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SOME ORIENTAL ELEMENTS IN HESIOD AND

THE ORPHIC COSMOGONIES1

CAROLINA LÓPEZ-RUIZ

Abstract

This paper examines the oriental background of the so-called Orphic cosmogo-
nies of ancient Greece. The first section explores the relationship between the
motif of Zeus’ swallowing the phallus of Uranos and a corresponding feature in
the Hurrian-Hittite Song of Kumarbi. The second section examines the complex
figure of Kronos, arguing all aspects of his personality can be understood better
if we take account of the figure of El in Ugaritic mythology; in particular, the
relationship between Kronos and the virtually homophonous and often related
figure of Khronos (“Time”) can be better understood if we take account of West
Semitic mythology.

Introduction

Who composed Greek theogonies or cosmogonies besides Hesiod?

Can we trace a significant Near Eastern influence in these other
cosmogonies as we do in Hesiod? What does this tell us about the
Greek theo-cosmogonic tradition as a conduit of Near Eastern cul-
ture into the Greek World? The rich amalgam of cosmogonic motifs
crystallized in Hesiod, of both Indoeuropean as well as oriental ori-
gin, and the existence in the Greek world of other cosmogonic tales
not always coincident with Hesiod’s version indicates, as Jenny
Strauss Clay has put it, that “. . . there is every reason to presup-
pose the existence of a developed genre of theogonic poetry.”2
Outside Hesiod, however, the use of theogonies and cosmogonies
is practically limited to the somewhat “alternative” religious trend
represented by the so-called Orphic traditions. This area of Greek
religion is receiving more attention from Classical scholars of late,
especially since the appearance of the Derveni Papyrus, which enlarged

1 A fuller treatment of this topic is in preparation as part of a monograph on

Greek theogonic traditions and their Oriental background.

2 Clay 2003: 4.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2006 JANER 6

Also available online – www.brill.nl
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the corpus of Orphic texts, and presented numerous analogies with

the Hesiodic cosmogony, although at the same time it showed
important divergences in the use of oriental motifs.3 The Orphic
texts that witness these cosmological traditions, therefore, deserve
special attention in the quest for new answers regarding the “where,
how, and who” of the transmission of oriental motifs into Greek
tradition.
What do we mean by “Orphic” texts? It cannot be denied that
the term “Orphic” and the amalgam of fragmentary sources, sec-
ondary authors, and recycled references through the centuries cre-
ates a certain anxiety in the modern scholar and student who
confronts this type of literature for the first time. To cite the begin-
ning lines of Martin West’s comprehensive study on the poems:
“The magic of Orpheus’ song drew animals and trees; the magic
of his name has attracted a more unruly following, a motley crowd
of romantics and mystics, of impostors and poetasters, of dizzy
philosophers and disoriented scholars.”4
The Orphic poems and texts related to them present an abun-
dance of interesting aspects that could be discussed from a com-
parative point of view. I will focus first on the theogony of the
Derveni Papyrus, particularly on the succession motifs present in
it. Secondly, I will study the importance of a Time-deity in the
Orphic cosmogonies that is in many aspects identified with the god
Kronos. Both present rich comparative oriental material and at the
same time seem central to Orphic religious self-definition in con-
trast to other common (Hesiodic, Homeric) theological schemes.

3 The most recent edition of the Greek texts considered as “Orphic” is by

Bernabé 2004a. His latest works on the topic in Spanish (Bernabé 2003, 2004b)
also comprise an updated bibliography and a comprehensive translation and com-
mentary of the different groups of texts conveying Orphic traditions. An excel-
lent review of the place of Orphism within Greek religion, stressing the cultic role
of the more recently known Orphic texts, is in Calame 2002. For a bibliography
on Orphism, see also Santamaría Álvarez 2003. Some of the most important gen-
eral works on the topic of the Derveni Papyrus are West 1983, Brisson 1995,
Borgeaud 1991, Burkert 1977, 1987, 2002 (1999), 2004, Martínez Nieto 2000.
The most recent monographs on the Derveni Papyrus are Laks and Most 1997a,
Jourdan 2003, and Betegh 2004.
4 West 1983: 1.
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The Derveni Papyrus: A Different Succession Myth

The Derveni document is the only papyrus thus far recovered on

Greek soil. It was accidentally preserved after rolling down the funer-
ary pyre of a man who lived near Thessaloniki in the 4th century BC.
The papyrus contains a commentary on an Orphic theogony, in
which verses are quoted at will by the author at different points.5
The commentary itself is thought to date from around 400 BC,
while it can be inferred that the Orphic text commented upon
dates to an earlier time, probably around 500 BC if not before,
making it the oldest Orphic poem so far attested.6
First of all, we should bear in mind that the commentary of the
Derveni text, including short quotations from the Orphic theogony,
does not follow a linearly chronological order of the creation and
succession of gods. If we follow the commentator’s order, it seems
that the poem begins with an exaltation of the power of Zeus in
his final dominant and creative role, and later makes some refer-
ences to previous events of the creation and the succession of gods.
We can, however, extract from the fragmentary text cited by the
commentary the main features of the Orphic cosmogony that he
is dealing with. The first non-reigning cosmic element apparently

5 The first attempted full translation of the text was in Laks and Most 1997b.

Their publication of a series of studies of different aspects of the text (Laks and
Most 1997a) offer a general introduction to the papyrus (Funghi 1997a) and a
thorough bibliography up to 1997 (Funghi 1997b), as well as numerous studies
on topics related to the document. Professor Tsantsanoglou, in charge of the final
edition, also contributed to the volume (Tsatsanoglou 1997). More recent studies
or editions include Bernabé 2002, a new translation by Janko (2002, cf. also
Janko 2001), and Bernabé 2004a with a full new edition of the Orphic texts and
related testimonies. Cf. also Bernabé 2004b. Furthermore, a latest full study of
the text is in Betegh 2004, incluging edition, translation, and discussion of the
religious and philosophical dimensions of the document. Another recent mono-
graph on the topic is in Jourdan 2003.
6 Bernabé 2003: 32. This conclusion is in part due to the fact that this kind

of work is attested in Platonic times as can be detected in some of Plato’s dia-

logues (cf. Cratylus and Euthyphro). The author of this commentary, however, is
strongly influenced by the physical approaches of the presocratic philosophers
(Anaxagoras, Heraclitus, Leucipus, Diogenes of Apollonia) and strikingly distant
from Platonic philosophy. The commentary, on the other hand, is now known to
have been cited by authors of the 4th-3rd centuries BC (Philochorus) and by a
scholiast of Hesiod, which means it was in circulation by that time and was not
a work restricted to private circles (Bernabé 2003: 32-33, Burkert 2002: 113).
Burkert suggests that Parmenides knew of this Orphic theogony, different from
the Rhapsodic theogony transmitted by Damascius or Proclus, and thus believes
it might date to the 6th century BC (Burkert 2002: 113-14).
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was Night, as in other attested Orphic theogonies (Eudemus,

Hieronymus, perhaps the Rhapsodies).7 Then Ouranos is presented
as the first one to reign,8 succeeded by Kronos and Zeus,9 just as
in Hesiod. A first difference from Hesiod though, is apparent:
Ouranos is not the son of Ge (Earth) and Chaos as in the Theogony
but of Night (here called EÈfron¤dhw). Then Kronos is said to be born
from Sun and Earth (col. 14.2), while later the commentator seems
to indicate that Kronos is the son (and successor) of Ouranos (col. 15.5).
There is no real contradiction here, since, as we will see later, the
commentator identifies the sun as part of Ouranos-Sky.
How is the succession achieved? The Derveni theogony seems
to adopt the castration motif already familiar to us from Hesiod,
but then also incorporates a quite different and unique version of
it. On the one hand, there seems to be an allusion to the castra-
tion of Ouranos by Kronos, as in the Hesiodic version, when Kronos
is said to have done “a great deed” to Ouranos, by means of
which—the commentator explains- he was deprived of his kingdom.
The author seems more interested, however, in another episode
that he (or the Orphic poet) places at the beginning of his work,
a seemingly odd episode previously unheard of in Greek literature:
after seeking the advice of his father Kronos (lit. the “prophecies
of his father”)10 as to how to establish his reign in Olympus,11 and
receiving this advice through oracular means in the “inner-most”
shrine (êduton) of Night,12 Zeus is said to swallow the phallus of Sky.13
The controversial verse (afido›on kat°pinen, ˘w afiy°ra ¶xyore
pr«tow) has been rendered in different ways, although the ultimate
meaning of the action described is generally agreed upon. Thus
Alberto Bernabé translates directly “he swallowed the phallus (of
Sky), who had ejaculated aither first,”14 while Andre Laks and Glenn
Most render it “he swallowed down the reverend one (aidoion), who

7 Although Night is not explicitly the mother of Ouranos in Hesiod’s Theogony,

she does appear earlier than he, and always occupies early slots in divine genealo-
gies (West 1983: 101). On the prophetic powers of Night, see Bernabé 2003: 39.
8 Col. 14.5.
9 Col. 15.5.
10 Col. 13.1.
11 Partially restored in cols. 11 and 12.
12 Col. 11.
13 Col. 13.3.
14 Bernabé 2003: 37 (my translation from the Spanish). Burkert 2002: 115 restores

“of the king” instead of “of Sky.”

