The people of the Copper Age committed many crimes. Arrogant and wicked, they did not obey the Olympian gods. The Thunderer Zeus was angry with them; Zeus was especially angered by the king of Lykosura in Arcadia, Lycaon. One day Zeus, disguised as a mere mortal, came to Lycosurus. So that the inhabitants knew that he was a god, Zeus gave them a sign, and all the inhabitants fell prostrate before him and honored him as a god. Only Lycaon did not want to give Zeus divine honors and mocked everyone who honored Zeus. Lycaon decided to test whether Zeus was a god. He killed a hostage who was in his palace, boiled part of his body, fried part of it and offered it as a meal to the great Thunderer. Zeus was terribly angry. With a lightning strike, he destroyed Lycaon's palace, and turned him into a bloodthirsty wolf.
People became more and more wicked, and the great cloud destroyer, the aegis-powerful Zeus, decided to destroy the entire human race. He decided to send such a heavy rain to the earth that everything would be flooded. Zeus forbade all winds to blow; only the humid southern wind Noth drove dark rain clouds across the sky. The rain poured onto the ground. The water in the seas and rivers rose higher and higher, flooding everything around. The cities with their walls, houses and temples disappeared under the water, and the towers that rose high on the city walls were no longer visible. Gradually, the water covered everything - both forested hills and high mountains. All of Greece disappeared under the raging waves of the sea. The top of the two-headed Parnassus rose lonely among the waves. Where the peasant had previously cultivated his field and where vineyards rich in ripe clusters were green, fish swam, and herds of dolphins frolicked in the forests covered with water.
This is how the human race of the Copper Age perished. Only two were saved amid this general death - Deucalion, the son of Prometheus, and his wife Pyrrha. On the advice of his father Prometheus, Deucalion built a huge box, put food supplies in it and entered it with his wife. For nine days and nights, Deucalion’s box rushed along the waves of the sea that covered the entire land. Finally, the waves drove him to the double-headed peak of Parnassus. The rainfall sent by Zeus stopped. Deucalion and Pyrrha came out of the box and made a thanksgiving sacrifice to Zeus, who preserved them among the stormy waves. The water subsided, and the land again appeared from under the waves, devastated, like a desert.
Then the aegis-power Zeus sent the messenger of the gods Hermes to Deucalion. The messenger of the gods quickly rushed over the deserted land, appeared before Deucalion and said to him:
“Zeus, the ruler of gods and people, knowing your piety, ordered you to choose a reward; express your wish, and the son of Krona will fulfill it.
Deucalion answered Hermes:
- Oh, great Hermes, I only pray to Zeus for one thing, let him populate the earth with people again.
Quick Hermes rushed back to bright Olympus and conveyed Deucalion’s plea to Zeus. The Great Zeus ordered Deucalion and Pyrrha to collect stones and throw them without turning over their heads. Deucalion fulfilled the command of the mighty Thunderer, and from the stones that he threw, men were created, and from the stones thrown by his wife Pyrrha, women were created. So the earth received a population again after the flood. It was populated by a new kind of people who came from stone.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru