Home The Politics of Beginnings: Hesiod and the Assyrian Ideological Appropriation of Enuma Eliš
Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

The Politics of Beginnings: Hesiod and the Assyrian Ideological Appropriation of Enuma Eliš

  • Marcus Ziemann
Published/Copyright: December 2, 2020
Become an author with De Gruyter Brill

Abstract

This article proposes a new way to understand Near Eastern literary and mythological parallels in Hesiod’s Theogony by focusing on the meaning of these parallels for a contemporary Greek audience. In particular, a case study analyzing a parallel shared by the Theogony and Enuma eliš is pursued here to illustrate this approach’s utility. This new approach draws partly on methodologies borrowed from the study of globalization and combines these methodologies with recent insights into the ideological motivations for Greeks’ deployment of Oriental(izing) art in the Orientalizing Period (ca. 750 – 650 BCE). Rather than focusing on individual parallels out of context or on diachronically stable elements that creation stories around the eastern Mediterranean shared, this article instead reconstructs a contemporary ideological background with the Neo-Assyrian Empire at the center of a globalizing Mediterranean. Because the Assyrians invested Enuma eliš with new ideological meaning at this time and broadcast this through their propaganda, the Akkadian creation epic could take on new meaning in an international context. It is consequently possible that specific correspondences Enuma eliš and the Theogony share show Hesiod subverting Assyrian ideological discourses. The subjects discussed here have implications for our broader understanding of Greek-Near Eastern interactions of the Orientalizing Period.

I would like to thank the attendees of the conference, Carolina Lo´pez-Ruiz, and the anonymous reviewer, all of whose comments helped to vastly refine and improve the presentation of my argument in this paper.

References

Albenda, Pauline. 1986. The Palace of Sargon, King of Assyria. Paris.Search in Google Scholar

Annus, Amar. 2002. The God Ninurta. Winona Lake, IN.Search in Google Scholar

Antonaccio, Carla. 2010. “(Re)defining Ethnicity: Culture, Material Culture, and Identity.” In Material Culture and Social Identities in the Ancient World, edited by Shelley Hales and Tamar Hodos, 32 – 53. Cambridge, UK,Search in Google Scholar

Appadurai, Arjun. 1996. Modernity at Large. Minneapolis.Search in Google Scholar

Aruz, Joan and Michael Seymour, eds. 2016. Assyria to Iberia. New York.Search in Google Scholar

Aster, Shawn Zelig. 2017. Reflections on Empire in Isaiah 1 – 39. Atlanta.Search in Google Scholar

Aster, Shawn Zelig. 2016. “Israelite Embassies to Assyria in the First Half of the Eighth Century.” Biblica 97(2): 175 – 198.Search in Google Scholar

Bachvarova, Mary. 2016. From Hittite to Homer. Cambridge.10.1017/CBO9781139048736Search in Google Scholar

Bakker, Egbert. 2001. “The Greek Gilgamesh, or the Immortality of Return,” in Eranos, edited by Machi Paisi-Apostolopoulou, 331 – 353. Ithaca.Search in Google Scholar

Barker, William D. 2014. Isaiah’s Kingship Polemic. Tübingen.Search in Google Scholar

Barth, Fredrik. (1969) 1998. “Introduction.” In Ethnic Groups and Boundaries, edited by Fredrik Barth, 9 – 38. Long Grove, IL. Citations refer to the 1998 edition.Search in Google Scholar

Batto, Bernard F. 2013. “The Combat Myth in Israelite Tradition Revisited.” In Creation and Chaos, edited by Joann Scurlock and Richard H. Beal, 217 – 236. Winona Lake, IN.10.5325/j.ctv18r6r85.19Search in Google Scholar

Bidmead, Julye. 2004. The Akitu Festival: Religious Continuity and Royal Legitimation in Mesopotamia. Piscataway, NJ.10.31826/9781463209629Search in Google Scholar

Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction. Abingdon.Search in Google Scholar

Broodbank, Cyprian. 2013. The Making of the Middle Sea. Oxford.Search in Google Scholar

