Whose Greece?

Greek Myths and Mesopotamia: Parallels and Influence in the Homeric Hymns and Hesiod by
Charles Penglase
Review by: Stephen Scully
International Journal of the Classical Tradition, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Fall, 1997), pp. 247-255
Published by: Springer
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REVIEWARTICLES

Whose Greece?

Parallelsand Influencein the Homeric

Charles Penglase, GreekMyths and Mesopotamia:
HymnsandHesiod(London & New York:Routledge, 1994),278 pp. (paperbackedition,
1997,292 pp.)

It is useful to remind ourselves, when thinking of the classical tradition, that

ancient Greekculture did not suddenly emerge full-grown like Athena out of the head
of Zeus. However distinct we may consider the Greek traditionto be, it is far from sui
generis,a gold nugget that may be dug out of Hellenic soil, but is itself of composite
nature, an amalgam of traditions,technologies, and religions of Greek and non-Greek
origins. As a corollary to the study of the classical traditionit pays to rememberthis
prehistory,the Greek debt to the "barbarians,"and the Greeks'own sense of tradition.
Unlike its most inspired goddess, Greece experienced a long period of evolution be-
fore the city-state reached its mature form in the fifth century BCE. An Indo-European
people who arrived in Greece from the north around 2000 BCE With the horse and the
Indo-European male sky-god cult, the early Greeksgave birth to the Mycenaeancivili-
zation around 1600 BCE,conquering the Minoans of Crete more than a century later
and taking command of the Aegean. Fierce warriors, the Mycenaeans also became
expert sailors and far-flung merchants,their wares reaching as far afield as modem-
day Britainand Iran,before their own catastrophicdestructionbetween 1180 and 1120
BCEwhen Greece entered the so-called Dark Age.1 From 800 BCE the Greek city-state
gradually emerged, first along the Asia Minor coast, reaching its classical form three
hundred years later.
Mycenaeanculture drew not only from its own Indo-Europeantraditionsbut also
from other peoples, many of impressive sophistication,whom the Greeks defeated or
knew through trade. They included indigenous pre-Greeks,the Minoans from whom
the Mycenaeans borrowed much including their writing system, and the peoples of
the east: Egyptians, Phoenicians, Babylonians,Assyrians, and Hittites, among others.
1. Periodizationinevitably distorts our understandingof the past as well as enablingit. Recent
archaeologicalfinds, dating to 1000 BCE, at Lefkandion Euboiareveal that areas in Greece
were far less isolated in the Dark Ages than previously believed, leading some scholarsto
dispell the notion of a Greek Dark Age altogether;cf. Sarah Morris, "Introduction,"in
GreecebetweenEastand West:10th-8thCenturiesBC (GunterKopcke and IsabelleTokumaru
edd.) (Mainz,1992),xvii-xviii.A worthyrebuttalmaybe foundby IanMorris,"Periodiza-
tionandthe Heroes:Inventinga DarkAge,"in InventingAncientCulture(MarkGoldenand
PeterTooheyedd.) (London,1997),96-131.Fora noteworthydiscussionof the largenum-
ber of settlementsbetween 1100-700,including Lefkandi,that were only occupied for a few
generations, see James Whitley, "SocialDiversity in Dark Ages Greece,"TheAnnualof the
BritishSchoolat Athens86 (1991),34-65.Foran overviewof Greekhistoryfrom1200to the
eighth century, see Robin Osborne, Greecein the Making,1200-479Bc (London, New York,
1996),the chapter"TheProblemof Beginnings,"pp. 19-51.

International
Journalof theClassicalTradition,Vol.4, No. 2, Fall 1997,pp.247-276.
248 International
Journalof theClassicalTradition/ Fall 1997

