Casanova (1979), finds in Prometheus a reflection of an ancient, pre-Hesiodic trickster-figure, who served to account for the mixture of good and bad in human life, and whose fashioning of humanity from clay was an Eastern motif familiar in "Enuma Elish". As an opponent of Zeus, the titan Prometheus can be seen as characteristic of the titans in general, and like other titans, was punished for his opposition. As an advocate for humanity he gains semi-divine status at Athens, where the episode in "Theogony" in which he is liberated is interpreted by Casanova as a post-Hesiodic interpolation.