| Abstrakt: |
There is a lion simile in the Iliad (18.316–22) very close in language, theme, and purpose to a lion simile in the Standard Babylonian Version of Gilgameš (8.61–62). For some scholars, this parallel is a smoking gun: it proves the Iliad is a deliberate adaptation of a specific, Neo-Assyrian recension of Gilgameš. Other remain skeptical: the parallel can be explained as a coincidence. This article integrates the skeptics' objections into a comparative model based on initial polygenesis and gradual assimilation of traditions within a macro-region. The model can account for parallels between the Iliad and Gilgameš without positing Greek access to Mesopotamian texts—even at the verbal level of the lion simile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
