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At a couple of points in this class,

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we've mentioned that the Greeks
are not sitting in isolation.

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They're connected to many other cultures
around this wonderfully connective body of

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water, the Mediterranean Sea.

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In the case of Homer, sometimes
these connections are hard to find.

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It's difficult to find direct linkages
between the kinds of themes and subject

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matter that Homer treats, and other
parallel stories around the Mediterranean.

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Needless to say, they must have existed,

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we just don't have a rich enough
evidence base to tell us what they were.

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When we get to Hesiod the picture's
a little bit different.

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We actually have connections with
Hesiod's theogony that we can isolate and

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label in many different traditions around
the ancient Near East, especially.

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The way that this general pictures goes,
illustrated on the map behind me,

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we have very,
very old cultures in the fertile crescent.

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The Sumerians and Babylonians,
who are there for many many millennia and

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the, before the common era and
much earlier than the Greeks are.

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There are also literary records
that's survived from these groups

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some millennia after the fact but the
literary records do survive in cuneiform.

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And we have some tellings
of poetic stories,

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with a couple of linkages to things like
the Odyssey or the Iliad but with really

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striking resemblances to some of
the themes that animate Hesiod's Theogony.

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Talking about this connection with
these other cultures is a very

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helpful way to start our
discussion of Hesiod's Theogony.

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The underline concepts in the theogony
are not at all exclusive to Greek myth,

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several myths.

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Several Near Eastern cultures
have their own religions and

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also their own creation myths.

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And they have sometimes striking
similarities with Hesiod's Theogony.

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The Babylonians have their epically
unleash the creation epic.

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It's a story of the creation of the
universe and serves as a justification for

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the supremacy of their highest god.

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Marduk is this person.

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And Marduk defeats an earlier

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goddess called Tiamat,oe of two
original divinities in the world.

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Scholars have long recognized many
similarities between Marduk, and Zeus.

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Like Zeus, Marduk is a sky god,
he is of a younger generation.

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He overthrows an older generation and
establishes himself as top dog.

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Creating order and overthrowing
his parents in order to triumph.

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The Babylonians intended that the Enuma
Elish should serve as a song of praise for

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the king of the gods.

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Similarly in Hesiod's story,

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we're going to see a kind of triumphant
narrative about the greatness of Zeus.

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And this is going to serve as
a kind of hymnic praise for

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Zeus's position in the universe.

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Also the Sumerians occupying the same,
well for our purposes, fertile crescent.

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So in that general region.

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The Sumerians had their own
system of gods and goddesses.

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Among the principal Sumerian gods were An,
the sky god and the supreme authority,

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and Inanna, the queen of the gods and
the goddess of sexual love and war.

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And Enlil, a storm god who was
also active in earthly events.

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Their myths covered a variety
of topics including creation

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of the world and of humans.

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The Sumerian gods also figure prominently
in Gilgamesh, the epic of Gilgamesh,

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the oldest epic in existence thanks to
the cuneiform that kept that intact.

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Gilgamesh's story has surprising
similarities to some of the military

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aspects in the Iliad and in some of
the journey parts of the Odyssey.

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The culture, the Hittites and the
Hurrians, located there as the cultures

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in the fertile crescent expand and
move into the Anatolia Plain.

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Hittites and Hurrians had their own
sets of gods and goddesses with some

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relationship to what we see in
the Sumerian and Babylonian traditions.

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There is a kingship in heaven myth for
the Hittites.

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The complete story is not fully known.

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But the kingship in heaven bears some
obvious similarities to what we know.

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Bears obvious similarities to
what's happening in Theology.

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The first God of heaven Alalu, is over
thrown by Anu who assumes his role.

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His cup bearer is named Kumarbi.

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And Kumarbi challenges Anu and eventually
cuts off his genitals and swallows them.

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Anu then tells Kumarbi that he has become
impregnated with several divinities.

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Kumarbi then spits out something which
probably included the genitals of Anu.

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At this point the text breaks off and

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we're not quite sure where
the rest of it goes.

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But as we're reading the Theogony, we see
that several of these things, strange and

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difficult as they seem,

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are going to bear relationship with themes
that we're going to see in the Theogony.

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From generations where younger ones
overthrow older ones, to things like

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castration, to a kind of efficacious power
of the genitals after they're sliced off.

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And then further leading into some
of the details of Hesiod's story.

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In the case of Hesiod, we're able to find
these links a little bit more readily.

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Just so happens that the literary
tradition that preexisted Hesiod, survives

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a little bit more intact thanresumably the
literary tradition that preceded Homer.

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We don't have as many connections
that we can draw with Homer,

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but as I said at the beginning I think we
can be quite sure that they are there.

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It's just that the historical record in
a way gives Homer a kind of free pass.

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We can draw connections with others and

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Homer just kind of seems to sit there
in this magnificent isolated glory.

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If we didn't have all of these other epics
to compare Hesiod with,we'd probably think

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the same thing of him.

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Once these cultures make contact
with one another,and you can see

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the Overland the possibilities in
our prior map, as cultural forms

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move from the fertile crescent across
the anitonian plain and into Greece.

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When contact is made, it leaves a mark.

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And it helps the Greeks shape their own
ideas about how creation might work as

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we'll see when we turn to the pages
that open up Hesiod's theogony.