Deluge Of Deucalion

The deluge of Deucalion means, in Greek mythology , an old episode of flood associated with his main surviving Deucalion. This event is supposed to be after another Greek story of the flood, most poorly known, the deluge of Ogyges , and has similarities with Mesopotamian myth described in the Poem of Supersage dating from the ^seventeenth century BC. AD , the legend of Ziusudra which could also date from the late ^seventeenth century BC. BC and then taken to the ^twelfth century BC. BC at the latest version of the Assyrian-Babylonian "standard" of the Epic of Gilgamesh , as well as the legend Bible the Ark of Noah in Genesis , this part of Genesis is based on two older sources virtually independent of one another, and having reached its final form until about the ^fifth century BC. AD ^Myth

The flood is not attested before ^the Ninth Olympic Pindar ( ^fifth century BC. )

"I will say that at that time, a flood engulfed the earth in the depth of its waters, but soon the waves, thrown away, came back into the abyss dug by the mighty hand of Zeus. "
(49-53, trans. Maynand Al-Perrault, cf. Sources)

Among the older sources, a fragment of the Catalogue of Women preserved by Strabo is much allusion to Zeus, creator of mankind and the "gathered under the command of Deucalion . The Meteorological of Aristotle also keep track of events that befell "especially on the Hellenic lands, among them the old Hellas . It was not until the Metamorphoses of Ovid for the first complete account of events: Zeus, outraged by the conduct of wicked men he was able to check in Lycaon , brings the gods to them of his decision to destroy the humanity, promising them "a race of men better than the first . Helped Notos , of Iris and Poseidon who commands the river gods , it covers the ground under the water, emerged only remaining the top of Parnassus , where Deucalion and Pyrrha succeed in a "frail boat." They receive an oracle of Themis , which requires them to "throw behind them the bones of their grandmother," realizing that these are mere stones (their grandmother being Gaia , Earth), it 's perform well and create a new race of men.

According to the account of pseudo-Apollodorus (I, 7, 2), Zeus would have used the flood to get rid of the bronze race (which would implicitly permitted the arrival of the race of heroes, drawn largely from Deucalion and Pyrrha) . This idea, while sound, is not found anywhere else, however, and contradicts the version of Works (v. 150) where the race of bronze destroys itself, moreover, in III, 14, 5, the Library is the flood at the time of Cranaos , and Clement of Alexandria located at the time Crotopos . Also at Apollodorus is Prometheus who is behind the ark built by Deucalion on which he sailed for nine days before reaching Parnassus. There Hermes gives him to repopulate the earth, which he did by throwing stones behind him who become men, while those thrown by Pyrrha became women (this detail is also found in Ovid).