Epimetheus is the Greek mythological figure who receives Pandora after Prometheus warns him to reject Zeus’s gifts.
Epimetheus is Prometheus’s brother. His name is commonly explained as meaning “afterthought,” contrasting with Prometheus, whose name is associated with forethought. Hesiod presents Prometheus as warning Epimetheus not to accept anything from Zeus, but Epimetheus takes Pandora into his household anyway.
Pandora’s arrival is therefore tied to a contrast between foresight and hindsight. Epimetheus is not usually the person who opens the container; Pandora performs that action in the familiar story. The brother’s acceptance of Zeus’s gift is the crucial earlier decision.
Epimetheus is sometimes confused with Deucalion, another figure linked to the early history of humanity and the Greek flood tradition. They are different mythological characters. Epimetheus and Pandora are also associated as parents of Pyrrha in later mythographic traditions, although Hesiod’s surviving account focuses chiefly on Pandora’s creation and the release of suffering.