DEUCALION, king of Phthia, in Thessaly, was the son of Prometheus and Clymene. The flood said to have happened in his time (B.C. 1500) is supposed to have been only an inundation of that country, occasioned by heavy rains, and an earthquake which stopped the course of the river Penus at the place where it previously discharged itself into the sea. On these circumstances the fable of Deucalion's flood is founded. According to the tradition, Deucalion, being forewarned by his father of the impending deluge, built a ship, in which, with his wife Pyrrha, he was saved, when the rest of mankind perished in the flood. When the waters subsided, their ship was stranded on Mount Parnassus. The first care of Deucalion and his wife was to consult the oracle of Themis as to the means by which the earth was to be repopulated. The oracle ordered them to veil their heads and faces, to unloose their girdles, and to throw behind their backs the bones of their great mother. At this advice Pyrrha was seized with horror; but Deucalion explained the mystery by observing, that their great mother must mean the earth, and her bones the stones. The stones which Deucalion threw over his head became men, while those thrown by his wife became women. Some writers have supposed that Deucalion may be identified with the patriarch Noah; and that Deucalion's flood in Thessaly, as well as that of Ogyges in Attica, and of Prometheus in Egypt, were the same as the great deluge recorded in Scripture. Diodorus Siculus expressly says, that in the deluge which happened in the time of Deucalion almost all flesh died; and Apollodorus after mentioning how Deucalion took refuge, ἰς λαγόνα, or in the ark, describes him as immediately after his deliverance sacrificing to Zeus Phryxus, Jupiter, the preserver of fugitives. The most minute account of the traditions concerning the deluge of Deucalion, is to be found in Lucian, a native of Samosata,
Deux
Deventer.
of Commagene, on the Euphrates. His narrative coincides with the Mosaic version to a surprising extent.