Such is the basic fabric of the Caucasian legend, reduced to the main features, such is the summary biography of the chained titan. The predominant features in it are the instincts of evil, destruction and arbitrariness."

All the legends about the Caucasian Prometheus mentioned so far do not depict this Prometheus in a positive sense. These 'Prometheans, on the contrary/ are the bearers of evil and suffer their punishment quite deservedly, on the basis of universal justice. From this point of view, the Caucasian Prometheus is evidently the complete opposite of the Prometheus we find in ancient Greece, and who is invariably the friend of men and their benefactor. The cruel punishment he endured is interpreted in Greece as an act of injustice, as a purely temporary act, followed by the quite just release of Prometheus.

But among the Caucasian Prometheans one can also find representatives and defenders of human welfare, human civilization, so that his punishment is carried out either according to the supreme will of fate, or by virtue of the merits and wisdom of Prometheus himself. In this regard, Alexei Veselovsky continues the following.

"However, in the Caucasus, although represented by a minority of legends about the chained bogatyr, there is an independent (mainly Georgian) version, which explains his suffering by martyrdom for the people's welfare, for justice, for the right of people. He cleanses the earth of devas, consumes everything evil, "fights with heaven, because not everything on earth is just." His courage and audacity in relation to the divinity acquire the character of intercession for humanity, godlessness becomes heroism, and the payment for it — eternal captivity and severe torment — evokes not schadenfreude, but deep sympathy. If such a prisoner is released, he will not cause destruction and ruin, but universal (212) happiness. The Armenian legend that believes that Artavazd was kidnapped and imprisoned by the devas, attaches to the capture the significance of the triumph of evil over good and desires the return of the prisoner, seeing in him (in the words of the latest commentator) the "Messiah of the Armenians". In such glimpses of a positive understanding of the personality and fate of the Titan, there is a noticeable connecting link between the Caucasian legends and the Hellenic myth of Prometheus, the thief of the sacred fire for the benefit of mankind."

Let us add to this that of the two most important Georgian poets, Book II. A. Chavchavadze in his poem "The Caucasus" also mentions the chaining of Prometheus. And Akaki Tsereteli in his poem "Tornike Eristavi" creates the image of Amiran, chained to a rock for stealing fire, and his liver is eaten by a raven.48 A completely different understanding of Prometheus as a symbol, different in comparison with antiquity and the Caucasus, we find in Europe in modern times.

9. Boccaccio. On the eve of the Modern Age, we meet with the Latin treatise of the famous Boccaccio "Genealogy of the Gods" (1373). Boccaccio expounds ancient mythology with various fictions and conjectures, which are in no way characteristic of ancient mythology. But for the history of Prometheus as a symbol, this work of Boccaccio is important, since it not only sets forth all the main motifs of the myth of Prometheus, but also quite clearly carries out the understanding of this symbol, which is characteristic of the Modern Age. First, let's look at in detail what Boccaccio says about Prometheus, and then we will evaluate this Prometheus Boccaccio from the point of view of the history of Prometheus symbolism.

Boccaccio49 sets forth the sources known to him on Greek and Roman mythology.

Prometheus, the son of Iapetus and Asia, was distinguished by his sharp mind and was the first to make a statue of a clay man, whom, however, Jupiter turned into an ape. Ovid also calls Prometheus the first to sculpt a man from clay. Servius and Fulgentius add that this man sculpted from clay was deprived of breath and Prometheus spiritualized him by stealing the heavenly fire from Phoebus' chariot with the help of Minerva. Prometheus was therefore chained to a rock in the Caucasus, and on men, as Sappho and Hesiod say (213), the gods sent misfortunes: sickness, sorrow, and woman, and, according to Horace, only pallor and fever.

Boccaccio considers it necessary to interpret this set of myths, but finds the task extremely difficult. Prometheus, in his opinion, is dual, just as man himself is dual: he is the omnipotent God who produced man from the earth; on the other hand, there is the man Prometheus, of whom Theodontius is said to have read somewhere, that this Prometheus, in his youth, carried away by a thirst for learning, left his wife and daughters to his brother Epimetheus, went to study wisdom in Assyria, and afterwards retired to the summit of Mount Caucasus, where he perfected himself in contemplation and astronomy. Returning then to the people, he taught them astrology and manners, and in this way, as it were, created them anew. In the same way, man himself is dual: in his natural state he is coarse and ignorant, and needs to be educated by the scientist, who, marveling at such a creation of nature as man, and seeing its imperfection, as if from heaven endows him with wisdom. The loneliness of Prometheus in the Caucasus means, according to Boccaccio, the need for solitude in order to acquire wisdom. The sun, from which Prometheus takes fire, signifies the one true God, who enlightens every person who comes into the world. Finally, the flame that spiritualizes man is the light of teaching in the chest of the clay man. That part of the myth where Prometheus is forcibly taken to the Caucasus and chained there, Boccaccio considers untrue because of the purely human delusion that the gods can be angry with any of the people. Prometheus went to the Caucasus of his own free will, led by the wise messenger of the gods Hermes. The eagle corresponds to Prometheus' lofty thoughts, which disturb him, and the restoration of his body after the eagle's bites corresponds to the inner satisfaction of the sage after finding the truth. Thus, Prometheus in the second sense was a man, a teacher of wisdom.

