Prometheus Bound.
To punish Prometheus for his defiance of the gods, Zeus ordered him to be chained by Hephaestus to a rock on a mountain in the Caucasus, where an eagle (or vulture) spent every day eating out the Titan’s liver. Like the rest of him, Prometheus’s liver was immortal and thus regenerated every night, so that the torture continued unabated. According to Hesiod, Prometheus was being disciplined for having tricked Zeus into selecting the poorer portion of the sacrifices offered to him by mankind. Apollodorus maintained that the punishment was the result of Prometheus’s theft of fire. Aeschylus added that the Titan was also being punished for withholding from Zeus the prophetic knowledge that the nymph Thetis, whom Zeus wished to marry, would bear a child whose power would eclipse its father’s.
     In his tragedy Prometheus Bound, Aeschylus shows Hephaestus (Vulcan) fastening the Titan to a rocky crag, assisted by Kratos (Power) and Bia (Force). Prometheus is comforted in his torment by a chorus of Oceanids and by their father, Oceanus, who offers to intercede with Zeus if Prometheus will relent in his defiance. He is also visited by the mortal Io, in the form of a cow. He prophesies her future and his own eventual release at the hands of her descendant, Heracles. Hermes, emissary of Zeus, demands that Prometheus reveal Thetis’s secret, and when Prometheus refuses, a lightning bolt plunges him into the abyss.
     In postdassical art the tortured figure of Prometheus bound to the rock is a popular image, often confused with Tityus, whose punishment in Hades closely resembles that of Prometheus.

See also Prometheus; Prometheus the Creator; Prometheus Bound; Prometheus Freed; and Tityus.