Burgess, Jonathan. 1999. “Gilgamesh and Odysseus in the Underworld.” Echos du Monde Classique 18: 171 – 210.Search in Google Scholar

Burkert, Walter. 1992. The Orientalizing Revolution. Cambridge, MA.Search in Google Scholar

Brisart, Thomas. 2011. Un art citoyen. Brussels.Search in Google Scholar

Chan, Michael. 2009. “Rhetorical Reversal and Usurpation: Isaiah 10:5 – 34 and the Use of Neo-Assyrian Royal Idiom in the Construction of an Anti-Assyrian Theology.” Journal of Biblical Literature 128(4): 717 – 733.10.2307/25610216Search in Google Scholar

Clay, Jenny Straus. 2003. Hesiod’s Cosmos. Cambridge.Search in Google Scholar

Crielaard, Jan Paul. 2009. “The Ionians in the Archaic Period: Shifting Identities in a Changing World.” In Ethnic Constructs in Antiquity, edited by Tom Derks and Nico Roymans, 37 – 84. Amsterdam.Search in Google Scholar

Currie, Bruno. 2016. Homer’s Allusive Art. Oxford.Search in Google Scholar

Day, John. 1985. God’s Conflict with the Dragon and the Sea. Cambridge.Search in Google Scholar

Domi´nguez, Adolfo J. 2006. “Hellenic Identity and Greek Colonization.” Ancient West & East 4(2): 446 – 457.10.1163/9789047406716_013Search in Google Scholar

Dräger, Paul. 1997. Untersuchungen zu den Frauenkatalogen Hesiods. Stuttgart.Search in Google Scholar

Elayi, Josette. 2017. Sargon II, King of Assyria. Atlanta.10.2307/j.ctt1s4762qSearch in Google Scholar

Feldman, Marian. 2014. Communities of Style. Chicago.10.7208/chicago/9780226164427.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Ferrari, Franco. 1986. “Formule saffiche e formule omeriche,” Annali di Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa 16(2): 441 – 447.Search in Google Scholar

Friedrich, Rainer. 2019. Postoral Homer. Stuttgart.10.25162/9783515120500Search in Google Scholar

Galter, Hannes. 2014. “Sargon II. und die Eroberung der Welt.” In Krieg und Frieden im Alten Vorderasien, edited by Hans Neumann and Reinhard Dittmann, et al., 329 – 343. Munste.Search in Google Scholar

Galter, Hannes. 1984. “Die Zerstörung Babylons durch Sanherib.” Studia Orientalia 55(5): 161 – 173.Search in Google Scholar

George, Andrew. 1986. “Sennacherib and the Tablet of Destinies.” Iraq 48: 133 – 146.10.2307/4200258Search in Google Scholar

Grayson, A.K. 1992. “Assyria: Tiglath-pileser III to Sargon II (744 – 705 B.C.).” In Cambridge Ancient History 3/2.10.1017/CHOL9780521227179.003Search in Google Scholar

Green, Douglas. 2010. “I Undertook Great Works.” Tubingen.10.1628/978-3-16-151139-4Search in Google Scholar

Gruen, Erich. 2003. Review of Hall (2002). International Journal of the Classical Tradition, 10(2): 289 – 292.Search in Google Scholar

Gunter, Ann. 2009. Greek Art and the Orient. Cambridge, UK.Search in Google Scholar

Hall, Edith. 1989. Inventing the Barbarian. Oxford.Search in Google Scholar

Hall, Jonathan. 2002. Hellenicity. Chicago.Search in Google Scholar

Hall, Jonathan. 1997. Greek Ethnicity in Antiquity. Cambridge, UK.Search in Google Scholar

Haubold, Johannes. 2017. “Conflict, consensus and closure in Hesiod’s Theogony and Enūma eliš.” In Conflict and Consensus in Early Greek Hexameter Poetry, edited by Paola Bassino, Lilah Grace Canevaro, and Barbara Graziosi, 17 – 38. Cambridge.10.1017/9781316800034.002Search in Google Scholar