Even importations from prehistoric Europe appear in Greece some time before 1200
BCEin the example of the Nave II slashing-sword from the Danube basin. With the
dramatic growth in trade and the beginning of colonization in the eighth century, the
importance of the east for Greece again significantly increased, leading art historians,
as a case in point, to label the style of Greek art in the following century the Orientaliz-
ing Period.2
Remarkably ethnocentric and intensely conscious of their differences from other
peoples, the Greeks themselves only dimly acknowledged their rich debt to eastern
achievements.3 Their fascination with the Egyptians, who were able to trace their
ancestry back many generations, was the one great exception to this general tendency
and it was to them that the Greeks tended to give credit, at the expense of other
eastern peoples. For example, Herodotus, having visited both Egypt and Babylon,
asserted, rather unreliably, that the names and nature of nearly all the gods came to
Greece from Egypt.4 The Greeks also commonly believed that philosophy originated
in Egypt, first brought into their own country by Pythagoras in the sixth century.5 A
tradition within the Academy dating perhaps to Speusippus, Plato's nephew and suc-
cessor as head of the Academy, has it that Plato himself traveled to Egypt,6and, if we
are to believe Krantor, a late fourth-century member of the Academy, Plato's contem-
poraries mocked him for claiming that he created the Republicwhen everyone knew he
copied Egyptian institutions.7 The Greeks also ascribed the invention of mathematics,

2. Cf. Sarah Morris,Daidalosand the Originsof GreekArt (Princeton,1992) and J. Hurwit, The
Art and Cultureof EarlyGreece(Ithaca,N.Y., 1985);WalterBurkert,TheOrientalizingRevolu-
tion:NearEasternInfluenceon GreekCulturein the EarlyArchaicAge (tr. by M. E. Pinder and
WalterBurkert)(Cambridge,Mass., 1992).
3. A number of Greeks, especially sophists and Hippocratic writers, questioned the Greek
tendency to divide humans between Greeks and "barbarians";see Heinrich von Staden,
"Affinitiesand Elisions:Hellen and Hellenocentrism,"Isis 83 (1992),580-81 and H.C. Bald-
ry, TheUnityof Mankindin GreekThought(Cambridge,1965).
4. Herodotus 2.50.
5. Cf. the fourth-centuryAthenianoratorIsocrates,who in his Burisis21 and 28-30 also prais-
es the Egyptiansfor their practicalwisdom, law, and piety. For even greateradmirationfor
Egyptian culture,see Hecataeusof Abdera,whose Aegyptiacawas written at the end of the
fourth century. See Felix Jacoby,Fragmenteder griechischenHistoriker,IIIA (Leiden, 1940),
esp. 264 F 1-6 and F 25. Also see Plato, Timaeus20d-26e; on Diodorus of Sicily who, circa40
BCE,wrote a history of the world, tracing the origin of many things, including the gods,
writing, and mathematicsto Egypt (cf. 1.9.2ff),see ThomasCole, Democritusand the Sources
of GreekAnthropology (Atlanta,1990),15-7 and 176-92.
6. Cf. JonathanBarnes,"TheHellenisticPlatos,"Apeiron24 (1991),118, citing Heinrich Dorrie,
Der Platonismusin derAntikevol. II (Stuttgart,1990), 429 n. 13; Luc Brisson, "L'Egyptede
Platon,"LesEtudesphilosophiques (1987),153-67, esp. 162-66; BernardMathieu, "Le voyage
de Platon en Egypte,"Annalesdu Servicedes Antiquitisd'Egypte71 (1987), 153-67. Also see
Geoffrey Kirk,"Popperon Scienceand the Presocratics,"Mind 69 (1960),326-27, where he
considersbriefly Egyptianand Near Easterninfluences.
7. Cf. Proclus, In PlatonisTimaeumcommentarii (E. Diehl ed.), vol. I, ser. BibliothecaTeubneri-
ana (Leipzig, 1903),76.
8. While "Pythagorean"triangleswere known in the Near East a millennium before the Greek
philosopher, mathematician,and religious leader was born in Samos about 580 BCE,the
Greeks connected him, and the origins of mathematics,with Egypt. For the Greek sense of
indebtedness to the Egyptians,see Plato, Phaedrus274c5-275b2(but see Phaedrus' skepti-
cism, 275b3-4);Aristotle,Metaphysics1.1.981b23-25;Diodorus 1.9.6.See furtherRobertPal-
ReviewArticles 249

