Iapetus was a Titan of the first generation, son of Uranus and Gaia, husband of his niece Clymene the Oceanid, and father by her of four sons whose collective name ("Iapetionides") covers a particular Greek conception of the perils of human existence: Atlas the over-burdened, Menoetius the hot-tempered (struck down by Zeus's thunderbolt for his arrogance during the Titanomachy), Prometheus the over-cunning, and Epimetheus the under-cunning. The four are essentially the four faults of human nature in their elder Titanic forms; and Iapetus their father is more of a figurehead than a developed character.
Before thisAtlas
Next on the wallCoeus
Curator’s note
What the sources say, and what later tradition added. The sources for this bay
Hesiod, Theogony 134, 507–514. Iapetus has been compared (since the seventeenth century) with the biblical Japheth, son of Noah, on the grounds of similar names and similar paternal genealogies; the comparison is suggestive but linguistically uncertain, and direct descent is not securely established.
Kin in the sources
Each tie is quoted from the entry that states it.
Child ofUranusson of Uranus and Gaia, husband of his niece Clymene the Oceanid
Child ofGaiason of Uranus and Gaia, husband of his niece Clymene the Oceanid
- Parent ofAtlas
Atlas the over-burdened, Menoetius the hot-tempered
Parent ofPrometheusPrometheus the over-cunning, and Epimetheus the under-cunning
Parent ofEpimetheusPrometheus the over-cunning, and Epimetheus the under-cunning
When the sources speak
Dated witnesses for The Titans and Their Children. A date marks when the evidence was written down, not when the belief began. The whole timeline
- c. 1600–1100 BCE
- Mycenaean palace tablets in Linear B record offerings and divine names, but little continuous myth.
- c. 1100–800 BCE
- Post-palatial oral traditions and changing cult landscapes precede the surviving alphabetic epics.
- late 8th–7th centuries BCE
- The Iliad, Odyssey, Hesiodic Theogony and Works and Days give influential but non-exclusive divine orders.
- 7th–6th centuries BCE
- Homeric Hymns, lyric poetry, colonization, and local sanctuary traditions multiply regional narratives.
- 6th–5th centuries BCE
- Orphic, Pythagorean, and mystery materials develop alternative cosmogonies and afterlife doctrines.
- 5th century BCE
- Athenian tragedy and comedy recast heroic houses and divine justice for civic audiences.
- 4th century BCE
- Philosophers, antiquarians, and local historians interpret or criticize inherited myth.
- 323–31 BCE
- Hellenistic poets and scholars systematize variants across an enlarged Greek world.