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was the first to leap forth into aether.”15 While there is no doubt
that the author understands aidoion as phallus and identifies it with
the sun (cf. col. 13.4), authors struggle between the Homeric ren-
dering of aidoion, i.e. “venerable,” or the prosaic one, “genital mem-
ber,” alluded to by the euphemism.16 The sexual sense of aidoion is
supported, furthermore, by the comment by Diogenes Laertius17
that Orpheus attributed to the gods “repugnant acts that also some
men do, but rarely with the organ of the voice” clearly alluding
to mouth-genital contact.18 The same ambiguity applies to the fol-
lowing verb ¶xyore, which has been translated as “ejaculation”19 or,
more “neutrally,” as “leap forth,” depending on the modern authors’
preference.20
The Derveni commentator compares the phallus with the sun
and, as he does throughout the text, seeks a physical explanation
for the passage, understanding it as an allegory for the sun’s life-
generating power, which Zeus needs to acquire to become absolute
king. The allegory is easy to grasp if we think of the sun as a part
of the sky (just as the phallus is only a part of a man) and, at the
same time, in this metaphorical action, as the fertility element in
the sky, which, one could imply, had remained in the air after
Ouranos’ castration by Kronos.21 The sequence of events is puz-
zling. It is generally assumed that in the Derveni theogony Ouranos

15 Laks and Most 1997b: 15.

16 Some, like Martin West, have tried to avoid this sexual sense by restoring
the preceding words as “glorious daimon” (da¤mona kudrÚn afido›on kat°pinen),
alluding to the previous mentions of the “glorious daimon” (referring to the divine
force that Zeus acquired in order to become king, Col. 8 (mentioned twice),
cf. col. 9.). Thus “he swallowed down the famous daimon, the reverend one. West
1983: 85 ff. Cf. 115. Cf. also Laks and Most 1997b: 15. Burkert restores <basil∞ow>
“he swallowed down the phallus <of the king>” (Burkert 2002: 115), Bernabé, as
we have seen, understands <of Sky> (Bernabé 2003: 37).
17 Prooem. 1.5.
18 Burkert 2002: 116. This is the only Orphic fragment where such an action

is attested, so it is possible that it was precisely this Orphic theogony that Diogenes
Laertius was referring to (Bernabé 2003: 38). For the complexity of the metaphor-
ical uses of the term aidoion in the Derveni Payrus, see Brisson 2003.
19 See Bernabé 2003: 37 and Burkert 2002: 115 (with discussion of the gram-

matical reasons that support this reading in 116). There is a possible pun in the
text between the sense of “jump” and “ejaculate.” The word, however, is a hapax
in Greek, which makes the translation difficult (Bernabé 2003: 44, n. 37). The
same problem occurs in col. 14. 1. The key is whether the Accusative (afiy°ra)
is a direct object or an accusative of direction.
20 E.g. Laks and Most 1997b: 15, West 1983: 85.
21 As Bernabé (2003a: 37) suggests. For the connection of Yahweh to the sun

as related to royal ideology, see Smith 2002: 148.

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had ejaculated “first,” i.e. at some point before the swallowing of

the phallus by Zeus. Alternatively, it seems that Diogenes Laertius
implied that the ejaculation took place in Zeus’ mouth, which would
actually explain the impregnation of Zeus, as we shall see later.
Whatever the passage meant for the 5th to 4th century BC
reader, the origin of this “alternative” castration motif goes back
to the oriental Late-Bronze Age traditions that at different points
influenced Greek epic and mythology. Hesiod’s castration motif was
long ago identified as a Greek version of the Hurro-Hittite castra-
tion of Anu (Sky) by Kumarbi. However, the motif had been
“cleaned up” or “rationalized” in the traditional Hesiodic version
in order to achieve a linear succession of gods according to the
standard Hellenic pantheon: Ouranos—(castrated by) Kronos—Zeus.
The similarity between the Anatolian and the Orphic cosmogony
has certainly struck some scholars. The castration attested in the
Derveni theogony is, in fact, as has been most recently pointed out
by Burkert, closer to the Hurro-Hittite myth than Hesiod’s version
in several aspects.22 First, in the Hurro-Hittite epic, Kumarbi bites
off the genitals of Anu (Sky god):
. . . He fled, Anu did, and he tried to go to heaven. Kumarbi rushed after
him and seized him, Anu, by the feet and pulled him from high heaven. He
bites his loins; his manhood joined the entrails of Kumarbi like bronze . . .23

By this action Kumarbi becomes impregnated with the god of storms

and rivers, Teshub, who will be the next king in heaven. In the
Derveni version of the Orphic theogony, as Zeus swallows the mem-
ber of the Sky, he also becomes impregnated with the cosmos:

22 See most recently Burkert 2004: 92 and discussion there. Cf. Burkert 2002:

117, Bernabé 1989, Bernabé 2003: 37.

23 Translation by Lebrun 1995: 1973. The attribution of metal qualities to the

sky dome (due to its shining appearance), usually bronze in antiquity, when the
tradition came into being, before the use of iron, is frequent in the Mediterranean
cultures, see Brown 1995: 106-13. This idea is common in Near Eastern cultures,
is extensively used in the Hebrew Bible, and was also known to the Presocratics,
who apparently saw the bronze sky as “the shell of the egg” of the universe
(cf. Lectantius de opif. Dei 17.6 = FVS 31 A 51, Achilles Eisag. 4 p. 33.17 Maas =
FVS i.11 line 19. Cited by Brown 1995: 107-108). For the egg in Zoroastrian
cosmogony in connection with Pherecydes’ cosmogony, see West 1971: 30-31.
Bernabé (personal communication) suggests that the bronze symbolizes the merging
of Anu’s semen and Kumarbi’s fertile body in the same way as copper and tin
come together to make bronze.
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. . . of the genitals of the first-born king. And into him all

the immortals grew, blessed gods and goddesses
and rivers and lovely springs and everything else
that then came into being, so he became the only one.24

Then we learn that the succession in the Kumarbi myth is not lin-
ear, i.e., Kumarbi is Anu’s cupbearer, not his son, and Teshub is
born from Kumarbi, but is really the seed of the Sky god, Kumarbi’s
predecessor on the throne. In a similar way, Zeus is said to cas-
trate the Sky, i.e. his grandfather (Ouranos), not his father (Kronos),
thus breaking the linear chain of fights for the throne. We should
also notice that in the divergent theogony of the Derveni commen-
tator, Ouranos, the Sky, is not born from the Earth, as in Hesiod.
This is paralleled also in the general scheme of the Hurro-Hittite
cosmogony, where Anu (Sky) was also the first king, but not born
from the earth.25
The one clear difference between the Hurro-Hittite and the
Orphic myths here is that the perpetrator of the castration-swal-
lowing is not the same; for the sequence to be identical it would
have to have been Kronos, the equivalent of Kumarbi as a grain
deity, as in the Hesiodic version. Notice the order:
Hesiod Hurro-Hittite Orphic
Ouranos Anu (Sky) Sky (phallus=Sun)
Kronos Kumarbi Zeus
Zeus Teshub
However, in the Derveni theogony it is Zeus (equivalent to Teshub),
the storm god himself, who perpetrates this action. On the other
hand, this non-linear pattern is closer to the Hurro-Hittite myth,
where Kumarbi, the “castrator” is in fact not the son of Anu, his
predecessor. Obviously, we are dealing with transformations of the
same motif through the centuries and adaptations of it to meet
different needs and tendencies. The Derveni theogony clearly empha-
sizes the creative force of Zeus and how he gained from the cosmos
the power of generating the universe a new. Thus the castration-
of-Sky motif was easily adapted to the story of how Zeus became

24 Col. 16. After Bernabé 2003: 42. Laks and Most 1997c: 16 translate the first

line as “. . . of the first-born king, the reverend one” according to their previous
rendering of aidoion (see discussion above).
25 He was in fact the successor of a first divinity called Alalu, whose chthonic

nature is sometimes argued but not clear.

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the most important creator or recreator of the cosmos. At the same

time, a third castration story was in circulation in Orphic circles,
namely the castration of Kronos by his son Zeus, which is attested
in several other texts.26 In the Orphic Rhapsodies, yet another ver-
sion of the motif is conveyed when Zeus swallows down Phanes,
his ancestor and primordial king, in order to posses in himself all
the cosmic elements, which become one in Zeus.27
In Hesiod, on the other hand, the motif of the swallowing by
Zeus of a divinity or a part of it in order to consolidate his power
is also present in the episode where Zeus swallows down the god-
dess Metis, who afterwards gives him moral guidance.28 The pas-
sage with the devouring of Metis might have been mentioned also
in the Derveni Papyrus, but the text is too fragmented to derive
any conclusions from it.29 In Hesiod, however, the figure of Metis
occupies an important position within the structure of the poem
and in fact might be more relevant than previously thought if com-
pared with a Near Eastern model studied by Chris Faraone and
Emily Teeter in a recent work. The authors have convincingly
shown that there is a strong connection between the figure of Metis
and the Egyptian figure of Maat, both an abstract concept and an
anthropomorphized goddess closely connected with the idea of legit-
imate monarchic rule.30 In this case, again, the myth emphasizes
the perfection of Zeus’ qualities as the ultimate king, a kingship
achieved through an unnatural, cruel act that puts the young god
on the same level as his father Kronos, who became king through
an equally violent act, except that the ingestion of Metis gives Zeus
a superior moral authority.31 His ingestion of Maat in Hesiod, like