and especially astronomy, to the Egyptians.8 Modem historians also speak of Greek
borrowings from Egypt in a number of areas, including the arts (e.g., Mycenaean
painting, archaic sculpture, and perhaps more indirectly stone monumental temple
architecture) and medicine, especially in the sphere of drugs. As early as the Odyssey,
Homer associated pain-easing drugs with Egypt, the pharmakonwhich Helen slips into
the wine being of Egyptian origin.9
But the Greeks seemed to have little awareness that they owed to the Near East a
debt which equalled if not significantlysurpassed that to Egypt. In a general way, the
mythic traditionthat Cadmus, founder of Thebes,followed Europaacross the Aegean
from Phoenicia acknowledges perhaps the importationof Phoenician objects,ingenu-
ity, and ideas to the Greekmainland.Similarly,the belief that Pelops, namesake of the
Peloponnesos ("Island of Pelops") and father of Atreus and Thyestes, arrived from
Lydia in Asia Minor testifies that not all Greeksbelieved that they were autochthones,
"issued from th.e(Greek)soil." But beyond this general perception,the ancient Greeks
did not tend to acknowledge a Near Eastern influence. About the origins of their
alphabet,derived from Phoenician,or perhaps earlierCanaanite,models, Greeksoften
said that it was a gift of their own gods or an invention by one of their own (though
there were rival traditions tracing writing to the Syrians, Assyrians, or Egyptians), this
despite the fact that the Greek word for papyrus, and later for book, biblos, derives
from the name of the Phoenician city Byblos from whose port papyrus entered Greece
around 600 BCE.'oContrary to Greek claims, mathematics probably originates from
Mesopotamians, upon whose work Greek mathematicians would later build."11
A study of Egyptian and Mesopotamian representations of the Sphinx offers one
example of the complexity and cross-currents at work in Greek cultural adaptation.
Originating in Egypt as a non-winged male figure with a lion's body, signifying the

ter, "BlackAthena,Afrocentrism,and the History of Science,"in BlackAthenaRevisited(Mary

Lefkowitz and Guy Rogers edd.) (Chapel Hill, 1996), 232-33 (first published in Historyof
Science31 [1993],227-87), and MartinBernal,"Responseto RobertPalter,"Historyof Science
32 (1994),445-64, with Palter'scommentsfollowing, 464-68.
9. Cf. Odyssey4.219-34: Drugs, good and bad, grow in Egyptian soil and all Egyptians as
descendants of Paion ("Healer")are skilled physicians, the passage adds. Cf. Herodotus,
2.77 and 84. On the distinctivenessof Greekmedicine, see G.F.R.Lloyd, Magic,Reasonand
Experience: Studiesin the Originsand Developmentof GreekScience(Cambridge,1979),37-49
and 226-34;on healing practicesin Mesopotamia,Egypt, and Greece,see Guido Majno,The
HealingHand:Manand Woundin theAncientWorld(Cambridge,Mass., 1975),29-206.
10. Cf. Aeschylus, Prometheus460; Herodotus, 5.57-59; Plato, Phaedrus274c5-275b2;scholia ad
Hom.II.7.185 (= HartmutErbse[ed.], ScholiaGraecain HomeriIliademvol. II [Berlin,1971],p.
261);Diodorus, 1.9.2;Pliny, NaturalHistory7.192-93. On the invention of the alphabetand
on early Greek alphabets see L.H. Jeffrey,The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece, rev. and
suppl. by A.W. Johnston (Oxford, 1990). For a minimalist view of the influence of other
languages on Greek, see E.D. Francis, "The Impact of non-Indo-Europeanlanguages on
Greek and Mycenaean,"in Reconstructing Languagesand Cultures(Edgar C. Polomb and
Werner Winter edd.), Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs 58 (Berlin & New
York, 1992), 469-506. In response to the view that a single person invented the Greek
alphabet in order to record the Homeric songs, as argued by BarryPowell, Homerand the
Originof the GreekAlphabet(Cambridge,1991),see DeborahSteiner,"GreekLetters,"Arion
3rd ser. 5 (1997),233-41.
11. Cf. O. Neugebauer, The ExactSciencesin Antiquity2nd ed. (Providence, 1957) and his A
Historyof AncientMathematical Astronomy3 vols. (New York, 1975);B.L.van der Waerden,
250 International
Journalof theClassicalTradition/ Fall1997

