A fragment of Petronius, quoted by Fulgentius (Mythologies 2.6):
[on Prometheus] although Nicagoras . . . records that Prometheus was the first to have embodied the image, and that he exposes his liver to a vulture, as if it portrays a metaphor for envy. From this Petronius also says: “The vulture that probes our inmost liver and tears out our heart and inmost entrails, is not a bird, as our witty poets claim, but the evils of our heart, envy and lust.”
[de Prometheo] quamvis Nicagorus . . . primum illum formasse idolum referat et, quod vulturi iecur praebeat, livoris quasi pingat imaginem. unde et Petronius Arbiter ait
“qui vultur iecur intimum pererrat
pectusque eruit intimasque fibras,
non est quem lepidi vocant poetae,
sed cordis <mala>, livor atque luxus.”
Reminiscent of Ishmael’s analysis of Ahab in ch.44 of Moby Dick:
God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature in thee; and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a Prometheus; a vulture feeds upon that heart for ever; that vulture the very creature he creates.
Extracts 