26 See testimonies in next section.

27 OP 167.
28 Hesiod Th. 886-900.
29 Derveni Papyrus Col. 15.13: “. . . Metis (?) . . . kingly office.” West reads

“Metis” (see 1983: 87-9 for discussion). Bernabé 2004a. however, takes metis as a
common noun, as also do Janko (2002, although cf. Janko 2001 with Metis as a
proper noun) and Betegh 2004, following Bernabé.
30 Faraone and Teeter 2004. As they point out, the name of Maat is actually

inserted in the coronation names of Egyptian kings, in very much the same way
that the name of Metis has become part of two of the epithets of Zeus (mètíeta
and mètióeis “wise in counsel”). For the connection of the Greek word metis ( m∞tiw),
“cunning intelligence,” and the goddess Metis, see Faraone and Teeter 2004: 202.
In Egypt, iconographic representations from the New Kingdom onwards (1500 BC-
200 AD) portray the goddess Maat being offered to the king as something to be
eaten or drunk.
31 Faraone and Teeter 2004: 206-07.
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his ingestion of Sky in the Orphic poem, makes him a more legit-
imate and efficient successor in the chain of gods.
At the same time, the motif of unnatural impregnations seems
to be recurrent in Eastern Mediterranean myth, as we can see,
from the Kumarbi myth to the Greek tradition. One of its func-
tions is probably to provide a solution for the problem of how to
end the succession, so that Zeus could be the last unchallenged
god. The impregnation of Kumarbi, of Zeus when he swallowed
Metis (in Hesiod) and gave birth to Athena from his head, or when
he swallowed the phallus of Sky (in Derveni), all form part of this
type of interrupted succession.32 This other theogony that the Derveni
author interprets, shows, once again, the degree of flexibility with
which the theogonic poets handled inherited motifs, which have
transformed Greek traditions as much as Greek traditions have
transformed them.
While some of the witnesses of these traditions are earlier (i.e.
Hesiod) and others later (Orphic, Philo of Byblos), the Derveni
theogony shows that the chronological differences do not reliably
indicate the antiquity of the tradition. It is much more useful to
approach Greek cosmogonies in terms of thematic preferences and
selective differences. Furthermore, the Derveni theogony confirms
that there was a branch of the theogonic tradition where the
Anatolian influence was even more direct than in Hesiod. This
would be the same branch reflected in Philo of Byblos, a Phoenician
writer of Roman times. As in other works I have argued that it
was a combination of the Anatolian and Canaanite traditions that
formed the backbone of the Phoenician theogony of Philo and that
a similar framework can also be detected in Hesiod’s complex net-
work of motifs, it seems reasonable to say now that the Derveni
Papyrus adds additional evidence for this Syro-Cilician-Phoenician
influence on the Greek theogonic tradition.

El—Kronos- Chronos33 (Time) in Ugarit, Hesiod, and the Orphic Texts

Lets now turn to Kronos and his role in traditional (i.e. Hesiodic)
and Orphic cosmogonies. The apparently contradictory nature of

32 See Bernabé 1989 for an article comparing this motif in the three sources.
33 I deliberately use the arbitrary spelling “Chronos” and Kronos (instead of
Khronos-Kronos or Chronos-Cronos) in order to make the distinction more evi-
dent to the reader.
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Kronos, not only within the work of Hesiod, but in general Greek
myth and ritual, has been frequently remarked upon.34 In Hesiod’s
Theogony he is first portrayed as an oppressive and cruel character
(Th. 137-38) “youngest and most terrible of her [Gaia’s] children,
and he hated his lusty sire” who first castrates his father Ouranos,
thus liberating his siblings and his mother (Th. 154 ff.), but later
swallows his own progeny in order to preserve his threatened power
(Th. 453 ff.). Then he is vanquished by his successor Zeus, but not
particularly punished nor removed from the global cosmological-
theological scene.35 Then we are told that his confinement is in
Tartarus, together with the other Titans (Th. 851), but only in a
passing comment, when he mentions “the Titans under Tartarus,
who are with Kronos” ( Tit∞n°w yÉ Ípotartãrioi, KrÒnon émf‹w §Òntew).
The relationship between Kronos as the deposed king of heaven
and the Titans or “former gods” who dwell in the Underworld is
equally puzzling. Indeed, Hesiod seems to merge two different tra-
ditions about them in the Theogony, which he has not harmonized
with complete success. One in which Kronos is just Kronos and not
a Titan (when he appears in the list of children of Ouranos and
Gaia, Th. 132-38, there is no mention of them as Titans), and the
second tradition is the one about the struggle between the Titans
and the Olympian gods (Th. 617-31, where Kronos in turn is not
mentioned either). In Hesiod, or shortly before him, the stories con-
verge at two points, making Kronos and his brothers and sisters
equal to the Titans (Th. 207-10), and making him not only ban-
ished but dwelling together with the Titans in Tartarus (Th. 851).36

34 A thorough discussion on the apparently contradictory nature of Kronos in

myth and ritual in Versnel 1988. For the artistic representations, see the LIMC
1981- (1992)- 6/1, 142-47.
35 Th. 71-73 says “. . . and he was reigning in heaven, himself holding light-

ning and shining thunderbolt, having overcome by force his father Kronos.” Then
in Th. 895 Kronos is mentioned with the Titans in Tartarus. In the Works and
Days Kronos is again placed in the past, in the Golden Age (Op. 111, cf. 169 he
rules in the Isles of the Blessed), but no emphasis is placed in the actual over-
throwing. Only in the Iliad (14. 203-04) do we have a mention that Zeus
deposed/imprisoned (kaye›se) great Kronos “In the depths that are under the
earth and the sea.”
36 For a detailed formulation of this inconsistency and the treatment of it by

Hesiod, see Mondi 1984, esp. 334, and Solmsen 1989, who thinks the two ver-
sions (Succession Myth and Titans-Kronos) which are slightly more consistently
synthesized in Homer (cf. for instance Il.14. 274 ff., and 200 ff.) proceed from
two different Near Eastern traditions. Mondi rightly uses the inconsistencies within
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In a version of Hesiod’s Theogony absent from the manuscripts

but preserved in a papyrus and indirect testimonies, Kronos is lib-
erated by Zeus and made king of the Isles of the Blessed.37 The same
“honorary” position seems to be referred to in Pindar’s Olympian 2.70,
where he mentions the trip of the most pure souls to “the tower of
Kronos,” abode of the Blessed, while later Plutarch situates him on
another island, totally inactive.38 In our “canonical theogony” of
Hesiod, Kronos is apparently banished after Zeus’ victory (in any

the structure of the Succession Myth in the Theogony to support his view that
Hesiod’s work was composed from a body of individual simpler songs, very much
like the Homeric Hymns, rather than from an already elaborated long theogonic
poem (Mondi 1984: 326-27. See also his treatment of Near Eastern influence in
Greek mythic thought in Mondi 1990). West (1985: 175), on the contrary, saw
the Titans as “an organic part of the myth of the succession of rulers of the gods”
coming directly from Mesopotamian tradition and reaching Hesiod via Delphi. As
for the origin of the name of the Titans ( Tit∞new), it is still obscure. Hesiod (and
his contemporaries we assume) played with a similar root to give an explanation:
Ouranos is said to have called them this way “in reproach, for he said they
strained (tita¤nontaw, from te¤nv) and did presumptuously a fearful deed . . .”
(Th. 207-09), this being probably a popular etymology for an obscure name for
the Greeks themselves. Athanassakis (1983: 43) suggests a Thracian origin of the
name much older than Hesiod’s explanation (cited by Hall 1990: 22). More inter-
estingly, Burkert suggests that the Akkadian word for “clay,” †i†u, is behind the
Greek name, although he does not mention that the word is also West-Semitic,
cf. Heb. †î†, “mud.” The link would be the clay magical/protective figurines made
of that material which could have hypothetically been made by oriental magicians
to represent the defeated gods as protective or witness deities. For more details,
see Burkert 1992: 94-95. If we are seeking for similar divine names in the Near
East that might give us grounds for hypothesizing, we should mention that there
is a Ugaritic deity called ΩiΩΩu, of obscure name and unknown function (appears
so far only linked to another deity, km∆, i.e., Kemosh or the like, attested already
at Ebla), which looks temptingly similar. For this deity, see Pardee 2002: 285.
The myth of the Titans was from early times known to the Jews and appropri-
ated to represent certain underworld images by Jewish authors, as can be seen in
the Septuagint, Josephus and other sources, see Bremmer 2004.
37 Burkert 2002: 95.
38 Cf. the abode of El in Ugaritic texts on a holy mountain. For more on these

ideas on a far off utopic land for the best souls (Isles of the Blessed, Elysian fields,
etc.) and similar concepts in the Hebrew Bible, see Brown 2001: 50-54. The
Elysian Field “at the ends of the earth” mentioned in Odyssey 4. 563 still present
a mystery as to the origin of the name (Brown 2001: 51). The name seems to us
very close to the Semitic name Elyshah (Heb. hlys h), in the Old Testament one of
the sons of Yavan (= Ionia, Greece, Gen. 10.4, 1 Chr. 1.7), a place name asso-
ciated with far off lands (such as Tarshish). In Ez. 27.7, the “isles of Elyshah”
are mentioned as the place of provenance of purple. For references see Lipinski
1992 under Élisha. Perhaps there is a link with Cyprus, which in the Late Bronze
Age was known in ancient Near Eastern sources as Alashia (cf. Ug. hal∆y). The
connection between the “Elysian fields” (equivalent to the Isles of the Blessed in
concept) and these “isles of Elyshah” deserves further investigation.
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case not destroyed), which makes one think he is going to remain

