Iapetus

The Titan of Mortality

Iapetus was one of the twelve Titans, born to Gaia and Uranus long before Zeus became king of the gods. Some Titans have very obvious roles, but Iapetus is a little different. The oldest Greek stories do not give him one simple job such as ruling the sea or representing the Moon. Instead, the most interesting thing about Iapetus is his family. He became the father of four sons who appear in some of the best-known Greek myths: Atlas, Prometheus, Epimetheus and Menoetius. If you follow their stories, you quickly end up with stolen fire, Pandora, angry gods and somebody holding up the entire sky.

Atlas was punished by Zeus and made to support the heavens. Prometheus became a great friend of humans and stole fire from Zeus to give to them. Epimetheus was warned by Prometheus not to accept gifts from Zeus, but he accepted Pandora anyway. Menoetius was known for his terrible pride and was struck down by Zeus. Basically, Iapetus had four sons and every single one managed to end up in a dramatic story! Prometheus and Epimetheus also became closely connected with stories explaining why human life contains both wonderful inventions and difficult troubles.

Iapetus belonged to the older Titan generation that lost power when Zeus and the Olympians took control. The ancient stories do not give him a huge personal adventure during the Titanomachy, so he is much less famous than some of his children. That does not make him unimportant. Greek mythology is one gigantic family tree, and Iapetus sits at the beginning of a branch that leads into loads of important stories. His name even travelled into space thousands of years later when one of Saturn’s moons was named Iapetus. Obviously, the ancient Greeks knew nothing about that moon, but I think it is rather nice that this quieter Titan ended up with something enormous in the sky named after him. His son Atlas would probably understand the sky connection!

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