© 1998 Bernard SUZANNE   Last updated December 5, 1998 
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Deucalion

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Deucalion was the son of Prometheus. He married Pyrrha, the daughter of his uncle Epimetheus and of Pandora, the first woman. When Zeus decided that men of the Bronze Age were desperately wicked and had to be destroyed, before sending a deluge to do the job, he decided to spare two just people, Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha. With the help of Prometheus, they built an arch in which they floated for nine days and nine nights while the flood destroyed the rest of mankind. Eventually, they touched ground on the mountains of Thessaly. After the flood had recessed, Zeus instructed them to throw above their shoulders "the bones of their mother" in order to get companions. Deucalion understood that by "bones of their mother", Zeus meant stones, the "bones" of mother Earth. And from the stones he threw, men were born, and women from the stones thrown by Pyrrha.
Deucalion and Pyrrha were at the origin of a large posterity. One of their sons was Hellen, the eponym of all Greek tribes, himself the father of Dorus, eponym of the Dorians, Æolus, eponym of the Æolians, and Xouthus, the later being the father of Achæus, eponym of the Achæans, and Ion, eponym of the Ionians.
Plato, through the mouth of Critias, refers to the story of Deucalion in the prologue of the Timæus (22b) and again in the Critias (112a).

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Plato and his dialogues : Home - Biography - Works - History of interpretation - New hypotheses - Map of dialogues : table version or non tabular version. Tools : Index of persons and locations - Detailed and synoptic chronologies - Maps of Ancient Greek World. Site information : About the author.

First published January 4, 1998 - Last updated December 5, 1998
© 1998 Bernard SUZANNE (click on name to send your comments via e-mail)
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