If I can’t find an answer to my question via my searches on Google, but another poster here can, it can be helpful to me to see what phrase they searched successfully, so that further searches by me might be more productive. In other words, don’t take John Mace’s post as criticism, but instead as a teaching tool.
I’m no expert mythologist but IIRC he stood with Zeus when the others opposed him and was therefore spared the trip to Tartarus with the others, this time.
Why the punishment as it was? Prometheus was man’s benefactor and taught him a great deal of “secrets” of the Gods. He tricked Zeus out of his choice cut of meat…which might explain why he had his liver eaten by the Eagle/Falcon? everyday. Why a bird? Prom. taught man the art of falconry IIRC and because he openly boasted himself as man’s benefactor a public punishment would seem fitting.
I’m sure there’s probably a lot of things that I have missed but that’s my guess in response to your question.
Wasn’t Prometheus a non-human Titan (demi-god-kind of being)? Maybe only humans go to Tartarus, while Titans go to the Undying Lands with the rest of the Maia or something.
The titans were the beings who ruled Olympus before they were overthrown by Zeus and the gods, and they were exiled to Tartarus after the overthrow, but because Prometheus and his brothers sided with the gods, they werem’t exiled along with the rest of the titans.
Prometheus was then later punished by Zeus, because he gave fire to man against Zeus’s wishes.