pharaoh, the Sphinx emerges in Mesopotamia as a female creature, winged with lion's
body and woman's bust, whose function was to guard passageways.12 It is not the
Egyptian, but the Mesopotamian Sphinx, perhaps reaching Greece through Syria, which
we find in Mycenaean art. The Mycenaean depiction of two heraldic Sphinxes over
doorways suggests that the Greeks may have retained something of the Sphinx's Near
Eastern attributes as well. Having either survived the Mycenaean collapse or re-en-
tered Greece a second time, the Sphinx, still in its Mesopotamian form as a winged
female figure, reappearsin early archaicart after the Dark Age. These Greek Sphinxes
of the Geometricand Orientalizingperiod, like the archaicGreekgriffin,winged horse,
and sirens, also derive from the east, not Egypt. Their depiction as decorative motifs
on Greek pots seems more ornamentaland benign in design than manifestations of
religious power, leading art historians to conclude that Greek artisans, heavily bor-
rowing Near Easternmotifs, were more indebted at this period in Greek art to eastern
forms than content. At about the same time the Greeksbegan to reinterpretthe figure
in a distinctly Greek manner, her multi-form figure blurring the boundaries between
man and nature and threatening rather than guarding civilized space. Humankind
was helpless against her riddle until a man, distinguished by his intellect, deciphered
the mystery, as it were, of her body as well as of her words.'3
Martin Bemrnal'sfar-reaching work, Black Athena: The Afroasiatic roots of classical
civilization, has been a blessing (perhaps in disguise) in having given a sense of urgen-
cy to the question of the Greeks' indebtedness to their eastern neighbors, Semitic and
Egyptian.14 Reviews of these volumes and of the cottage industry of books, articles,

ScienceAwakening(tr. by Arnold Dresden) (New York, 1961). For a study of tradition and
innovation in the sciences in the Near East,Egypt, and Greece,see G.F.R.Lloyd, TheRevolu-
tionsof Wisdom:Studiesin theClaimsandPracticeof AncientGreekScience(Berkeley,1987),50-
108. Also see note 8, above. A recentview, not widely embraced,argues that the roots of the
Greek novel, and those of its strangeLatincousin in works like the Satryiconand TheGolden
Ass, be traced not to Egypt, as is commonly done, but to Sumerian literature;cf. Graham
Anderson, AncientFiction:TheNovelin theGraeco-Roman World(Kent,1984);against Ander-
son see now Consuelo Ruiz-Montero,"The Rise of the Greek Novel," in TheNovel in the
AncientWorld(GarethSchmelinged.), Mnemosyne Supplement 159 (Leiden, New York, &
Ko1n,1996),75-6.
12. Cf. A. Dessenne, LeSphinx:etudeiconographique (Paris,1957).As a guardianof passageways,
she can also lead to the Underworld.Now see in lan Morris (ed.), ClassicalGreece:Ancient
Historiesand ModernArchaeologies, ser. New Directions in Archaeology (Cambridge,1994),
ch. 2 by Ian Morris, "Archaeologiesof Greece,"pp. 8-47, and Herbert Hoffmann, "The
riddle of the Sphinz:a case study in Athenianimmortalitysymbolism,"pp. 71-80.
13. The MycenaeanSphinxesfacing each other atop a doorway are found in the Pylos Museum;
for other heraldic MycenaeanSphinxes, see Jean-ClaudePoursat,Lesivoiresmyciniens(Par-
is, 1977), 59-61; cf. Reynold Higgins, Minoanand MycenaeanArt (London, 1981), 102, 116,
130; cf. Timothy Gantz, EarlyGreekmyth:A Guideto LiteraryandArtisticSources(Baltimore,
1993),23-4 and 494-98 (in regardto Oedipus);IngridKrauskopf,s.v. "Oidipous,"in Lexicon
Iconographicum MythologiaeClassicaeVII (Zurich, 1994), Vol. I, p. 3-8; Vol. II, plates 10-80,
also in regardto the Thebanhero.
14. Vol. I: Thefabricationof ancientGreece(New Brunswick,N.J., 1987)has now been translated
into five languages;vol. II:Thearchaeologicalanddocumentary evidence(1991);vol. III:Solving
the riddleof the Sphinx(well under way). Bernalis also preparing for a popular audience
MosesandMuses.
ReviewArticles 251