Haubold, Johannes. 2013. Greece and Mesopotamia. Cambridge, UK.10.1017/CBO9780511863240Search in Google Scholar

Hays, Christopher. 2019. The Origins of Isaiah 24 – 27. Cambridge, UK.10.1017/9781108582360Search in Google Scholar

Hays, Christopher. 2015. A Covenant with Death. Grand Rapids, MI.Search in Google Scholar

Hodos, Tamar. 2017. The Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and Globalization. London.Search in Google Scholar

Hodos, Tamar. 2009. “Colonial Engagements in the Global Mediterranean Iron Age,” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 19(2): 221 – 241.10.1017/S0959774309000286Search in Google Scholar

Horden, Peregrine and Nicholas Purcell. 2000. The Corrupting Sea. Oxford.Search in Google Scholar

Jameson, Fredric. 1981. The Political Unconscious. Ithaca, NY.Search in Google Scholar

Jennings, Justin. 2017. “Distinguishing Past Globalizations.” In The Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and Globalization, edited by Tamar Hodos, 12 – 28. London.Search in Google Scholar

Kurke, Leslie. 1992. “The Politics of ἁβροσύνη in Archaic Greece.” Classical Antiquity 11(1): 91 – 120.10.2307/25010964Search in Google Scholar

Lambert, Wilfred G. 2013. Babylonian Creation Myths. Winona Lake, IN.10.1515/9781575068619Search in Google Scholar

Lambert, Wilfred G. 1992. “The Assyrian Recension of Enuma eliš,” In Assyrien im Wandel der Zeiten, edited by Harmut Waetzoldt and Harald Hauptmann, 75 – 79. Heidelberg.Search in Google Scholar

Lane Fox, Robin. 2008. Travelling Heroes in the Epic Age of Homer. New York.Search in Google Scholar

Lauinger, Jacob. 2013. “The Neo-Assyrian adê: Treaty, Oath, or Something Else?” Zeitschrift für Altorientalische und Biblische Rechtsgeschichte 19: 99 – 115.Search in Google Scholar

Liverani, Mario. 2017. Assyria: The Imperial Mission. Winona Lake, IN.Search in Google Scholar

Liverani, Mario. 1999/2000. “The Sargon Geography and the Late Assyrian Mensuration of the World.” State Archives of Assyria Bulletin 13: 57 – 85.Search in Google Scholar

Liverani, Mario. 1995. “The Deeds of Ancient Mesopotamian Kings.” In Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, vol. IV, edited by Jack Sasson, 2353 – 2366. Peabody, MA.Search in Google Scholar

Livingstone, Alasdair. 1989. Court Poetry and Literary Miscellania. Winona Lake. (= SAA 3)Search in Google Scholar

Livingstone, Alasdair. 1986. Mystical and Mythological Explanatory Works of Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars. Oxford.Search in Google Scholar

Lo´pez-Ruiz, Carolina. 2010. When the Gods Were Born. Cambridge, MA.Search in Google Scholar

Machinist, Peter. 1983. “The Image of Assyria in First Isaiah.” JAOS 10(4): 719 – 737.10.2307/602231Search in Google Scholar

Malkin, Irad. 2011. A Small Greek World. Oxford.Search in Google Scholar

Malkin, Irad. 1998. The Returns of Odysseus. Berkeley.Search in Google Scholar

May, Natalie Naomi. 2015. “Administrative and Other Reforms of Sargon II and Tiglath-pileser III.” State Archives of Assyria Bulletin 21: 79 – 116.Search in Google Scholar

Melville, Sarah. 2016. The Campaigns of Sargon II: King of Assyria, 721 – 705 B.C. Norman, OK.Search in Google Scholar

Mitchell, Lynette G. 2007. Panhellenism and the Barbarian. Swansea.Search in Google Scholar

Mitchell, Lynette G. 2006. “Ethnic Identity and the Community of the Hellenes: A Review.” Ancient West & East 4(2): 409 – 420.10.1163/9789047406716_008Search in Google Scholar

