I was in Los Angeles for work (network tech stuff) last week. Los Angeles and the surrounding areas are a vast almost totally man made area. I've been through LAX before to make connecting flights overseas, but last week was the first time I was on the ground for several days. The vast scope of the artifice of LA is striking when you see it from the air, then see it up close from the ground. It's not hard to imagine that sprawling man-made structure as a disease or fungus. The whole experience got me thinking of the futility of technology from the days of Prometheus and Fire until now.
That notion shows up in a handful of myths that are passed down to us today. Prometheus from Greek myths and Cain from the Cain and Abel story are certainly based on a nexus of the same archetypal characters and possibly related to the fallen "angels" in the book of Enoch. (Enoch was the Son of Cain) It seems likely to me that the Prometheus character and story is the original, and that the Cain and Romulus and Remus stories are knock-offs.
Many people are familiar with the Cain and Abel story from the Bible. Fewer are aware of Greek mythology because Jewish priests declared it "fiction" and insisted their myths are superlative historical fiction at worst or really are history.
Anyway, as a result of that propaganda, few people are aware Prometheus had a brother Epimetheus. The stories of Cain and Abel and Prometheus and Epimetheus are both about a change in human fortunes. Cain and Abel are linked with Adam and Eve, and that story of course includes the forbidden fruit concept, and the idea that women are somehow problematic to humanity. Many of the same themes pervade the Prometheus/Epimetheus stories. Epimetheus opens Pandora's box, for example, which is another original sin/problem with women story. That same theme is in the epic of Gilgamesh story, too--Enkidu enters the city after having sex with a temple prostitute.
Both of the stories also include a curse/ongoing punishment for the Cain and Prometheus characters. As far as I know, only the Cain and Abel story includes the fratricide angle that is central to the Cain and Abel story, and that's also present in the Romulus and Remus story as well. Enkidu also dies in the Epic of Gilgamesh story.
The Prometheus and Cain stories include the concepts of sacrifice. Cain and Abel's sacrifices are central to the story. Prometheus changes the terms of sacrifice to Zeus by tricking him. The Cain and Abel story is probably a mangled version of the Prometheus story because key elements of it are elided and the overall Cain/Abel sacrifice story makes no sense. The notion that Prometheus tricked Zeus with his sacrifice, and therefore Zeus was enraged is missing from the Cain and Abel story. The Jew Zeus doesn't like Cain's sacrifice for no apparent reason.
The characteristics of the brothers run through the both sets of stories. Prometheus is clever, defied the gods and was punished. Epimetheus was foolish. Abel pleases the gods and is perhaps "simple" and is murdered by his brother.
Prometheus is literally "cast out" of Olympus/Greek heaven and is a Titan rather than one of the Olympian gods. Cain is born from cast out parents and is marked for killing his brother and ultimately founds a city. The same elements of fratricide and founding a city is present in the Romulus and Remus story.
The theme I've interpolated from these stories is the characters of Cain and Prometheus attempt to escape natural necessity. Their brothers personify the natural order of things. The Enkidu character from the epic of Gilgamesh literally goes from being a wild man who's at one with Nature to a city man. The Abel and Epimetheus characters are variations on that theme. Prometheus ends up chained to a rock and punished daily. Cain must toil and his labors bear no fruit. In other words, human endeavor to escape nature is all vanity, and human cleverness is an illusion.
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