'Because Prometheus gave human beings the gift of fire, defying the will of Zeus, he had Prometheus chained to a remote mountain. Prometheus was helpless before Zeus, yet he boldly predicted that Zeus was doomed: “in his crashing fall shall Zeus discover how different are rule and slavery.” 'Like other Greek playwrights, Aeschylus didn’t write about contemporary situations. Rather, he drew on mythology, portraying struggles among gods and ancient Greek heroes. Perhaps this was a politically safer way to offer commentary. Shakespeare and the great German playwright Friedrich Schiller did the same thing, making their plays about other people and different eras than their own.
Prometheus Bound, believed to date from Aeschylus’ later years, is the work of greatest interest from the standpoint of liberty. It isn’t much of a play, in terms of the story, but it does express quite a protest against tyranny. Because Prometheus gave human beings the gift of fire, defying the will of Zeus, he had Prometheus chained to a remote mountain. Prometheus was helpless before Zeus, yet he boldly predicted that Zeus was doomed: “in his crashing fall shall Zeus discover how different are rule and slavery.”
Scholar David Grene wrote, “Prometheus is, politically, the symbol of the rebel against the tyrant who has overthrown the traditional role of Justice and Law. He is the symbol of Knowledge against Force. He is symbolically the champion of man, raising him through the gift of intelligence, against the would-be destroyer of man.”
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Voices for liberty in the ancient world