“backstage.” However, an alternate tradition where his position is
still prominent is presented in Hesiod’s Works and Days, in the story
of the Five Races, when Hesiod states that the Olympians created
the first “golden” race of men, who lived “under the rule of Kronos”
(o„ m¢n §p‹ KrÒnou ∑san) (Op. 111).39 These two traditions might
seem opposed but are in our view simply alternate and in many
ways parallel. The myth of the Five Races, after all, follows a
chronological pattern very similar to that of the Succession Myth
of the Theogony but with different emphases: the golden race (xrÊseon
g°now Op. 109) was created under the rule of Kronos, the silver one
(érgÊreon g°now, Op. 128) during the interregnum between king
Kronos and his successor Zeus, and the three remaining races (races
of bronze, of heroes and of iron) lived under king Zeus.
To put it in a few words, the apparent contradiction of Works
and Days 111, i.e., the Golden Race created “under Kronos,” is in
part resolved if we bear in mind a “less rigid” structure of the
Succession Myth, and if we take as our point of comparison the
Northwest Semitic tradition reflected in the Ugaritic poems and in
Philo of Byblos, where, as we shall see later, the two last ruling
gods (El/Kronos, Baal/Zeus) are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
Returning to Kronos and his contradictory nature as a “pre-
Olympian” deity, this problem has long been related to the merg-
ing of “foreign” and “Indo-European” (Greek) features. For instance,
both the castration motif and possibly the swallowing of the rock

39 See commentary on the passage by West 1978. Also West 1997: 312-19,

where he argues that a “foreign” origin of the myth of the Five Races in Greek
literature must be looked for in the Near East. He points out Iranian and Indian
parallels and sees similar concepts in Hebrew and Babylonian prophetic ideas.
Koenen 1994 connects the Five Races myth with oriental concepts of time and
apocalyptic ideas, particularly Egyptian and Mesopotamian ( p. 13), and with their
concept of kingship and renewal, suggesting the Mycenaean period as the time
of the adoption of these narrative techniques and motifs, as the period when king-
ship was well established (pp. 25-26). If this is a relevant aspect we should then
consider also the period following the Mycenaean one a plausible context for this
concept to find roots in Greek soil, since kingship, in one way or another, con-
tinued predominating in Greece until well into the Archaic period and very often
in the Classical period and later. See a recent commentary on the passage in Clay
2003, Ch. 4. For this author the myth reflects the evolution of the human race
from the mortal’s point of view, with an emphasis on a critical turning point: the
radical separation between the gods and men as a consequence of the hybristic
actions and attitude of the race of the heroes (Clay 2003: 95).
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by Kronos are long accepted as having been “borrowed” from the

Hurro-Hittite epic of Kumarbi (equivalent to Kronos in that story).
Henk Versnel is right, however, when stressing that the persistence
of this ambivalent character in Greek tradition has to be explained
within Greek-religious terms, and that, far from being a “contra-
diction” that must be bridged, these features must be understood
as “structural” characteristics of Kronos’ myth and ritual, and must
be seen as part of the meaning of a deity that represented a time
outside the present time and order, and who is therefore linked to
reversal of “normal codes.”40 This would be reflected in the scarce
notices that we have about the cult of Kronos.41 We know of fes-
tivals in his honor, at Athens and other places, called the Kronia,
usually connected to the celebration of the New Year. These fes-
tivals were apparently quite “carnavalesque” and characterized by
abundant feasting and reversal or roles between masters and slaves
in the banqueting tasks.42 Other legendary cults of Kronos involve
human sacrifices (a mythical counterpart which is reflected in the
Theogony episode of the swallowing of his children), which have
gained him the association with foreign deities such as Baal, linked
by ancient traditions with child sacrifice as well.43 It is also per-
haps worth noting that at Olympia, one of the most important reli-
gious centers in the Greek world, there was a sanctuary dedicated
to Kronos, which the Eleans attributed to the men of the Golden
Race and where Kronos was honored as the first king in heaven.44
There, on the summit of Kronos Hill, Pausanias tells us, the Basilai

40 Versnel 1987: esp. 144-47.

41 This has caused him to be considered as predominantly a mythical god. See
for instance OCD s.v. “Kronos.” This can be a circular argument deduced from
the poor testimonies for ritual aspects of Kronos.
42 Plut. Mor. 1098b; Macrob. Sat. 1.10.22. The mention of slave-master rever-

sal of roles is in Accius, FPL p. 34. For more details and references about these
festivals, see Versnel 1987: 135-44, who sees them as “festivals of reversal.” On
the Kronia, see also Burkert 1985: 231-32, and his study on their oriental back-
ground in 2003c.
43 For the identification of Kronos/Saturn with Bèl Hammon in the Semitic

world including the dedication of some tophet, see Lipinski 1992 under “Kronos”
and references there. Morris (1992: 114), commenting on the story of the birth
of Zeus, concludes that “Kronos provides another link to Canaanite, Phoenician,
and Punic practices behind these Cretan customs and other Greek tales of sacrifice
of children.”
44 Paus 5.7.6.
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sacrificed to the god at the Spring equinox,45 seemingly regarding

the god as some sort of fertility force.
Thus, there is no need to identify the benevolent Kronos of the
Isles of the Blessed as Indo-European or Greek and the cruel and
bloody Kronos of the castration as foreign. As we shall see, ambiva-
lent features are present also in the Canaanite tradition, in a very
similar way as in the Greek ones.
The most interesting passage in this sense can be found in the
work of Philo of Byblos, a Hellenistic Phoenician author from the
1st to 2nd centuries AD. In his account of a Phoenician theogony,
the apparent final state of the divine hierarchy seemed to be that
Ashtarte, together with Zeus Demarous/Adodos (Hadad), reigned
with the consent of Kronos, who is equated to Semitic El:
Greatest Astarte and Zeus, called both Demarous and Adodos, king of gods,
were ruling over the land with the consent of Kronos (. . .)46

This scene has been often compared to the one portrayed in one
Ugaritic text, in which Baal Hadad and Ashtarte share the king-
ship with El:
El is enthroned with Ashtarte of the field
El sits as judge with Haddu his shepherd,
Who sings and plays on the lyre . . .

This Ugaritic passage, however, is not without problems: more

recent readings of the text have produced quite different interpre-
tations, in which the first divinity mentioned is not El but Ràpihu,
and the names that were read as Astarte and Haddu are place
names. Pardee translates thus:
Now may Ràpihu, king of eternity, drink,
May he drink, the god mighty and noble,
The god who dwells in aA∆tartu,
The god who ruled in Hadraayi,
Who sings and makes music,
With lyre and flute, . . .47

45 Paus 6.20.1.
46 PE 1.10.31. Translation by Attridge and Oden 1981.
47 Pardee 2002: 193-94. See his introduction and notes on the text there. See
also translation along the same lines in Wyatt 2002: 395. Rà pihu is probably an
epithet for Milku, king of the underworld, and perhaps the eponymous ancestor
of the Rapauma or shades of the dead. On Ràpi hu (also epithet of the hero Aqhat)
and the Rapauma, see Pardee 1997: 343, n. 1, and Pardee 2002: 195.
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Be it as it may, it is clear from many other Ugaritic texts that the

figure of El was predominant in the Ugaritic pantheon. In the
Ugaritic Baal Cycle, again, where the central character is Baal, his
father El is neither destroyed nor banished. On the contrary, he is
depicted as the old grey-bearded wise man familiar to the Western
tradition in our image of Jewish Yahweh and the Christian version
of the celestial god. His intervention is often crucial and even the
adversaries of Baal, Yam and Mot (the Sea and Death), would
seem to be on his side.
As we can see, in both the Greek and Northwest Semitic tradi-
tions Kronos and El are ascribed some authority and are neither
destroyed nor totally forgotten. In Ugaritic poetry and in Philo of
Byblos, El is said to “authorize” the ruling of the new gods, while
in Hesiod and other Greek testimonies Kronos is “governing” the
Island of the Blessed, where the happiest, most privileged dead go,
and in the Works and Days of Hesiod he has supervised the cre-
ation of the best and first race of men.
In the Northwest Semitic tradition, where the god El is on the
one hand revered as the old wise man overseeing the ruling gods
with a special authority, he is at the same time involved in very
active sexual and drinking activities in other mythological testi-
monies, with possible ritual aspects to them. As an example of these
aspects of the Ugaritic head of the “old pantheon,” we can recall
the text conventionally called “El’s Divine Feast,”48 which vividly
describes how the head of the pantheon hosts a banquet for the
other gods at his residence, in which he not only participates but
drinks to such an excess that he has to be carried by other deities
and ends up falling in his own waste. A very human, carnava-
lesque, and almost degrading scene indeed. At the same time, it is
one in which El is most graphically portrayed as the divine patriarch.49
The role of certain deities in the Ugaritic text has led to a recent