popular media, and lively Internet exchanges spawned from them, may be found
elsewhere in this journal.'5sBernal'sstudies are, sadly, weakened by his penchant for
sweeping generalization, ideological bias, occasional slapdash use of evidence, and
what I consider to be his hyperactive attention to Egypt at the expense of Phoenician
and Mesopotamianinfluences. For those who look to Egypt for origins of African and
even more importantly of Euro-Americanculture and "whiteness,"Bernal--in some
measure ironically because he is white--has helped legitimate Afrocentrism as an
intellectualmovement.16But for those interested in the story of Greekborrowings, his
work has tended regrettablyto narrow the question of Greek indebtedness to Egypt
alone. That said, Bernal has challenged Classical scholars, Egyptologists, and, more
indirectly, Orientaliststo rethinkquestions of influence, adaptation,and borrowing in
a wide range of disciplines: archaeology, philosophy, religion, science, and literary
studies. Equally significant is the fact that Classicists are now examining how "Apol-
linian," Greek religion, culture, and even science resorted to "superstition"and other
"irrational"argumentation.17Familiar texts are being examined in unfamiliar ways
and other texts formerlyset aside are coming into the limelight. Bernal'seye to the east
is certainly not original with him but he has brought to center stage questions that
were in the past too frequentlyignored.
In the book under review, Charles Penglase ignores Bernal,whose work is not
listed in the bibliography;nor does he have anything to say about Egypt. In the one
instance (pp. 163-65) when he raises the question of whether Greek myth owes a
greater debt to its Near Eastern,primarily Semitic, neighbors, or to its proto-Indo-
European roots, he comes down strongly in favor of Mesopotamian influence. In its
narrow scope, this book is about that influence and in its own way contributesspend-
idly to our understandingof the question.
Penglase's approach is to examine two Mesopotamianjourney myths in detail:
that of the goddess Inannawho travels to the underworld to extend her power and in
some myths to rescue her mortal consort Dumuzi, and that of the youthful warrior

15. Cf. Norma Thompson in IJCT3.4 (Spring1997),529-533, a review of Mary Lefkowitz,Not

Out of Africa:HowAfrocentrism Becamean Excuseto TeachMythas History(New York, 1996).
In response to the criticismsin these two recentvolumes, a numberof books are in prepara-
tion, including BlackAthenaWritesBack(Martin Bernal and David Chioni Moore, edd.;
Duke University Press Durham, NC, scheduled release Spring 1999); Just Out of Africa
(Molefi Asante and MaulanaKarengaedd.); Heresyin the University(JacquesBerlinerblau,
ed., RutgersUniversityPress,New Brunswick,NJ,scheduled for 1998).
16. For a fine overview of Afrocentrismincluding a discussion of Egypt as an ancient black
civilization in that ideology, see Gerald Early, "UnderstandingAfrocentrism,"Civilization
(July-August1995),31-9. For the declining popularityof ArthurHaley's Rootsand its eden-
ic image of a precolonialSub-SaharanWest Africa,see Jim Sleeper,"WayOut of Africa"in
his LiberalRacism(New York,1997),96-117;see also Keith Richburg,Out of America:A Black
Man ConfrontsAfrica(New York, 1997).For the diversity of Africancultures and a rethink-
ing of the question of Pan-Africanism,see Anthony Appiah, In My Father'sHouse:Africain
thePhilosophyof Culture(New York,1992).
17. On science and culture,see von Staden (note 3, above), 578-95;also G.E.R.Lloyd, "Methods
and Problems in the History of Science," Isis 83 (1992), 564-77. On religion, see Burkert
(note 2, above), 65-73, and passim;ChristopherFaraone and Dirk Obbink (edd.), Magika
Hiera.AncientGreekMagicand Religion(New York,1991);and my Homerand the SacredCity
(Ithaca,1990),28-31 and 141-57.
252 International oftheClassical
Journal Tradition
/Fall 1997

