The Age of Gods and Mortals

This is the stage of Greek Mythology where the Gods created Man and there are loads of individual myths about how Man and God lived together and interacted. A lot of them end in the human dying.

In the eyes of Greek Mythology, the Gods wanted to make some life like them but mortal instead of immortal and place them on earth.
The two Titans Prometheus and Epimetheus were spared from imprisonment in Tatrarus because they did not fight against Zeus when he defeated Cronus.
Prometheus was given the task of creating man, which he did so out of clay and then Athena breathed life into the clay. These gifts were things like speed and agility and fur.
Epimetheus gave out all of his gifts but left the humans bare.
Promethus was the creator of Man and had taken a liking to the race so he gave his own gifts to them.
To start with he made man stand up straight like the Gods. He then also stole and gave them Fire which until that point was a Gods-only thing.
Prometheus appointed himself the protector of the Human race and also decided to give them all of his knowledge.
This made Zeus pretty angry, so he punished Prometheus.
Prometheus was chained to a cliff peak with unbreakable chains for eternity.
Every day a giant eagle would peck as his abdomen and eat his liver.
At the end of the day the liver would grow back and the same thing would occur the next day, causing him eternal pain and discomfort.
In fact it wasn't eternal, as after 30 years the mortal hero Heracles freed him from his chains.

To punish man (which seems a bit harsh seeing as Prometheus just gave us this stuff), Zeus made his son Hephaestus create a stunningly beautiful mortal woman with lots of positive gifts. He then made Hermes give the woman "a deceptive heart and a lying tongue".
This creation was Pandora, the first woman.
He finally gave her a jar (Not a box as we usually know it; This turned out to be a mistranslation) which she was forbidden to open. Zeus then sent her down to earth to live with the men.

Eventually her curiosity about the jar became too much (As Zeus thought it probably would) and she opened it. Out of the jar came evil and sorrow and misfortune and plagues and all other kinds of bad stuff. Everyone thought that this meant the end of happiness and that everything was ruined but the final thing to come out of the jar was hope, reminding man kind to be optimistic and not give up.

There are a lot of stories in which Gods and Man interact and they are sometimes split into two categories which are Tales of Love and Tales of Punishment.
"Tales of Love" is an interesting name for the category, as they are usually tales involving incest between the gods or seduction and rape when it comes to mortals. When Gods and mortals reproduce it often creates a Hero.
"Tales of Punishment" are what they sound like. Mortals disrespect the gods or steal from them or challenge them and it almost always ends in painful death.

I remember one specific tale of punishment from my A level art course when I was doing which involved Apollo - The God of healing, archery, light and truth and also music. I remember it because it was pretty horrible.
Basically there was this guy called Marsyas who one day found an instrument called the Aulos. He reportedly found the instrument in the spot that the Goddess Athena had discarded it after the other Gods made fun of the way her cheeks puffed out when she played it (It was a double piped reed instrument like the oboe or the bagpipes). He became a master at the instrument and got a bit cocky.
He challenged Apollo to a music contest judged by the muses themselves.
Apollo was renowned for his skill at playing his golden Lyre (A hand held stringed instrument).

Aulos                                     Lyre

  

Marsyas was doing quite well for himself until Apollo turned his instrument upside down and managed to play the same song which Marsyas could not do with his instrument.
The muses voted that Apollo had won and the terms of the contest were that the winner could treat the loser in any way they wanted.
Apollo proceeded to flay Marsyas alive.
Flaying is the systematic removal of the skin while trying to keep it intact.
It's pretty rough.
After flaying Marsyas, Apollo nailed his skin to a pine tree surrounded by the reeds that made up the aulos instrument.
Marsyas' brothers and sisters and friends wept for him and the tears flowed in to a river in Phrygia which was named Marsyas.