Iapetus

In Greek mythology, Iapetus also Japetus (Ancient Greek: Ἰαπετός Iapetos), was a Titan, the son of Uranus and Gaia, and father (by an Oceanid named Clymene or Asia) of Atlas, Prometheus, Epimetheus, and Menoetius.

Mythology

Iapetus (“the Piercer”) is the one Titan mentioned by Homer in the Iliad (8.478–81) as being in Tartarus with Cronus. He is a brother of Cronus, who ruled the world during the Golden Age. His name derives from the word iapto (“wound, pierce”) and usually refers to a spear, implying that Iapetus may have been regarded as a god of craftsmanship, though scholars mostly describe him as the god of mortality.

Iapetus’ wife is normally a daughter of Oceanus and Tethys named Clymene or Asia.

In Hesiod’s Works and Days Prometheus is addressed as “son of Iapetus”, and no mother is named. However, in Hesiod’s Theogony, Clymene is listed as Iapetus’ wife and the mother of Prometheus. In Aeschylus’s play Prometheus Bound, Prometheus is son of the goddess Themis with no father named (but still with at least Atlas as a brother). However, in Horace’s Odes, in Ode 1.3 Horace describes how “audax Iapeti genus/ Ignem fraude mala gentibus intulit”; “The bold offspring of Iapetus [i.e. Prometheus]/ brought fire to peoples by wicked deceit”. Source Wikipedia.