48 CAT 1.114. See introduction, transliteration and translation by Lewis 1997a.

49 This type of banquet is called a marzi˙u, an institution linked to drinking that
is widely attested in the Near East and of great religious and social importance
at Ugarit. It is also attested in Israelite (Heb. marzea˙, cf. Amos 6: 7, Jeremiah 16: 5)
and Phoenician cultures. E.g. the Marseilles Tariff, KAI 69, and the 3rd cent. BC
inscription of the Sidonian community in Piraeus, Attika, KAI 60 (more references
can be found in Carter 1997). The importance of this type of banqueting in Ugarit
is also portrayed in the Aqhat epic, where king Danilu asks the gods for a son,
who will “grasp his hand when he is drunk, to support him when sated with
wine” (CAT 1.17, Col. I: 30-31, Col. II: 19-20, translation by Parker 1997c).
Danilu also offers a special banquet (marzi˙u/marzea˙) to the rephaim (Ugaritic heroic
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interpretation of this scene as symbolizing a state of chaos or rever-

sal of the cosmic order.50 As an example of the exaltation of El’s
sexual power we can mention another Ugaritic text of both ritual
and mythological nature, the one conventionally called “The Birth
of the Gracious Gods,” in which El has sexual intercourse with two
goddesses, both of whom he impregnates and who simultaneously
give birth to the two gods Dawn and Dusk (Shahar-wa-Shalim).51
Without asserting a clear or total correspondence between Kronos
and the Canaanite god El, I hope to have shown that not only his
position within the divine hierarchy but also some of his essential
characteristics are similar to those more clearly established for his
Northwest Semitic counterpart in Ugaritic and Phoenician tradi-
tions: Further, the role of Kronos as patriarch and his association
with feasting and abundance—with the New Year, harvest, and its
fertility aspects expressed in ritual life—add new “color” to this
otherwise gloomy and somehow unsettled figure of the Theogony.
Let’s now look again at the extant Orphic texts and how this
traditional figure of Kronos emerges afresh with particular force in
them. First of all, it is necessary to note the interesting connection
between the traditional figure of Kronos and a novel deity that

dead ancestors) and serves them food and wine for seven days, following instruc-
tions from Baal in order to bring his son Aqhat back to life from the world of
the dead (KTU I. 17-19). Jane B. Carter compares the West Semitic custom of
the marzea˙ as communal meals where the elite males gathered, involving wine
and music and at some level connected with the ancestor cult, and similar meals
attested in Greece such as the andreia (éndre¤a) in Crete, the Spartan syssitia
(suss¤tia), and the Attic thiasos ( y¤asow). See discussion and references in Carter
1997. For the connection between banquet and sacrificial cult in both Israelite
culture and Greece (well represented in the Prometheus story, Th. 540-55), see
Brown 1995: 183-87. Some scholars have pointed out that his inebriation is por-
trayed as excessive and therefore as one of the multiple signs that El was already
a diminished god, regarded by the young gods as part of the “old generation”
(cf. de Moor 2003: 140). This interpretation, however, seems too extreme. On the
contrary, given the banqueting tradition at Ugarit and even in view of the com-
parative evidence in the Mediterranean, it seems that the drunkenness of El was
by Canaanite standards quite in harmony with elitist social and religious customs.
50 Sumakai-Fink 2003.
51 CAT 1.23. See introduction, transliteration and translation by Lewis 1997b.

Also labeled “The Birth of the Gracious and Beautiful Gods”. The identification
of Dawn and Dusk with the invoked gracious gods is not totally clear, thus oth-
ers label the text “Shahar and Shalim.” This text has been interpreted as relat-
ing to a hieros gamos ritual (see introduction to the text by Lewis 1997b). Pardee
1997: 274 ff. claims that there is in fact no proof that the “women” are goddesses,
and that it is more likely that the story has to do with divine engenderment of
human women.
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came to occupy a central spot in the Orphic cosmogonies, namely,

Chronos, “Time.” The god Chronos, or personified Time, in turn,
appears in Greek religion mostly associated with the early philoso-
phers and Orphic theogonies and cosmogonies, and is often under-
stood as an allegorical reinterpretation of the former god Kronos.
The confusion already existing in Greek antiquity between Kronos
and Chronos was not due only to the conspicuous similarity of the
names Kronos-Chronos (KrÒnow-XrÒnow), although etymologically
unrelated, but drew on much deeper connections between the two
entities.52 I will argue that, once again, it will be the West Semitic
parallels for the figure of Kronos and Chronos which will provide
us with important clues about the similarity of these figures, linked
by their association with time, eternity, and a creative, intelligent
universal force.
In the cosmogonic work attributed to Pherecydes of Syros,53
Chronos appears as one of three pre-existing deities, together with
Zas and Chthonia (2.3), and in some Orphic fragments he appears
as father of Eros54 (OF 37). The Orphic theogony according to
Hieronymus situates water and mud as first principles from which

52 The two names, Kronos (KrÒnow) and Chronos (XrÒnow) are etymologically

unrelated. While the latter is the common Greek word for “time,” the origin of the
name of Kronos is unknown. The proximity to verbs such as kra¤nv (< kra = a¤nv)
“to finish, to accomplish,” and therefore “to govern,” does not seem to have a
solid basis. See Chantraine 1984-1990 s.v. “Kronos.” The association with the
root ke¤rv, “to cut, trim,” would make more sense given the harvest connotations
of the divinity, but is difficult to back up linguistically. The Semitic root QRN
that lies behind “horn” and “thunderbolt” seems to be shared by the Greek lan-
guage in the word k°raw-atow for “horn,” “extremity, top of a mountain” (the
nasal disappeared with the resulting lengthening the previous vowel), and ker-
aunÒw “thunderbolt.” The association of both features, horns and thunderbolts,
with the Semitic storm god and with El before him (cf. the epithet “bull El”)
makes one wonder whether there is any possibility of a Semitic origin of this
name. In the Derveni Papyrus a philosophical explanation of the name is sought,
as Kronos appears as one causing things to “crash amongst themselves,” kroÊesyai
(Bernabé 2003: 38).
53 See edition of Pherekydes of Syros by Schibli 1990. We do not know much

about this Pherekydes. He was a 6th century BC prose author originally from
one of the Ionian Islands and is said by later authors to have used “the revela-
tions of Ham” or the “secret books of the Phoenicians.” His father seems to have
been from Asia Minor (his name was Babys/Babis, which seems to point to
Phrygia, Pisidia or Galatia), and he seems to have been connected somehow with
Sparta (West 1971: 3-4). It is interesting that he is mentioned by all the authors
who were interested in claiming the earlier existence of philosophy in the East,
such as Philo of Byblos, Josephus, Isidorus the Gnostic, or Eudemus of Rhodes.
54 OF 37, cf. A. 13.
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earth was formed, but the third element born from these was, once
more, Unaging Time (Chronos). In this theogony, Chronos is rep-
resented as a winged snake with a lion and a bull’s head, and is
also identified as Herakles55 (and united with Ananke or Adrastea)
(OF 54). Eudemus of Rhodes, in turn, reports a Sidonian cosmol-
ogy, which had Chronos, Pothos, and Omichle (i.e., Time, Desire,
and Mist or Fog) as primordial elements, while in the Rhapsodic
theogony Chronos is called “Ageless Time” and “Father of Aither”56
(OF 60, 66, 70).
Most remarkably, the Phoenician cosmogony attributed to Laitos
(who ascribed it to someone called Mòch of Sidon), placed as the
first principles Aither and Aer and, born from them, Oulomos,
which has been interpreted by Martin West as Phoenician *aùlòm
(“time,” “eternity”)57 and is paralleled by Hebrew aòlàm (“remote
time, eternity”), which in the Hebrew Bible is an epithet ascribed
to El.58
Then there are scattered traces of the figure of Chronos in other
authors, who, like Pindar (Ol. 2.16-19), call him “Father of all,”
placing him in a supreme position, or, like Sophokles, consider him
“the god bringing relief ” (eÈmarÆw yeÒw) that sees and hears all,
bringing it to light and then hiding it again (El. 179). In another
Pindaric fragment (fr. 159), Chronos is called “the best savior of
all just men.” Finally, the equation of Kronos with Roman Saturnus
and of Kronos with Time has provided the basis for allegorical
interpretations of the rites of Saturnus in his role of “Father Time,”
with images such as that of Time devouring his children becom-
ing popular in medieval and modern times.59
But let’s return to the odd description of Chronos-Time men-
tioned above. In the Orphic theogony by Hieronymus (OF 54),
transmitted by Damascius, Chronos is described as a winged ser-
pent/dragon with the heads of a lion and a bull and with a third
head in the middle in the form of a god, which is certainly striking
and calls to mind the attraction of the archaic Greek imagination

55 OF 54.
56 OF 60, 66, 70.
57 Laitos, FGrH 784, F. 4, cited by Eudemus fr. 150. For this and other

Phoenician cosmogonies, see West 1983 and especially West 1994.

58 For the Punic term Greek writers also use the name Gerôn and Roman writers

Saeculum or Senex. See Cross 1998: 77.

59 See New Pauly s.v. “Chronos” and references there. For Roman Saturnus and

Chronos, see Ciavolella and Ianucci (eds.) 1992.

