Mecone
The site where Prometheus tricked Zeus at a sacrificial feast, establishing the division between gods and mortals
The Story of Mecone
Mecone, later identified with the city of Sicyon in the northeastern Peloponnese, was the mythological site of one of the most consequential events in Greek religion: the division of the sacrifice between gods and men. Hesiod recounts in the Theogony that at a great feast at Mecone, Prometheus slaughtered an ox and divided it into two portions. In one pile, he placed the rich meat and fat wrapped in the ox's unappetising stomach lining. In the other, he arranged the bare white bones covered with a glistening layer of fat. Zeus chose the beautiful but worthless pile — the fat-covered bones — and from that day forward, mortals burned the bones and fat for the gods while keeping the edible meat for themselves. This aetiological myth explained the universal Greek sacrificial practice whereby animals were slaughtered, the bones wrapped in fat were burned on the altar for the gods, and the meat was distributed among the worshippers for a communal feast. Furious at being deceived, Zeus withheld fire from humanity, prompting Prometheus's theft and the chain of punishments that followed.
Parents
None recorded
Symbols
Fun Fact
Every Greek animal sacrifice followed the pattern established at Mecone: bones and fat burned for the gods, meat shared among the worshippers
Words We Inherited
English words and phrases that trace back to this myth. See our full guide to English words from Greek mythology.
Explore Further
Sicyon
🏛 placeGeography
An ancient city near Corinth claiming to be one of the oldest in Greece and site of Prometheus's sacrifice trick
Calydon
🏛 placegeography
An Aetolian city whose king's neglect of Artemis brought a devastating divine boar to ravage the land.
Pherae
🏛 placeGeography
A city in Thessaly where Admetus ruled and Alcestis chose to die in her husband's place
Plataea
🏛 placegeography
A Boeotian city sacred to Hera where the goddess was said to have been married to Zeus, and site of a curious ritual re-enactment.
Boeotia
🏛 placegeography
A fertile central Greek region whose name means "ox-land," birthplace of Heracles and setting of the Cadmus myth.
Tegea
🏛 placegeography
An Arcadian city with a great temple of Athena Alea, and possessor of the tusks of the Calydonian Boar and the bones of Orestes.
Corinth
🏛 placeCity of Sisyphus and Medea
Corinth was a wealthy trading city on the narrow isthmus connecting mainland Greece to the Peloponnese, associated with Sisyphus, Medea, Bellerophon, and Pegasus.
Eleusis
🏛 placeSite of the Mysteries
Eleusis was a sacred city near Athens, home to the Eleusinian Mysteries — the most important secret religious rites in the ancient Greek world.
Thrinacia
🏛 placetaboo, cattle
The mythical island where the sacred cattle of Helios grazed, whose slaughter by Odysseus's starving crew brought divine destruction.
Oeta
🏛 placegeography
The Thessalian mountain where Heracles built his own funeral pyre and was consumed by fire, ascending to Olympus.
Aventine Hill
🏛 placegeography
One of the seven hills of Rome, associated with the fire-breathing monster Cacus and Heracles' cattle.
Lilybaeum
🏛 placegeography
The westernmost promontory of Sicily, near where Odysseus encountered the land of the dead in some traditions.