If we give a general assessment of Boccaccio's interpretation of the myth of Prometheus, we will first of all see that Boccaccio avoids too harsh and too cruel moments of this motif. In this regard, the personality of Prometheus itself receives special knowledge. While in Aeschylus Prometheus is at least a cousin of Zeus, if not directly his uncle, then in Boccaccio Prometheus is not a god at all, but the most ordinary man. In any case, there is no more divine in him than the ordinary human. But this man is wise, learned, and knowledgeable. He wants to teach this wisdom to all other people. That he stole the fire from the chariot of Apollo, firstly, this fire and light belong to the one and true God, and secondly, no one finds any (214) crime in this. And no one punishes Prometheus. And if he spends a certain time in the Caucasus, it is only because Prometheus himself sought the solitude necessary to deepen his wisdom. According to Boccaccio, it also turns out that no eagle at all tormented the liver of Prometheus. The eagle is only those lofty thoughts that torment every thinking person who has gone into solitude for the greater depth of his wisdom.

According to Boccaccio, Prometheus is dual to the same extent as every man is dual. And now, in the perspective of six hundred years, we understand perfectly well why Boccaccio, one of the founders of the new European worldview, spoke about the duality of both man in general and his prototype – Prometheus. Modern man felt his personality, his subject, and his creativity so strongly that he was always ready to identify himself with the absolute being, that is, with God. And on the other hand, Prometheus, as the prototype of the most ordinary man, went to study in a learned country, left his family and even indulged in solitude in the Caucasus. At the same time, Boccaccio apparently does not take the very creation of people Prometheus seriously at all. And he takes seriously the teaching of people in the sciences, which, as it were, create the former miserable, ignorant and unlearned people completely anew. As far as we can judge, according to Boccaccio, this is the true creation of man, and not the creation of clay and earth that the ancient myths speak of.

In other words, Prometheus as a symbol receives a completely new interpretation from Boccaccio, namely, characteristic of New Europe. Prometheus here is a symbol of science and wisdom, which require a lot of effort and many deprivations from a person, force him to often suffer, secluded himself and create sciences. With their help, humanity will only be resurrected in the future and, as it were, created anew. It seems to us that for the fourteenth century Boccaccio sufficiently and clearly outlined the symbolism of Prometheus not in the ancient or medieval sense, but precisely in the modern European sense, that is, in the sense of creation, development (often painful) and teaching of sciences for the purposes of personal education of people and for the purposes of universal historical progress.

10. Calderón (1679)50 in his three-part drama "The Statue of Prometheus" depicts Prometheus in the spirit of a Christian knight, a seeker of truth and knowledge, a hero misunderstood by people, a faithful servant of Wisdom – Minerva. Prometheus himself suffers here after stealing a fiery ray from Apollo's chariot on the advice of Minerva. He sees in Pandora a symbol of his crime (215) and at the same time feels tenderness and love for her. Prometheus' suffering and trials in prison cry out for divine mercy and forgiveness. This symbol here, in connection with the growth of the bourgeois-capitalist epoch, is not only subjectivized, but even simply diminished, losing its proud Aeschylus greatness, although it still remains the champion of reason and civilization, although subordinate to the gods. By the way, Calderón has a motif, which is rare for antiquity, not only about stealing fire for people, but also about the creation of people by Prometheus, so that fire animates the human statues he creates.

Calderon's Prometheus and Epimetheus are two "galans", that is, young cavaliers, children of the noble and sovereign Iapetus. Prometheus devoted himself to reading, contemplation, philosophy from his youth and retired from his homeland in search of mentors. He visited Syria, "the center of the most flourishing minds of all Asia," studied the "natural logic" of pure mental light, and studied astrology from the Chaldeans. Using all his wisdom, during his stay in the Caucasus, he created a statue of Minerva from clay as a symbol of human striving for divinity, and, to everyone's admiration, showed it to the "inhabitants of the Caucasus", calling for the establishment of a temple, altars and sacrifices to Minerva. In the skin of a beast, Minerva appears, causing universal fear; but when she is unmasked, Prometheus sees before him the very creature that had stirred him in his dreams and which he reproduced in his statue. Love draws the goddess Minerva to Prometheus; At his request, she lifts him up to heaven. All this arouses the envy of Minerva's sister, the warlike Pallas (these sisters, daughters of Jupiter and Latona, are so similar to each other that it is difficult to distinguish them).