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to hybrid animals and monsters of oriental style. We are familiar

with the artistic tendency, especially up to the 6th cent. BC, of
portraying gorgons, griffins, cherubs, sphinxes, and other strange
and hybrid creatures. This taste is widely reflected in Greek literature,
as in the innumerable monsters that Odysseus encounters, or in the
marine-serpent creatures of Hesiod’s and Herodotus’ Echidna (Th.
298-99, Hdt. 4.9.1), and again in the monster Typhon.60
The use of the serpent as a symbol of time is not surprising.
Snakes have been natural, practically universal symbols of eternity
and health.61 The importance of snakes as sacred beings takes mul-
tiple forms in the Near East. One usually overlooked association,
though, has to do precisely with the general sense of Chronos as
a divine force and his assimilation with Kronos. Kronos was ren-
dered a Titan (at least from the re-elaboration of Hesiod onwards),
and, once defeated, he is characteristically one of the enemies of
the main god Zeus. Let us recall that the toughest enemy of the
storm god has serpent-like monstrous features. Different versions of
this monster appear not only in Greece, as we can see in the
Hesiodic description of the monster Typhon, but also in the Levant,
as Yam in Ugarit, Leviathan in the Bible, and Illuyanka in the
Hittite myth.62 Even in Egypt the enemy of Osiris in the Underworld is

60 West 1983: 190.

61 Cf. the symbol of Asklepios, a snake encircling a staff, used even today as
symbol of medicine or pharmaceutical science.The staff of the healer or magician
is deeply rooted in the Near East. The symbol of the medicine god Ningishita
appears as a staff with a serpent in 2000 BC Mesopotamia. On the other hand,
the symbol of two serpents surrounding the winged caduceus was the symbol of
Hermes, messenger of the gods, inventor of (magical) incantations, and conduc-
tor of the dead as well as protector of merchants and thieves. This symbol became
associated with medicine in late Antiquity as this god became related with Alchemy.
In ancient Egypt, the healers/magicians are also characterized by a staff that can
turn into a serpent, as can be seen in the story of Moses, whose rod became a ser-
pent (Ex. 4: 3) and the Egyptian servants of the Pharaoh (presumably magicians/
healers) who challenged him by turning theirs into serpents too (Ex. 7: 12). The
widespread motif in the Levant of the mistress of animals taming serpents would
belong in the same type of tradition of dominating nature and having protec-
tive/healing powers.
62 The figure of Typhon in Hesiod is in fact a Greek version of a repeatedly

refurbished monster with different characteristics, who endangers the weather-god’s

power and has sea-like and chthonic features. For all the Greek variants and tes-
timonies about Typhon, see Ballabriga (1990). For the possible connection of the
name of Typhon with the Northwest Semitic name Saphon/Sapanu (ßpn) see Wyatt
1999: 534-35. The connections with this Semitic name seem to be more profound
than a simple plausible etymology. Mount Saphon (Ugaritic ßapunu / ßapànu) is a
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90  -

the serpent Apophis. Kronos is in fact explicitly associated with ser-

pents in some texts, as in a mention in Pherecydes of a battle
between Kronos and Ophioneus (cf. Greek ophis, “serpent”), a Titan
who according to some had ruled first on Olympus.63 Again, a ser-
pent enemy. Both Ophioneus and Typhon were sent down to
Tartarus, just like Kronos in his Titanic role. Even Zeus acquires
this form when he is confronted with the reigning king of the gods:
a Cretan myth probably stemming from Epimenides says that
when Zeus was hiding in the Cretan cave, Kronos came to look
for him and, out of fear, Zeus turned into a serpent (drakonta) and
his nurses into bears.64 It is not surprising, therefore, that Chronos
adopted one of the daemonic, netherworld, monster-like charac-
teristics of Kronos. The best example of this mixed three-headed
being is the Chimera, an oriental figure most frequent in Babylo-
nia and Assyria, but rarely found in Greece, usually prior to the

central reference in the geography and the religion of Ugarit. For the almost total
identification of the mount with Baal, see Korpel 1990: 578-79. She calls it a
“fluid borderline,” as for instance in CAT 1.101 (ibid 578). Singer (2002) has dis-
cussed recently the original location of the myth of Ullikummi and argued that
Lake Van with a great rock in one of its shores was the scenario of the first Hurrian
myth, which due to the extension of Hurrian culture, was transported westwards
and assimilated to a Mediterranean scenario (where the motif of Mt. Saphon
would have come). This, again, points to the Syrian agency in the assimilation
and transformation of the Hurrian-Hittite mythical tradition.
63 On Apophis, see Bourghouts 1973. Cf. Also Shaw and Nicholson 1995: 36

and figure. The battle between Kronos and Ophioneus is also in Apollonius of
Rhodes Argon. 1.530 ff. Origen mentions Pherecydes’ comment on the battle
between the two Titans in Contra Celsum (see Koetschau 1899, 6.42. Cf. Maximus
of Tyre, Philosophoumena, see Hobein 1910: 4.4., Attridge and Oden 1981: 95,
n. 160). On this encounter, see also Gantz 1993: 740. Brown 1995: 125-28 also
discusses the motif of the dragon-combat in an eschatological scenario at the “pil-
lars” at the end of the world in Greek and Biblical texts.
64 FVS fr. 23. The birth of Zeus and the story of how he was hidden in a cave

and guarded by Kouretes or Korybantes to protect him from Kronos was a very
popular one. It appears first in Hesiod Th. 459 ff. where it was situated in Crete.
However, other places claimed this privileged role. See Lloyd-Jones 1999a: 4. A
recently discovered (ca. 2nd century BC) inscription from Halikarnassos claims
such a role for this city. See editio princeps by Isager 1998. Cf. also Lloyd-Jones
1999a and 1999b. Of interest is the possible allusion to mysteric rites (Eleusinian?)
in the inscription: “Father Zeus made the sons of Earth famous ritual attendants
who guard the secret dwelling (ÉarrÆtvn dÒmvn)” (lines 11-12, translation by Isager
1998: 8). Lloyd-Jones (1999a: 6) notes the possible Eleusinian connotation, espe-
cially from the use of the word árretos “secret, unspeakable.”
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6th cent. BC.65 A vivid expression of this kind of hybrid is the

description of the Cherubim that Ezekiel (1: 6-10, 10: 14) saw in
Babylon in 593 BC:
each had four faces and each four wings (. . .) all four had the face of a
man and the face of a lion on the right, on the left the face of an ox and
the face of an eagle.66

As Bernabé has noticed, we do not need to go that far to find a

similar representation. We do have it in archaic Greek literature,
in Hesiod himself, if we look close enough. His description of
Typhon, as we shall see, follows a pattern similar to the Chronos
transmitted by Damascius.67 This monster, already set in relation
with some features of Chronos, is said to have multiple voices com-
ing out of his “dreadful heads:”
For at one time they made sounds such as the gods understood, but at
another, the noise of a bull bellowing aloud in proud ungovernable fury;
and at another, the sound of a lion, relentless of heart; and at another,
sounds like whelps, wonderful to hear; and again, at another, he would hiss,
so that the high mountains re-echoed. (Th. 830-35)

If we match the voices with the type of heads (different from the
“hundred heads of a snake” with which Hesiod described him just
before, Th. 825), we get a man (articulate language), a bull, a lion,
a dog (whelp), and a serpent (hiss). We can therefore consider that
in this additional description of Typhon, Hesiod is echoing the
image of a chaotic being that was familiar to other cosmogonic
authors who applied this imagery to other such beings of divine
but somewhat “underground” nature, such as Chronos.
Then the most characteristic epithet of Chronos in the Orphic
poems is “unaging,” (XrÒnow égÆraow, “unaging time”).68 Martin L.
West traces this Time divinity of the Orphic cosmogonies back to

65 An Egyptian apotropaic and beneficiary divinity called Tutu is commonly

represented as a composite creature. Cf. for instance the Graeco-Roman plaque

or votive stela in Silverman 1997: 82-83: a human-headed sphinx with a lion head
projecting from her neck, a serpent tail, its paws stepping on scorpions and knives,
and the solar symbol of Re over his head. This divinity was especially popular
in private religion as a “cumulative force of disease-bearing spirits, whose indi-
vidual forms issue from his body as hostile animals” (quoting Silverman 1997: 83).
66 Cf. remnants of this type of iconography in Christian tradition, as in the

representation of the four Gospel writers as a bull (Luke), a lion (Mark), an eagle
( John) and a man (Matthew) respectively.
67 Bernabé 1998.
68 E.g. OF 66a.
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92  -

Iranian and Egyptian models. Without entering into detail about

his comparison, West resorts to the Iranian and Indian epithets of
the corresponding Time deities, Zurvan and Kala,69 and also takes
into account the Egyptian model, since Re is the Lord of Eternity
and is also called “the aged one who renewed his youth.”70 But
once again, the Phoenician connections are also present. There is
a god in the Phoenician cosmogonies called precisely aulòm, “Time,”
lit. “the Eternal.”71 According to the Phoenician cosmogony of
Mochos, this aulòm had intercourse with himself and created Chùsòros,
“the Opener,” and also an egg.72 Chùsòros is itself an easily identifiable
Northwest Semitic deity. He appears as Kothar-wa-Hasis in the
Ugaritic myths, where he is the craftsman god, and in Philo of
Byblos (Xousvr) identified with Hephaestus.73 The egg, on the
other hand, seems to be a commonplace element in several orien-
tal cosmogonies that might have influenced the Orphic Greek ones
(cf. Hieronymus, Rhapsodies).74
Summing up, I have already pointed out that Greek Kronos,
although not well attested in the literature or cult of historic times,
seems to have played at some point a far more pivotal role in
the Greek pantheon than is reflected in the Theogony of Hesiod.

69 See West 1983: 192, also in 103. Cf. West 1971: 31, 33. See Atharvaveda

19.53.1.
70 West 1983: 192, n. 45, referring to spell 112 in The Book of the Dead. The

notion of the “eternal” cosmic element transcended into Greek Philosophy espe-
cially in the 6th can 5th cents. BC. See West 1983: 192 and West 1971: 30 ff.
The identification of Chronos with Herakles in the Orphic text is more elusive.
The commonest explanation has been that the connection lay in the allegorical
interpretation of the twelve labors of Herakles in which he overcame several beasts
including a lion, a bull, etc. as a trajectory through the Zodiac signs. Thus Herakles
was connected indirectly with the solar calendar and therefore perhaps with Time.
See West 1983: 192, with n. 49 and 50 and references there. West, however, sug-
gests a different explanation. He argues that Time is nowhere in the Orphic poems
equated with the sun, thus the link with Herakles in this sense is missing (West
1983: 193). As for his identification with Ananke or Adrastea, see West 1983:
194-98.
71 See West 1994: 292 ff. and discussion above.
72 Cited by Eudemus, FGrH 784, F 4.
73 For more on this god and references, see Attridge and Oden 1981: 45.