Morris, Ian. 2003. “Mediterraneanization,” Mediterranean Historical Review 18(2): 30 – 55.10.1080/0951896032000230471Search in Google Scholar

Morris, Ian. 1997. “The Art of Citizenship.” In New Light on a Dark Age: Exploring the Culture of Geometric Greece, edited by Susan Langdon, 9 – 43. Columbia, MO.Search in Google Scholar

Morris, Ian. 1996. “The Strong Principle of Equality and the Archaic Origins of Greek Democracy.” In Demokratia, edited by Josiah Ober and Charles Hedrick, 19 – 48. Princeton.10.2307/j.ctv1ddczrx.7Search in Google Scholar

Morrow, William. 2011. “Tribute from Judah and the Transmission of Assyrian Propaganda.” In My Spirit at Rest in the North Country, edited by Hermann Niemann and Matthias Augustin, 183 – 192. Frankfort am Main.Search in Google Scholar

Nagy, Gregory. 1990. Greek Mythology and Poetics. Ithaca, NY.Search in Google Scholar

Nagy, Gregory. 1974. The Best of the Achaeans. Baltimore.Search in Google Scholar

Naveh, Joseph. 1982. Early History of the Alphabet. Jerusalem/Leiden.10.1163/9789004665583Search in Google Scholar

Parpola, Simo. 2003. “Assyria’s Expansions in the 8th and 7th Centuries and Its Long-Term Repercussions in the West.” In Symbiosis, Symbolism, and the Power of the Past, edited by William Dever and Seymour Gitin, 99 – 111. Winona Lake, IN.10.1515/9781575065458-010Search in Google Scholar

Parpola, Simo. 1995. “The Construction of Dur-Sharrukin in the Assyrian Royal Correspondence.” In Khorsabad, le palais de Sargon ii, roi d’Assyrie, edited by Annie Caubet, 49 – 77. Paris.Search in Google Scholar

Pitts, Martin and Miguel John Versluys, eds. 2015a. Globalisation and the Roman World, Cambridge, UK.10.1017/CBO9781107338920Search in Google Scholar

Pitts, Martin and Miguel John Versluys. 2015b. “Globalisation and the Roman World: Perspectives and Opportunities.” In Pitts and Versluys 2015a, 3 – 31. Cambridge, UK.10.1017/CBO9781107338920.002Search in Google Scholar

Pongratz-Leisten, Beate. 2015. Religion and Ideology in Assyria. Berlin.10.1515/9781614514268Search in Google Scholar

Pongratz-Leisten, Beate. 1997. “The Interplay of Military Strategy and Cultic Practice in Assyrian Politics.” In Assyria 1995, edited by Simo Parpola and Robert Whiting, 245 – 252. Helsinki.Search in Google Scholar

Pongratz-Leisten, Beate. 1994. Ina šulmi īrub. Mainz.Search in Google Scholar

Postgate, Nicholas. 1992. “The Land of Assur and the Yoke of Assur.” World Archaeology 23(3): 247 – 263.10.1080/00438243.1992.9980178Search in Google Scholar

Postgate, Nicholas. 1974. Taxation and Conscription in the Assyrian Empire. Rome.Search in Google Scholar

Quint, David. 1993. Epic and Empire. Princeton.10.1515/9780691222950Search in Google Scholar

Rawles, Richard. 2018. Simonides the Poet. Cambridge, UK.10.1017/9781316493816Search in Google Scholar

Richardson, Seth. 2016. “Getting Confident: The Assyrian Development of Elite Recognition Ethics.” In Cosmpolitanism and Empire, edited by Myles Lavan, Richard E. Payne, and John Weisweiler, 29 – 64. Oxford.Search in Google Scholar

Roberts, J. J. M. 2016. First Isaiah. Minneapolis.10.2307/j.ctvgs0919Search in Google Scholar