god Ninurta who travels from the city of Ekurto the temple of Enki in Eridu where he
gains and flaunts his newly gained power. Penglase then examines Greek myths,
especially in the Homeric Hymns, of gods' journeys and acquisition of power. In
drawing comparisons that are convincing for the most part, and certainly stimulating,
he argues that Near Easternmyths have fashionedGreekreligious and mythical thought
to a much greater extent than previously suspected. In the process we learn not only
much about Mesopotamian myth and religion but also how the Greek imagination
was fed and matured by its adaptations and transformationsof Near Easternstories
and symbols.
He dates Mesopotamian influence, not to Mycenaean times, but to the early ar-
chaic period when Greek cities were forging their own mix of thought and religion
that would prove so importantfor the future shape of western culture. And unlike the
art historians, he sees this influence to be substantive, not formal. In advancing these
claims, Penglase draws upon earlier scholarship of Near Eastern influence on Greek
myth. The discovery of the Hittite texts Kingshipin Heavenand TheMyth of Ullikummi
half a century ago showed the shaping effect of Near Eastern cosmogonic texts and
succession myths upon Hesiod's Theogony.1s From our perspective it remains a curiosi-
ty that Herodotus was willing to equate Greek and Egyptian gods while remaining
blind to these Near Easternparallels.Mesopotamianinfluences on Hesiod's Worksand
Days are also well-documented today, and increasingly we are coming to realize the
benefit of similar scrutiny regardingHomer and Near Easternmyth and religion (Pen-
glase, pp. 197-211). But Penglase has taken these comparisons in a new direction,
finding intriguing correspondenceswith Mesopotamianmotifs in the Homeric hymns
to Apollo, Demeter, and Persephone, Aphrodite, Athena, and isolated episodes in
Hesiod. He makes no claim about the origins of the deities discussed, but insists that
"Mesopotamianideas [a favorite word of his]... changed the understanding which
the Greekshad of their religion and of their deities, at least as they are presented in the
religious mythological world" (p. 242).
The nature of this "change"took many forms. In the case of the HomericHymn to
Apollo,which creatively interweaves motifs both from the Inanna descent myths and
combative Ninurta myths, "the poet seems to demonstrate that he has an intimate
knowledge" of both myths and has cleverly and imaginatively assembled "them in
such a way as to present his own story about Apollo without once misrepresentingthe
material and the concepts which underlie it" (p. 112). The less direct influence in the
HomericHymn to Demeter"is not a case of the slavish copying of material and ideas,
but rather a creative process of combining presumably native Greek material with the
Mesopotamian journey ideas" (p. 146). When the narrative patterns of the Homeric
Hymn to Aphroditediffer markedly from those of Inanna and her consort, the Greeks
created "new, delightful and rather sophisticated myths, while reworking old and
possibly foreign ideas and materialfrom divergent [and predominantly Mesopotami-
an] sources" (p. 176). Greekmyths surroundingPandoraand Prometheus "show intel-
ligent and creative use" (p. 228) of the Mesopotamian tradition involving the creation

18. Cf. Penglase(pp. 185-96).For the need to exercisecautionregardingPenglase'suse of

Mesopotamian myth,see W.G.Lambert's reviewof Penglasein the Journalof theAmerican
Oriental
Society116(1996),768-71.Equally,if not more,significantaretheparallelsbetween
the Akkadian Enuma Elish and the Theogony,treated briefly by Penglase (pp. 189-95). For a
fine new translationof the Akkadiancreationmyth, see BenjaminFoster, BeforetheMuses:
AnAnthology
ofAkkadian
Literature
2nded. (Bethesda,
Maryland,1996),350-401.
ReviewArticles 253

of humankind and the ascent of Inanna/Ishtar,displaying "the creative use of a living