Cf. also West 1994: 292.

74 Aristophanes knows of one such cosmogony in which the first cosmic entities

are Chaos-Night, and Egg, and Eros. Arist. Birds 690 ff. See Bernabé 2003: 82.
For more details on the passage, where Aristophanes makes a parody of ancient
cosmogonies, both Hesiodic and Orphic, as well as of other contemporary “physic”
theories, see Bernabé 1995.
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Even in this poem, I argued, but mostly in other sources, we could

trace the character of the god as an important primordial creative
force and source of legitimate power, and as a deity identified
1. with the remote and glorious past (e.g., the myth of the Five
Races, the Kronia festivals evoking a primitive order of things),
2. possibly with eternity and time cycles (e.g., the harvest deity,
the equinox sacrifice at Olympia),
3. and thus with the hereafter and with the primordial ancestors
(Tartarus, Titans, etc.).
The appearance of a divinity of Time (Chronos) in several Orphic
and philosophic texts has been viewed in part as a reinterpretation
of Kronos and in part as reflecting new oriental concepts. Both are
true, but it has not been noticed that the apparently superficial
confusion or conflation of Kronos and Chronos can be explained
in more depth if we take into account the above-mentioned fea-
tures of Kronos that we have been able to highlight thanks to the
comparison with his Northwest Semitic counterpart.
If we look at the role of Kronos and his epithets in Hesiod and
of El in the Ugaritic poems and compare them with the charac-
terization of the same god Kronos in the Orphic and other simi-
lar sources, we see precisely how these features that connect him
with the creative force and time or eternity are shared by both,
and we even see that the Orphic poetry revived or perhaps retained
the creative and the time-related aspects of Kronos in the forefront
of its theology (as opposed to Hesiod). Thus while the Ugaritic poet
called El “creator of all creatures,” “builder of things built,” “father
of man,” “lord of gods,” “eternal king,” “father of years,” “benign,”
etc. Hesiod, as we already pointed out, called Kronos “great Kronos,”
“crafty Kronos,” and “father of men and gods.” On the other hand,
the Orphic poets say of him: “. . . that the hair on Kronos’s face
is always black and never becomes gray” (OF 142); he is “the
father,” “the maker of all” (OF 154). In a magical spell that needs
to be said to Kronos when he is invoked he is called “the Great
one, the holy one, he who founded the whole world” (PGM IV.
3099-3100). Finally, he is portrayed in the most complete invoca-
tion to the god, the co-called “Orphic Hymn to Kronos:”75

75 See Morand 2001: 7 for the Greek text edition and the entire book for a

commentary on the Orphic Hymns.

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94  -

Ever blooming, father of the blessed gods and also of men,

You of resourceful counsel, pure, great in strength, mighty Titan,
You who consume everything and yourself make it grow again,
You who hold your unbreakable chains over the infinite cosmos,
Kronos, all-begetter of time, Kronos of resourceful thought.

It is probably this characterization, well rooted in the orientalizing

archaic Greek tradition, that provided the basis for the identification of
Kronos and Chronos, Time. This aspect of Kronos as Chronos, appar-
ently emphasized by the Orphic poets, seems to have become such a
successful image that the concept of Time called for a separate iden-
tity, as a result of which both of them appear in some cosmogonies.
Here is where the Iranian and Indian precedents might have played
a crucial role in providing a model in their Time deities, most likely
via the closer cultures of Asia Minor. At the same time this emphasis
on a Time deity and its placement at the head of the cosmos would
be well understood in the context of the Pre-Socratic intellectual
movement which sought for physical (rather than divine-mythical)
entities to explain the existence of the universe. If this explanation
of the shift from Kronos to Chronos is correct, this could be yet
another interesting case of the evolution of a Greek figure due to
the merging of influences from different cultures at several stages.

Some Thoughts on the Transmission

Admittedly, many more questions need to be tackled, especially

regarding the “practical” aspects of Greek cosmogonies and the
role of this type of tradition in the general question of the trans-
mission of oriental culture to Greece. What kind of people were
involved in the performance and in the written transmission of
cosmogonies? What was the role of foreigners in this transmission
and where did they come from? What degree of contact was
necessary for this phenomenon to occur? How do the archaeological
and historical data fit into this religious and literary developments?
Burkert points out that the recent discovery of the Orphic theogony
in the Derveni Papyrus suggests that “one ‘conduit’ through which
cosmogonic myth was transported from East to West may . . . be
identified with [the “Orphic”] itinerant magicians or charismatics.”76

76 Burkert 1988: 24. See also his essay on the Persian connection and the role

of the ‘magoi’ in the formation of presocratic and Orphic thought and beliefs in
Burkert 2002: 123-157.
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Although difficult to prove, Burkert’s scheme seems to help explain-

ing some aspects of this phenomenon. Let us recall, for instance,
when Homer mentions craftsmen (demioergoi) who wander from city
to city, he has four categories in mind: the carpenter, the seer (man-
tis), the healer (ieter), and the singer (aoidos) (Odyssey 17.383-85). They
are all craftsmen, they are all movable people, they all have arts,
which are their patrimony and their way of living, and which tech-
nical intricacies and personal secrets will be kept within the fam-
ily or shared only with special disciples that become like family.77
Now how is this relevant for the understanding of cosmogonic
knowledge and its oriental background? It is relevant, even crucial,
for two reasons: cosmo-theogonic traditions belong precisely to this
type of craftsmen: poets, healers, diviners and, we may add, ini-
tiators. Secondly, without knowing it consciously, Homer was men-
tioning three groups of people who have in common the connection
with a very special type of poetry and knowledge, that of the origin
of the cosmos and the gods and that of how to use that privileged
knowledge with healing/purifying (physical and spiritually) purposes
and, in certain circles, for religious initiation. Thus, theogonies
should perhaps be seen as traveling through the same channels as
other techniques and materials, i.e., through the channels of com-
merce and colonization, of exchange of artifacts but also of ideas
and stories.78 The clearest example of this link between the transfer

77 We know from other sources about the broadly hereditary organization of

such technicians. See Burkert 1982: 8-9 and 1983: 118. Obbink 1997: 47 also
points out that “individuals handed out esoteric knowledge in personal succession,
normally from father to son, a disciple, or adopted son,” as attested in Isocrates
(in his case, of a famous mantis called Poleimainetos), or by the edict of Ptolemy IV
Philopator in 212 BC, whereby those who perform initiations for Dionysus should
report to Alexandria and state from whom they have received “the books and
the craft” up to the third generation of their ancestors (see Obbink 1997: 47).
From Tacitus we know that the Etruscan haruspices followed a strict family line
(Tac. Ann. 11,15). The same can be said of the seers in Greece such as the
Melampodids and Iamids, and of the mystery priests such as the Eumolpids and
the Kerykes from Eleusis (Burkert 1983: 118). The same is true of doctors, as is
well attested in the Hippocratean documents for the Asklepiads at Kos (Burkert,
ibid.). On the family tradition of magicians, see Betz 1982: 167 and sources there,
where the mention of a “son” in the PGM is equivalent to “apprentice.” In
Mesopotamia, the art of incantation priests is hereditary too (see Burkert 1983:
118 and references there). Some have in fact suggested that the Greek use of the
term “children” for both tribes and craftsmen is typically Semitic (cf. zvgrãfvn
pa›dew in Plato Laws 769b, Lud«n pa›dew Hdt. 1.27.4. See Burkert 1983: 119 and
bibliography there).
78 Some recent reviews of Greek medicine and its connection to Near Eastern

medicine have argued that this craft was also moving along the channels of trade
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96  -

of material items versus “abstract” ones perhaps comes from what

Burkert calls “religious technology,” such as liver divination or
incense burning, whose remains in material culture denote the adop-
tion of the ritual practices as well, or the improvement or trans-
formation of a pre-existing practice.
Although this type of “theogonic craftsmanship” is admittedly
more difficult to trace than that of the goldsmith or ivory-carver,
the transmission of cosmogonic wisdom within family circles is more
than likely. A clear example of this phenomenon, for instance, is
portrayed in Euripides’ fragment 484, where the heroine Melanippe
recites a cosmogonic account (“Heaven and earth were once a sin-
gle form, etc.”) and then says: “This account is not my own; I had
it from my mother.”79
We could say that the ritual and religious importance of this
type of composition is “pan-Mediterranean” at least in the older
eastern Mediterranean cultures. This use of myth is best attested
in, although not limited to, Mesopotamia, mainly because of archae-
ological chances and the solidity of scribal tradition in this culture.
It is well known that the Enuma Elish or Babylonian creation poem
was reenacted for the New Year celebrations in honor of Marduk.
But, as Burkert points out, this use was not limited to the creation
story, but parts of the Atrahasis (which narrates the great flood and
the origins of mankind) could be used to produce rain, and the
poem of Erra and the Seven Demons has been found in magical tablets.
So it seems like cosmogonies and other “paradigmatic poems” could
be used too in all sorts of rituals in order to protect in dangerous
or painful situations such as childbirth or toothache.80 At Ugarit
also the deity lists are undoubtedly associated with ritual texts, and
thus with ritual performance. While in Israelite religion the use of
cosmogonies in ritual contexts is not attested, the invocation of
Yahweh as creator and ruler of the universe had a crucial role in

