Episode 208: Philanthropy

(Intro & piano music)

In the first few lines of Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus, we hear, for the first time ever, the word that marked the Titan's fate. His love for humanity made him steal, and gift us the skill to make fire and thus, survive. For those not familiar with the myth or the play, Zeus, did not like what Prometheus had done so, he had State and Violence bound him to mount Caucasus, and the god Hephaestus make the strongest bonds. Prometheus's torture was that an Eagle would come every day to eat his liver, only for it to grow overnight and repeat the torture  the next day.  It's worth saying here that the the ancient Greeks believed that the liver was the organ where emotions were created. The word came to English directly, and intact, from Latin in the 1600's. Ανθρωπος (anthropos) means 'Human' and Φίλος (philos) means 'Friend'. Prometheus's action was called a ΦΙΛΑΝΘΡΩΠΙΑ/PHILANTHROPY

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