Iapetus was linked toJapheth (Hebrew:יֶפֶת), one of thesons of Noah and a progenitor of mankind in biblical accounts. The practice by early historians and biblical scholars of identifying various historical nations and ethnic groups as descendants of Japheth, together with the similarity of their names, led to a fusion of their identities, from theearly modern period to the present.[6][7]
Iapetus is the oneTitan mentioned byHomer in theIliad as being inTartarus withCronus. He is a brother of Cronus, who ruled the world during theGolden Age but is now locked up inTartarus along with Iapetus, where neither breeze nor light of the sun reaches them.[8]
Iapetus's wife is usually described as a daughter ofOceanus andTethys named eitherClymene (according to Hesiod[9] and Hyginus) orAsia (according toApollodorus).
InHesiod'sWorks and Days, Prometheus is addressed as "son of Iapetus", and no mother is named. However, in Hesiod'sTheogony, Clymene is listed as Iapetus's wife and the mother of Prometheus. InAeschylus's playPrometheus 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 writes "audax Iapeti genus ... Ignem fraude mala gentibus intulit" ("The bold offspring of Iapetus [i.e. Prometheus] ... brought fire to peoples by wicked deceit").
Hesiod and other Greek scholars regarded the sons of Iapetus as mankind's ancestors and as such, some of humanity's worst qualities were said to have been inherited from these four gods, each of whom were punished by Zeus for a particular moral fault. "High-towering Menoetius, the embodiment of arrogance, insolence and overweening pride, he hurls to the nethermost of Tartarus. Prometheus, who uses his high intelligence for purposes of deception, he makes the victim of an ever growing conscience symbolized by the onsets of a voracious vulture. To Epimetheus, the personification of stupidity that refuses to be instructed, he presents all the ills of Pandora's box. To Atlas, patient, enduring Atlas who is devoid of self-assertion, he assigns the task of holding up the heavens, on the outskirts of the world, -- the zero of occupations."[10]
^Alexander, Philip (1988). "Retelling the Old Testament". In Carson, D. A.; Williamson, H. G. M. (eds.).It is Written: Scripture Citing Scripture: Essays in Honour of Barnabas Lindars. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 99–121.ISBN9780521323475.
^Haaland, Gunnar (2011). "Convenient Fiction Or Causal Factor? The Questioning Of Jewish Antiquity According To Against Apion 1.2". In Pastor, Jack; Stern, Pnina; Mor, Menahem (eds.).Flavius Josephus: Interpretation and history. Leiden: Brill. pp. 163–175.ISBN978-90-04-19126-6.
^Although usually the daughter of Hyperion and Theia, as inHesiod,Theogony371–374, in theHomeric Hymn to Hermes (4),99–100, Selene is instead made the daughter of Pallas the son of Megamedes.
Pausanias,Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918.Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
Stephanus of Byzantium,Stephani Byzantii Ethnicorum quae supersunt, edited by August Meineike (1790-1870), published 1849. A few entries from this important ancient handbook of place names have been translated by Brady Kiesling.Online version at the Topos Text Project.