tradition in a new cultural environment" (p. 229). In the case of Athena, complex
Mesopotamianbeliefs are compressed and concentrated,presented "mostly by means
of allusion and symbol" (p. 236). By contrast, there is an "absence of Mesopotamian
ideas" in the HomericHymnto Hermes(p. 184).Such study of foreign wines poured into
Greekbottles makes for exciting reading as it helps show a younger culture quickened
by the reception-imitation, adaptation, and transformation--of crucial mythic pat-
terns from older, established cultures to suit a new religious environment and social
structure.
For all the wealth of informationhe provides, it is a shame that Penglase does not
explore why the Greeks were so drawn to Mesopotamianmyth. Though the reasons
for this affinity cannot be simple or monolithic, a broad-basedunderstanding of it is
not impossible to reconstruct.To a much greaterextent than the Greekswould tolerate
for themselves, Mesopotamianculturewas theocentric,but its religion and myth were
literally centered around the identity of their cities. The cosmic homes of the gods lay
within the city. Mesopotamiancreationmyths celebratedthe making of a universe that
culminates in the making of a city and an enduring political order which displaces an
earlier, family-based structuremarked by violent successsion. The relevance of these
models for the Theogonyis well-known, even if the prevailing scholarly opinion is that
the Zeus-generatedOlympus does not representa polity (thus ignoring that Olympus
is called a polisin one of the scholia ad Iliadem1.497and that Zeus' Olympus has much
in common with humankind's "just polis" in the Worksand Days, lines 225-37).19 Even
when the details of Mesopotamianmyths have little to do with city themes, as is the
case with those studied by Penglase, they must perforceexist within the context of an
over-archingpolitical, and city-centered,mythological order. That the Greeks should
be drawn to these patterns in their own creationmyths and in their own beliefs about
the Olympians at the time of their own emerging city-states is hardly surprising. By
contrast, few myths from the temple-oriented kingdoms of Egypt would have the
same obvious relevanceto the evolving Greekimagination.
No appreciativereading of a scholarly treatisecan be free from debate. My reser-
vations concern the way Penglase defines "journey,"the mythic pattern that joins all
the myths in this book, in comparisons "based almost entirely on the structuralcom-
position of the journeys and the ideas which are expressed in them" (p. 8). He writes,
rathernaively, that his interpretation,free from theory, will be "free of subjectivityto
philosophical schema" (sic) and will "achieve... complete objectivity"(p. 11). Even
setting aside the solecism of "subjectivity"for "subjection,"what hermeneuticalstrate-
gy ever rinsed "ideas"clear of all personal preconception?Penglase's premise that all
journeys are made to acquireor demonstratepower is not without its own difficulties,
sometimes straining the notion of power acquired,at other times restrictingthe line of
vision.
For example, in order for Inanna/Ishtar to ascend from the Land of No Return,
she is forced to leave a substitutebehind. Her choice of Dumuzi, her bridegroom,may
suggest her power over him but it also underlines the limitation of her powers in this

19. Cf. HartmutErbse (ed.), ScholiaGraecain HomeriIliademvol. I (Berlin,1969), Scholia A, p.

137. Also see my "The Nature of the Gods in Early Greek Poetic Thought,"Philosophies of
Nature:theHumanDimension(RobertS. Cohen and Alfred I. Tauber,eds.) (Dordrecht,1997),
forthcoming.
254 International oftheClassical
Journal Tradition
/ Fall1997

grievous economy of dying and rising, of descent and return. Pace Penglase, Inanna
has not achieved the power to descend and rise again with impunity (p. 22). In his
account of other versions of this descent motif, Penglase does establish the theme of
power as in the story of the mother goddess Duttur going in search of her lost son,
Damu, in whose return fertility and prosperity are brought to his city. While not
insensitive to differencesbetween Near Easternand Greekmythic patterns,he details
numerous correspondencesbetween these myths and the story of Demeter's grief over
Persephone's marriage and her "rescue" of Persephone from Hades. Interested in
tracing possible parallels, Penglase mentions that the Sumeriantriad of mother, sister,
and male child (Duttur, Geshtinanna, Damus) "is shown" on Greek pottery in the
standard tableau of Demeter, Persephone, and an anonymous male child, perhaps
Ploutos (Wealth)(p. 134),but he is silent about the triad of Hekate (or Rhea), Demeter,
and Persephone which is so important to this myth.20Near Easternparallels support
Penglase's importantpoint that the myth demonstratesDemeter's power and authori-
ty, to which Zeus must bow, but parallels between Damu and Persephone lead Pen-
glase to argue, most impausibly, that, in spite of lines like "Hades was sitting in bed
with his revered wife" (HomericHymn to Demeter,line 343), Persephone returns to her
mother as a girl, uninitiatedin her womanhood.
Penglase interprets Aphrodite's journey to Anchises on Mt. Ida as a sign of her
power to stir sexual desire in all creaturesof the universe, except for Hestia, Athena,
and Artemis, while neglecting to mention that Zeus cast sweet longing in her for the
mortal Anchises in order that she be subjectto her own teasing impulse of joining
immortals to mortals (HomericHymn to Aphroditelines 45-52). Penglase speaks fre-
quently of the various ornaments described in dressing as signs of acquired power,
but says nothing about the wonderful stories in Sumerian myths, as well as in the
HomericHymn to Aphrodite(lines 161-65), where dressing is a preparationfor undres-
sing, and clothing a vehicle of seduction. This does not invalidate Penglase's observa-
tions, but it certainly puts a different spin on this recurringmotif and his claim that
losing clothes is a loss of power. Most disappointing in discussion of the Aphrodite
hymn is the absence of any referenceto Aphrodite's offspring, called Aeneas (Aineias)
"becauseof her dread (ainos)at falling into bed with a mortal"(lines 198-99), who will
be raised by the mountain-brednymphs and brought to Troy at the first flowering of
his manhood and from whom an eternal line of children will descend. Perhaps be-
cause Inanna and Dumuzi have no offspring, the last half of the Aphrodite hymn is
not discussed; Penglase remains silent about the fertile union of Aphrodite and An-
chises, in contrast to those of Zeus with the mortal Ganymede, and Eos with the
mortal Tithonos, and the myth's implied commentaryabout the place of love beyond
the limits of the city but crucialto its futurity. By contrast,close readings of Mesopota-
mian myths about Inanna's descent and Ninurta's "quest for power" when he jour-
neys to the Assembly of the gods to demonstrate his power and assert his authority
lead to brilliant suggestions about the HomericHymn to Apollo,the Delian and Pythian
parts by the same author who, Penglase argues, imaginatively interweaves these mo-
tifs in the story of Apollo's birth and takeoverof rocky Pytho (Delphi).

