimilarlyHam, son of Noah was equated with "Jupiter Ammon", i.e. the Egyptian godAmun .)"Sib. Or. III.133" makes Iapetus one of the three sons of
Gaia andUranus , along withCronus andTitan , who each received a third division of the Earth. Similar legends in Judaeo-Christian writings attribute such a three-fold division toNoah 's three sons Ham,Shem and Japheth.External links
* [http://www.theoi.com/Titan/TitanIapetos.html Theoi Project - Iapetos]
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