Robertson, Roland. 1995. “Glocalization: Time-Space and Homogeneity-Heterogeneity.” In Global Modernities, edited by Mike Featherstone, Scott Lash, and Roland Robertson, 25 – 44. London.10.4135/9781446250563.n2Search in Google Scholar

Robertson, Roland. 1992. Globalization. London.Search in Google Scholar

Robertson, Roland and David Inglis. 2006. “The Global animus: In the Tracks of World Consciousness.” In Globalization and World History, edited by Barry Gills and William Thompson, 33 – 47. London.Search in Google Scholar

Rollinger, Robert. 2016. “Royal Strategies of Representation and the Language(s) of Power: Some Considerations on the audience and the dissemination of the Achaemenid Royal Inscriptions.” In Official Epistolography and the Language(s) of Power, edited by S. Procházka et al., 117 – 130. Vienna.Search in Google Scholar

Rutherford, Ian. 2009. “Hesiod and the Literary Traditions of the Near East.” In Brill’s Companion to Hesiod, edited by in Franco Montanari, Antonios Rengakos, and Christos Tsagalis, 9 – 35. Leiden.10.1163/9789047440758_003Search in Google Scholar

Sampson, C. Michael. forthcoming. “Sappho 44: Troy vs. Mytilene.” In Her Songs Yet Remain, edited by Benjamin Acosta-Hughes and C. Michael Sampson. Cambridge, UK.Search in Google Scholar

Sanders, Seth. 2007. The Invention of Hebrew. Urbana, IL.Search in Google Scholar

Schrenk, Lawrence. 1994. “Sappho Frag. 44 and the ‘Iliad’.” Hermes 122(2): 144 – 150.Search in Google Scholar

Scodel, Ruth. 2002. Listening to Homer. Ann Arbor, MI.10.3998/mpub.17078Search in Google Scholar

Scully, Stephen. 2015. Hesiod’s Theogony: From Near Eastern Creation Myths to Paradise Lost. Oxford.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190253967.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Seri, Andrea. 2012. “The Role of Creation in Enūma eliš” JANER 12: 4 – 29.10.1163/156921212X629446Search in Google Scholar

Seri, Andrea. 2006. “The Fifty Names of Marduk in Enūma eliš.JAOS 126(4): 507 – 519.Search in Google Scholar

Sherratt, Andrew and Susan Sherratt. 1998. “Small Worlds: Interaction and Identity in the Ancient Mediterranean.” In The Aegean and the Orient in the Second Millennium, edited by Eric Cline and Diana Harris-Cline, 329 – 343. Liège.Search in Google Scholar

Sherratt, Andrew and Susan Sherratt. 1991. “From Luxuries to Commodities: The Nature of Mediterranean Bronze Age Trading Systems.” In Bronze Age Trade in the Mediterranean, edited by Noel H. Gale, 351 – 386. Jonsered.Search in Google Scholar

Sherratt, Susan. 2017. “A Globalizing Bronze and Iron Age Mediterranean.” In The Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and Globalization, edited by Tamar Hodos, 602 – 617. London.Search in Google Scholar

Steger, Manfred and Amentahru Wahlrab. 2017. What is Global Studies? London.10.4324/9781315459332Search in Google Scholar

Thomas, Rosalind. 2003. Review of Hall 2002. The American Historical Review 108.5:1501 – 1502.10.1086/530068Search in Google Scholar

Van de Mieroop, Marc. 2004. “A Tale of Two Cities: Nineveh and Babylon.” Iraq 66: 1 – 5.10.1017/S0021088900001558Search in Google Scholar

Van de Mieroop, Marc. 2003. “Revenge, Assyrian Style” Past & Present 179: 3 – 23.10.1093/past/179.1.3Search in Google Scholar

Van de Mieroop, Marc. 1999. “Literature and Political Discourse in Ancient Mesopotamia: Sargon II of Assyria and Sargon of Agade.” In Munuscula Mesopotamica: Festschrift für Johannes Renger, edited by Johannes Renger, Barbara Böck, Eva Christiane Cancik-Kirschbaum, and Thomas Richter, 327 – 339. Münster.Search in Google Scholar