20. Cf. Scully, ibid. (note 16, above); Helene Foley, TheHomericHymn to Demeter(Princeton,
1994), 61 and 118-37; Jenny S. Clay, ThePoliticsof Olympus(Princeton,1989), 217-19 and
257-60.
ReviewArticles 255

The delicate study of cultural influence can proceed along a number of lines-
archaeological,anthropological,linguistic, that of textual analysis-and the degree of
comparisonbetween cultures can range from the slight, what Bernalcalls "competitive
plausibility,"to signs of massive borrowing. Penglase's approachis primarilytextual,
the search for shared narrativepatternsand common metaphors,and is duly cautious;
but he errs, I believe, by not pursuing differences as well as likenesses, additions and
new directions as well as adaptations and assimiliations. In opening the door more
widely than ever before in our awareness of Greekborrowingsfrom the Akkadian and
Sumerian languages, this book will invite others to look for previously unsuspected
influences in the Mycenaean and historical periods. If its methodological claims in
places sound naive and if the myths at times seem narrowly interpreted so as not to
stray from the axes of comparison,perhaps there is a virtue in respecting established
boundaries.
Over the past half century our understanding of the origins of ancient Greek
culture has drawn ever closer to the Greeks'understandingof themselves. Like them,
we see the Greek indebtedness to others as extensive and significant,even though we
are more inclined than they to trace that debt to the Near East. Under the pressure of
history and their own search for self-definition, the Greeks forged a strong sense of
difference between themselves and barbarians.As far back as the Odysseywith its
anthropology of travels to faraway lands and peoples, the hero discovers what it
means to be human, and more specifically to be "Greek,"in contrastto other peoples.
But the Greeks were also a porous people, always embracingthe foreign, as for exam-
ple in the Athenian welcome of the new goddess from Thracementioned at the begin-
ning of Plato's Republic.21 The model of Greek self-definitionmust include this recep-
tivity of, even transformationby, the barbarian,whether we define that in terms of
other peoples or by what some might consider "non-Greek"modes of thought. The
study of the classical traditionitself profits from seeing Greece in a similar light, both
as the familiarfount of western culture and as a mysterious, even alien, world whose
strangenesswe keep rediscovering.
Stephen Scully
Departmentof ClassicalStudies
Boston University

Modern Democracies and the Returnto Athens

J.Peter Euben,John R. Wallach,& JosiahOber (eds.), AthenianPoliticalThoughtand the

Reconstructionof American Democracy(Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press, 1994),
VI + 352 pp.'

The theme of democratizationpermeates the language of social science today.

Transformationsin eastern Europeand the formerSoviet Union, events in South Afri-

21. Cf.RobertGarland,Introducing
NewGods:thePoliticsofAthenian (Ithaca,1992),111-
Religion
115and150.
1. Workon this essay was done partlyduringmy tenureas a Fellowat the Centerfor Ad-
vanced Study in the BehavioralSciencesat Stanfordwith funding provided by the Andrew
W.MellonFoundation.
Theirgenerosityis gratefullyacknowledged.