Jenny Strauss Clay and Amir Gilan The Hittite “Song of Emergence” and the Theogony Abstract: The unusual verb “to emerge” to mean “give birth” in the Theogony finds a striking parallel in the Hittite “Song of Emergence” and, if not coinciden- tal, may suggest a more direct contact between Greek and Hittite material than originally supposed and allows us to explore the possible locale of such con- tact. Keywords: Theogony, Hittite, Emergence, ἀνίημι DOI 10.1515/phil-2014-0001 The Ancient Near Eastern background of the Hesiodic succession myth is widely recognized. Hesiod portrays divine genealogy as a rather violent dynastic history, consisting of several generations of “kings in heaven”, each gaining power by defeating their predecessors. The Succession Myth, spanning from the first ruler in heaven to the present one, shares many parallels with other narratives such as the Babylonian enūma eliš or with Philo’s adaptation of the Phoenician History of Sanchuniathon of Beirut, dated to the first century CE, but probably citing a Phoenician work of an earlier, Hellenistic date. It is the Hurro-Hittite composi- tions, however, that provide the most striking and exciting parallels to the Hesiodic narrative. The following paper will offer another parallel between the two compositions: the unconventional verbs used to denote unnatural births in both of them. Recounting the birth of the gods and the constituent parts of the cosmos as well as those forces that define it, Hesiod’s Theogony deploys various expressions for “begetting”, “engendering”, and “giving birth”. Most common are the forms of the verb τίκτω (45 times), γείνομαι (28 times), and γίγνομαι or ἐκγίγνομαι (12 times). There is, however, an unusual expression that occurs only twice and once again with a slight variant: Jenny Strauss Clay: Department of Classics, University of Virginia, P. O. Box 400788, Charlottesville VA 22904-4788, E ˗ Mail: jsc2t@virginia.edu Amir Gilan: Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Tel Aviv University, E ˗ Mail: agilan@post.tau.ac.il Philologus 2014; 58(1): 1–9 Brought to you by | University of Connecticut Authenticated Download Date | 5/24/15 12:14 PM