Deucalion

Deucalion was the son of the Titan Prometheus and the husband of Pyrrha. In Greek mythology he and Pyrrha survived the great flood that Zeus sent against the men of the Bronze Age, and they made a new human race by throwing stones behind them. He ruled in the country around Phthia in Thessaly.

Parents and Wife

Apollodorus calls Deucalion the son of Prometheus and says he reigned in the regions about Phthia and married Pyrrha, the daughter of Epimetheus and Pandora, “the first woman fashioned by the gods” (Apollodorus, Library 1.7.2). Hesiod’s Catalogue of Women, as reported by a scholiast on Apollonius, made Deucalion the son of Prometheus and Pronoea, and Hellen the son of Deucalion and Pyrrha (Hesiod, Catalogue fragment 1). Ovid calls the pair cousins as well as husband and wife, and calls Deucalion “son of Prometheus” and Pyrrha “daughter of Epimetheus” (Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.350–353, 1.390).

The Flood

Zeus wished to destroy the men of the Bronze Age. Apollodorus says that at the advice of Prometheus, Deucalion built a chest, stored it with provisions and embarked in it with Pyrrha. Zeus poured heavy rain from heaven and flooded most of Greece; the mountains of Thessaly parted, and the world outside the Isthmus and the Peloponnese was overwhelmed, though a few people fled to the high mountains. Deucalion floated in the chest over the sea for nine days and nights and drifted to Parnassus, where he landed when the rain stopped and sacrificed to Zeus the god of escape (Library 1.7.2). Apollodorus says that some ascribed the flood to the impiety of the sons of Lycaon, king of Arcadia, who set the flesh of a murdered child before Zeus; Zeus overturned the table and struck them with thunderbolts (Library 3.8.1–2).

Ovid’s account is similar: Jupiter resolved to destroy mankind with water, and Deucalion and his wife came to Parnassus on a small boat, as the rest of the land lay under the sea, and worshipped the Corycian nymphs, the mountain gods and Themis, who then held the oracle there. Jupiter spared them because no man was better or more just than Deucalion, and no woman more god-fearing than Pyrrha (Metamorphoses 1.260–261, 1.313–329). In Ovid, Jupiter’s anger was roused by Lycaon himself, who served him the flesh of a hostage at his table (Metamorphoses 1.163–166, 1.226–231).

The New People

When the waters went down and the earth was empty and silent, Deucalion and Pyrrha went to the sacred waters of the Cephisus and asked for help from the goddess. In Ovid’s version Themis answered that they should leave the temple, veil their heads, loosen their garments and throw the bones of their great mother behind their backs. Pyrrha at first refused, fearing to wrong her mother’s shade; Deucalion then reasoned that the great mother is the Earth and her bones are stones. They threw the stones behind them; the stones softened and took shape, the ones thrown by the man becoming men and the ones thrown by the woman becoming women (Metamorphoses 1.367–415).

Apollodorus gives it a little differently: Zeus sent Hermes, who allowed Deucalion to choose what he wished, and he chose to have men; at the bidding of Zeus the stones that Deucalion threw over his head became men and those that Pyrrha threw became women. From this, Apollodorus says, the people (laos) were named from laas, a stone (Library 1.7.2). Pindar says that Pyrrha and Deucalion came down from Parnassus, first made their home in the city of Protogeneia by the decree of Zeus, and without a marriage bed made a race of stones, from which the word for people comes (Pindar, Olympian 9.41–46).

Children

By Pyrrha, Deucalion had Hellen, whose father some said was Zeus, then Amphictyon, who later reigned in Attica, and a daughter, Protogeneia, who by Zeus was the mother of Aethlius (Apollodorus, Library 1.7.2). Hellen, with the nymph Orseis, became the father of Dorus, Xuthus and Aeolus, and named the Greeks Hellenes after himself (Library 1.7.3). Hesiod also gave Deucalion daughters: Pandora, mother of Graecus by Zeus, and Thyia, mother of Magnes and Macedon by Zeus (Hesiod, Catalogue fragments 2–3). Hesiod and Hecataeus said that Deucalion’s descendants ruled over Thessaly (Catalogue fragment 5).

A different Deucalion, a son of Minos, was the father of Idomeneus of Crete (Apollodorus, Library 3.3.1).

Deucalion Sources

Apollodorus, Library 1.7.2–3, 3.3.1, 3.8.1–2; Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.260–415; Pindar, Olympian 9; Hesiod, Catalogue of Women, fragments 1–5 (Evelyn-White numbering).

See Also: Prometheus, Pyrrha, Zeus, Hellen, Epimetheus, Pandora, Themis, Lycaon, Amphictyon, Protogeneia