Prometheus

In the early days of the cosmos, the Olympian gods met with human males to decide how meat was to be apportioned between them. Prometheus, a son of the Titan god Lapetus, acted as facilitator. An ox was slaughtered, and Prometheus divided it into two piles. One consisted of meat covered with tripe, the other of bones covered with luscious fat.

Prometheus invited the Olympian god Zeus to choose, and he selected the pile that looked good but that contained mostly bones. When Zeus perceived that he had been tricked, in his fury he withheld fire from mankind. So although men had meat, they could not cook it. (According to an alternative version, Zeus knew of the deceit but chose the inferior selection in order to punish humans later.)

Prometheus then stole fire from the gods and gave it to mankind. Zeus was now doubly angry, and so devised punishments for mankind as well as for mankind's divine champion. For mankind he invented womankind, ordering the craftsman god Hephaestus to fashion from clay the first woman, Pandora. She was foisted upon Prometheus' slow-witted brother, Epimetheus.

As for Prometheus, Zeus had him bound to the side of a mountain, where an eagle daily tortured him by eating his liver.

by William Hansen  30Second Myths