Vansina, Jan. 1985. Oral Tradition as History. Madison, WI.Search in Google Scholar

Vlassopoulos, Kostas. 2015. “Ethnicity and Greek History: Re-examining our Assumptions.” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 58(2): 1 – 13.10.1111/j.2041-5370.2015.12008.xSearch in Google Scholar

Vlassopoulos, Kostas. 2013. Greeks and Barbarians. Cambridge, UK.10.1017/CBO9781139049368Search in Google Scholar

Walcot, Peter. 1966. Hesiod and the Near East. Cardiff.Search in Google Scholar

Wallerstein, Emmanuel. 1974. World-Systems Analysis. Berkeley.Search in Google Scholar

Weissert, Elnathan. 1992. “Creating a Political Climate: Literary Allusions to Enūma eliš in Sennacherib’s Account of the Battle of Halule.” In Assyrien im Wandel der Zeiten, edited by Harmut Waetzoldt and Harald Hauptmann, 191 – 202. Heidelberg.Search in Google Scholar

West, Martin. 1997. The East Face of Helicon. Oxford.10.1093/oso/9780198150428.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

West, Martin. 1966. Hesiod: Theogony. Oxford.Search in Google Scholar

Zaccagnini, Carlo. 1981. “An Urartean Royal Inscription in the Report of Sargon’s Eighth Campaign.” In Assyrian Royal Inscriptions: New Horizons in Literary, Historical, and Ideological Analysis, edited by Frederick Mario Fales, 259 – 294. Rome.Search in Google Scholar

Online erschienen: 2020-12-02

© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Titelseiten
  2. Titelseiten
  3. Articles
  4. Introduction
  5. Magic and Ritual
  6. Magic and Ritual
  7. Überlegungen zu einigen griechischen Wetterritualen
  8. And You Will Be Amazed: The Rhetoric of Authority in the Greek Magical Papyri
  9. Lawsuits with Headless Foes: A Greek Incantation Motif
  10. A Syntactic Approach to the Orphic Gold Leaves
  11. Materiality and Ancient Religion
  12. Materiality and Ancient Religion
  13. Accumulation, authority, and the cultural lives of objects: materiality and ancient religion
  14. Familiarity and Phenomenology in Greece: Accumulated Votives as Group-made Monuments
  15. The Cultural Biography of a Pilgrimage Token: From Hagiographical to Archaeological Evidence
  16. More than text: Approaching ritual papyri from Oxyrhynchus as inscribed objects
  17. Rethinking Orphic ‘Bookishness’: Text and Performance in Classical Mystery Religion
  18. Divine Names
  19. Divine Names
  20. Noms de dieux!” Gods at the borders
  21. Nommer les dieux hittites : au sujet de quelques épithètes divines
  22. Le culte de Zeus Brontôn : l’espace et la morphologie du dieu de l’orage dans la Phrygie d’époque romaine
  23. Séquences onomastiques divines à Ostie-Portus
  24. Myths of Origin
  25. Myths of Origin
  26. Ex arches: Looking Back at Greek Myths of Origin
  27. Typhoeus or Cosmic Regression (Theogony 821 – 880)
  28. Herakles and the Order of Zeus in Hesiod’s Theogony
  29. The Politics of Beginnings: Hesiod and the Assyrian Ideological Appropriation of Enuma Eliš
  30. Our Co(s)mic Origins: Theogonies in Greek Comedy
  31. At the Origins of Dionysus and Wine: Myths, Miracles, and Festivals
  32. Creation in the Poimandres and in Other Creation Stories
  33. The God Aion in a Mosaic from Nea Paphos (Cyprus) and Graeco-Phoenician Cosmogonies in the Roman East
  34. Ἀρχή and δῖνος: Vortices as Cosmogonic Powers and Cosmic Regulators. Study Case: The Whirling Lightning Bolt of Zeus
Downloaded on 19.9.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/arege-2020-0018/html?lang=en
Scroll to top button