Jennifer Larson

Lugalbanda and Hermes

n recent years, scholars have increasingly come to recognize the pervasive influence of the Near East on nascent Greek culture. In particular, a large number of stylistic, structural, and thematic parallels between Akkadian and Greek poetry have been identified. Here, I add to the list of parallels by exploring the striking similarities between the first 150 lines of the Homeric Hymn to Hermes and the Neo-Sumerian Lugalbanda epics, especially the newly translated Lugalbanda in the Mountain Cave (Black et al., 1998–). This case diverges from most previously detected examples in that there are not only similarities in the main points of the narrative, but also a number of shared details. The correspondences as a whole suggest that the Lugalbanda material played a role in the genesis of the Hymn to Hermes . At the same time, both the outline and the details of the story take on new meanings when they are imported to a different cultural context. As the Sumerian epic Lugalbanda in the Mountain Cave opens, Lugalbanda is identified as the youngest of eight heroic brothers born to the goddess Urac. His seven siblings have been raised to positions of leadership in the army of Enmerkar, king of Uruk, 1 while he is left to follow “in awed silence.” To make matters worse, during a march Lugalbanda becomes ill and incapacitated. His grieving brothers leave him in a mountain cave with some supplies and provisions that are obviously analogous to grave goods, planning to bury him on their return journey if he dies. Lying immobile in the cave, Lugalbanda prays to Utu the sun god, Inanna the evening star, and Suen the moon. At sunrise on the next day, Lugalbanda is healed and emerges from the cave, where he nibbles lifesaving plants and drinks lifesaving water. He sets an ambush near his cave, though its purpose is left unexplained until later in the poem. In the evening he sets out with some of the supplies from the cave. At a campsite, he makes a fire by striking stones together and prepares a special food (LB I 276–99):

Corinna and the Daughters of Asopus

Recently, the question of Corinna’s date has been raised yet again by Andrew Stewart, who observes that Tatian’s list of statues of the female poets, including one of Corinna by the fourthcentury sculptor Silanion, is supported by archaeological evidence. In his Oratio ad Graecos (33–4), the Christian apologist Tatian provides a list of thirty-six statues and their sculptors that, in his opinion, demonstrates the moral inferiority of the pagan Greeks. Art historians have long suspected that these statues, especially the fourteen female subjects whom Tatian groups together at the beginning of chapter 33, once stood in the area of Pompey’s theater at Rome. Literary historians, on the other hand, have followed Kalkmann’s 1887 essay in arguing that Tatian’s list is a complete fabrication, in spite of his claim to have seen the statues first-hand.1 In 1972, however, Coarelli published a statue base from the theater complex, inscribed with the title “Mystis” and the name of the artist, Aristodotos. This corresponded exactly to one of Tatian’s statues. But because neither Mystis nor her sculptor were known from other sources, editors of Tatian, including Whittaker (1982) and Marcovich (1995), have emended the manuscript reading of Mystis to Nossis, ignoring Coarelli’s discovery. They