General Notes

[FAMILY.FTW]

CLYMENE was one of the Oceanides, a daughter of Oceanus and Tethys. By her uncle Iapetus she was the mother of Atlas, Prometheus, Menoetius, and Epimetheus. Iapetus was regarded as the ancestor of the human race, although it was his son Prometheus who fashioned men out of clay. It is to be expected that there was confusion in the genealogies of the beings involved in setting up the world. Clymene was also called the mother by Prometheus of Hellen and Deucalion. This mother/son liason would not be particularly usual in the confusing descent of the gods, but Prometheus' wife was usually called Celaeno. Somewhere along the way, probably after the confinement of Iapetus in Tartarus with other Titans, Clymene married Merops, a king of the Ethiopians. Clymene was unfaithful to him and gave herself to her cousin (and brother-in-law) Helios, the sun. By him she had the Heliades and Phaethon.
Clymene's children were pivotal in the contest of the gods against the Titans and in the development of the human race. Atlas and Menoetius were both punished for their roles in the conflict with the Olympians. Atlas was condemned to bear the heavens on his head and shoulders, but not before he became father of the Pleiades, the Hyades, the Hesperides, and other beings. Menoetius was struck by Zeus with a thunderbolt and thrown into Tartarus. Prometheus and Epimetheus were the parents of Deucalion and Pyrrha, respectively, and these offspring were responsible for repopulating the earth after the great flood. For going contrary to the will of Zeus in regard to the human race, Prometheus was punished atop Mount Caucasus by having his liver pecked out daily by an eagle and having it restored each successive day. Pandora, the wife of Epimetheus, let loose all the troubles of the world by opening a forbidden chest. Phaethon, the son of Clymene and Helios, almost caused the destruction of the world. He begged his father to let him drive the chariot of the sun across heaven. He proved too weak to handle the dazzling horses, and the chariot fell toward the earth. Zeus struck him from the chariot, and he plummeted to earth. Helios recovered the reins in time to keep the earth from burning to a cinder. Phaethon's mother was also called Merope, Prote, or Rhode. [Hesiod, Theogony 351,507; Hyginus, Fables 156; Apollodorus 1.2.3; Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.763, Tristia 3.4.30.]