Honours and Destinies: Hesiod’s Theogony and the Babylonian Epic of Creation

That Hesiod engaged directly with the so-called Babylonian Epic of Creation (Enuma elish, or Song of Marduk) is a poorly supported possibility. But reading the Theogony in the broader context of ancient Near Eastern cosmogonic poetry is important in historical, anthropological, and theological perspective. For those interested in the relation between Hesiod and Pre-Socratic thought, it is also important philosophically. How do the poems’ conceptions of cosmic and political order compare? What are the role and limits of language and poetry, human and divine, in constructing order? Recent comparisons have often addressed these two questions – the first more extensively than the second – separately, and this paper seeks to explore the possibility that answers should be related. It argues that Hesiod displays a relational conception both of poetry and of political order (allotting honours) which is typical of the early Greek epic tradition, whereas Enuma elish presents a conception of language and power (proclaiming destinies) as metaphysically inscribed in a notionally pre-existing, ideally planned world design. Among other implications, this reading affects how we view the divine rule of Marduk and Zeus in relation to ancient Near Eastern theocratic monarchy and the rise of the Greek polis.