and oral communication rather than along the channels of more formal trans-
mission of theories through texts. It was practice that allowed for such interna-
tional apprenticeship, regardless of the diverse origins and the linguistic differences
of the parts involved. See particularly Thomas 2004 and Geller 2004. Near Eastern
contacts in the realm of medicine can be traced, but not without difficulty, back
to Minoan and Mycenaean times, as Arnott 2004 has argued. In this case,
Hippocratic medicine of Classical times can be seen as a systematization of a long
tradition rather than as a totally new movement.
79 Following Bremmer 2005: 83.
80 See Burkert 1983: 119 with ns. 40, 41 and 42 for bibliography.
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the practical realm of religion, as can be seen in attested incanta-

tions,81 and at least some Psalms celebrating the victory of Yahweh
over his adversaries were probably recited at the feast of the
Tabernacles in the Temple, a feast which inaugurated the vernal
New Year.82 A similar situation can be assumed for Phoenician and
Punic gods of creative force, such as Ashtarte, Hawwat (˙wt), or
others, who play a central role in magic documents.83 The case of
the Persian magoi is better attested thanks to the famus passage of
Herodotus (1. 132), in which he states that when the Persian made
sacrifices, a magos invariably recited a theogony (§pa¤dei yeogon¤hn).
In Egypt too rituals reenacting episodes of the different cosmogo-
nies were fundamental for the maintenance of cosmic order.84
It might be hard for us to perceive a poem like the Theogony of
Hesiod, enthroned as a “classic” already in antiquity, as part of
the religious and even ritual patrimony of its time, but we may be
sure that composing a Theogony was no mere rhetorical exercise,
and that the tradition on which Hesiod draws in his Theogony
belonged to the realm of the highly sacred and reflected the capac-
ity of a privileged few to establish what they considered the true
version of the history of the universe and its gods. In the case of
the Orphic material, however, the connection is much more evi-
dent. The association of the Orphic theogonies with ritual and ini-
tiation groups, especially Bacchic, and the practical realm of healers
and magic, is well attested, especially in light of new documents
that have been studied and published in the last few decades, trans-
forming radically our view of Orpheus and the things “Orphic.”
(The Derveni Papyrus, the golden leaves and the Olbia bone plaques
have confirmed the association between “Orphic” trends and ini-
tiation rituals). Plato, for instance, talks about the Orpheoteletai as
itinerant seers (égÊrtai ka‹ mãnteiw) who come to the doors of the
rich people and offer their services of purifications (kayãrmoi) and

81 Cf. Faraone (forthcoming) about invocations to Yahweh in this role even to

put back in place the wandering womb (as they called a type of uterine disease,
see Faraone 2003).
82 See Cornford 1967: 107-08. For the celebration of the New Year in Israelite

religion, see Olyan 2004.

83 Cf. Lipinski 1992 s.v. “Magie.” See also Faraone, Garnand, and López-Ruiz

2005 for the goddess Hawwat in a Punic inscription (KAI 89) and bibliography
on the subject.
84 On Egyptian cosmogonies and their sources, see Lesko 1991, and on the use

of Egyptian cosmogonies as part of the temple liturgy, see Shafer 1997.

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98  -

initiations (tel°tai).85 In order text he associates the works of such

specialists to certain type of deceases that need to be cleaned, dis-
eases caused by guilt from the evil actions of ancestors (palaiå
mhn¤mata, “ancient wrath”).86
It cannot be accidental that other famous characters attributed
the creation of a cosmogony or theogony were also legendary heal-
ers or purifiers, such as Cretan Epimenides, Empedocles, and
Orpheus himself if we think of his attempted resurrection of his
beloved and the power of his music. Epimenides, probably a his-
torical figure, was attributed the Oracles, a theogony presented as
an oracular revelation. Around 600 BC he allegedly was summoned
to Athens in order to purify it from the “Kylonian pollution.”87
The Presocratic philosopher Empedocles, from Agrigentum, (first
half of the 5th century BC) was also considered a “holy man”
whose works, also in hexameters, were concerned with nature and
cosmology as well as with purification.88 He was considered an

85 Pl. Rep. 364b-365a.

86 Pl. Phdr. 244. He does not mention Orpheus but mentions Dionysus as the
Lord of “telestic madness.” For comments on these passages, see Burkert 1982:
4-5, who adduces other examples of this notion in Greek literature. The description
of these maladies as disease caused by ancient guilt probably reflects psychosomatic
illness. Cf. Assyrian incantations to cure sickness caused by family “blood guilt,”
and the Hippocratean treatise on the Sacred Disease, etc. See Burkert 1983: 116
and comments there with references. A ritual that is used in Greece for the
purification of murder-guilt, the slaughtering of a pig over the head of a person
(cf. Orestes or the daughters of Proetus), might have its origins in Mesopotamia,
but there it is attested only against disease. See Burkert 1983: 116 and references
there to this and other Mesopotamian and Greek common elements related to
purification, such as the concept of a substitute (pu¢u) or the use of the defixio
(katãdesiw) or binding spell. The latter are particularly common in the Graeco-
Egyptian realm of the Demotic and Greek magical papyri (see GMPT ). Binding
spells are not unheard of in the Hebrew and Punic worlds (see Faraone, Garnand,
and López-Ruiz 2005), and written charms of other kinds are well attested in the
Greek world as well as among the Phoenicians and Egyptians. See Kotansky 1991,
and nn. 8, 54, and 55, on the topic of ancient Near Eastern amulets.
87 See West 1983: 47-49, Burkert 1983: 115, 1982: 6. Testimonies are in FGrHist

457. See also Burkert 1972: 150-52 and sources there, Dodds 1951: n. 2. For
Epimenides as one of the Seven Sages, see Martin 1998: 122.
88 See New Pauly s.v. “Empedocles.” Most of what we have preserved of his

works, called On Nature or “The Nature Poem” ( Per‹ FÊsevw) and The Purifications
( Kayarmo¤), was quoted in Plutarch’s Moralia, and also transmitted by Aristoteles
and his commentators. Most of the details about his life are in Diog. Laert. Book 8
JANER 6_f5_71-104III 11/20/06 5:18 PM Page 99

        99

élhtÆw, a “wanderer,” who entered towns adorned like a divine

figure and had people ask him for oracular advice but also for
healing.89 Parmenides was indeed another “Presocratic” philosopher
whose doctrines and use of poetic expression sets him, again, in
between rationality and revelation.90 It is perhaps in this type of
figure (ambiguous from the modern rationalistic point of view, but
not within Greek parameters) where lies the connection between
the semi-ritual importance of cosmo-theogonic knowledge and the
newer physical and metaphysical concerns that the Greeks called
philosophia. In fact, the Greeks traced the origins of philosophy to
Pythagoras, another charismatic figure from Magna Graecia, who
was believed to have been pupil of Pherecydes of Syros, the com-
poser of an “Orphic” theogony himself.91
Other similar characters are Thaletas, who c. 675 BC is called
from Gortyn in Crete to cure a plague in Sparta through the singing
of a healing song, the Cretan paian,92 or the legendary wonder-
worker Abaris, a devotee of Hyperborean Apollo who carried around
an arrow with healing qualities (Hdt. 4.36).93 The guild-like organ-
ization of the Etruscan haruspices (entrails readers, diviners) working
in Rome, provide further evidence for this kind of migrating spe-
cialists, not limited to Orphic or Bacchic, and well attested espe-
cially since the 7th century BC,94 but already implied in Homer as
we saw above. In a similar way, the Etruscan haruspices were at

(see edition of the fragments in FVS 31, vol 1. 276-375). For a study on the deep-
est sense of his cosmogonic ideas in the context of the “magical” side of his char-
acter and with the Near Eastern background of some of his ideas, see Kingsley
1995. It is remarkable that, according to tradition, Empedocles had traveled exten-
sively before returning to his land in south-west Sicily, as it would be expected
of many seers, magicians, and healers in the Mediterranean. See Kingsley 1995: 1
and references there.
89 This is described in the Katharmoi of Empedocles. See FVS 35B, 119, 13. See

Burkert 1983: 118, 1982: 6.

90 For the poems of Parmenides in their spiritual-revelatory sense, see Kingsley

1999. For the connections between Hesiod’s and Parmenides’ cosmologies, see
Pellikaan-Engel 1974.
91 See Redfield 1991: 108. For Pythagoreanism, its comparison with Orphism,

and its sources, see Burkert 1982: 12-15, and, for the longer detailed study of
Pythagoras in the earliest traditions, see Burkert 1972: ch. 2. See also excellent
discussion on early Pythagoreanism in Kinsley 1995, esp. 317-47.
92 Pratinas TGF 4 F 9 = Plut. Mus. 1146bc.
93 See Burkert 1972: 149 and sources there.
94 Obbink 1997: 47.
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100  -

work in Rome, or the seer Bileam in the Bible was called from
Mesopotamia to Moab.95
If we put together what we perceive in Hesiod’s Theogony and
what we know from the Orphic-Pythagorean sources, it is only rea-
sonable to think, as Faraone explains, that theogonies had a special
place in the repertoire of magicians and healers, as they “re-establish
the confidence of that creationary moment and by so doing cure
an evil or illness that was not part of the first creation.”96 In sum,
not only there was an early theogonic genre that drew on com-
mon Eastern Mediterranean motifs but this genre seems to have
been very representative of the dynamics that made of the Medi-
terranean a more connected world where eastern and western cul-
tures met so fruitfully.

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