AARON TUGENDHAFT POLITICAL THEORY WORKSHOP

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO FEBRUARY 14, 2011

The paper that follows is a chapter of my New York University dissertation on the epic of

Baal, a text from ancient Ugarit in the Near East. The project argues that the poem used

the medium of myth to develop a challenge to imperial political theology. I would like to

thank Lindsay Knight for inviting a philologist and historian of religion to workshop

research to a group of political theorists. Because you may not be familiar with Ugarit

and the Late Bronze Age more generally, I provide the following few words as preface.

Unknown to the modern world prior to the discovery of its remains near the

coastal Syrian village of Ras Shamra in 1928, the cosmopolitan trading city of Ugarit

flourished during the Late Bronze Age, roughly 1450 BC to 1200 BC. This was a period

during which a club of “Great Powers” divided control of the Near East and the eastern

Mediterranean. Much is known about these imperial powers and their interactions,

primarily from an archive of royal letters discovered at el-Amarna in Egypt and from the

royal Hittite archive excavated at Hattusa, modern Bo!azköy in Turkey.

At times an independent city-state, for most of its history Ugarit belonged to the

Egyptian cultural and political sphere of influence, falling under Hittite domination in its

later years. What made the discovery of Ugarit so exciting was the archive of texts—by

which I mean cuneiform tablets—excavated in the very first seasons of digging. These

included a series of literary texts written in a local language (as opposed to the more

common Akkadian lingua franca used for legal and diplomatic texts) similar in many

ways to biblical Hebrew, though roughly five hundred years older. The most significant

are two poems with human protagonists, known as the Epic of Kirta and the Epic of

Aqhat respectively, and a long mythological text entitled by its ancient scribe simply “Of

Baal,” whose action takes place among the gods.

What remains of the Ugaritic myth of Baal comes down to us on six unique clay

tablets, each small enough to fit in the palm of the hand and each damaged, sometimes

severely. Because of this damage, much of what we can say about the myth is at best

tentative. The main character of the poem is, of course, Baal. He was the chief deity of

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Ugarit, though this is never made explicit in the poem. Other central players are the

deities El and Athirat, husband and wife, belonging to the generation older than Baal. El

is the father of the gods. Baal’s two principal opponents in the story are, in the first part,

Yamm (literally “sea”) and, in the final part, Mot (whose name means “death”).

The main storyline can be divided into three principal episodes, corresponding

roughly to the first two, middle two, and final two tablets: the combat between Baal and

Yamm, the negotiations for and building of Baal’s palace, and the combat between Baal

and Mot. The first tablet begins at a moment when Baal is subordinate to Yamm,

seemingly in accord with El’s wishes. A battle ensues between Yamm and Baal in which

Baal defeats Yamm. In the second pair of tablets we find Baal lamenting the fact that he

has no palace like the sons of Athirat, which leads to a series of negotiations and

monetary enticements by which he is ultimately able to obtain El’s permission for a

palace to be built. The construction of the palace for Baal is then recounted in detail.

Finally, the third pair of tablets tells of a second major conflict, this time between Baal

and Mot. Though initially Mot is successful, Shapshu, the sun-goddess, eventually

brokers a settlement in which Mot agrees to release Baal. The poem ends with a hymn to

Shapshu.

Should you desire to delve deeper into this material, a convenient volume of

translations is Simon B. Parker, ed., Ugaritic Narrative Poetry (Atlanta, 1997). Also

noteworthy are Dennis Pardee’s renditions of the Ugaritic poetic and epistolary corpora

in William W. Hallo and K. Lawson Younger, eds., The Context of Scripture (Leiden,

2003). Two handy text collections for those interested in Late Bronze Age international

politics are William L. Moran, The Amarna Letters (Baltimore, 2000) and Gary

Beckman, Hittite Diplomatic Texts, second edition (Atlanta, 1999).

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Chapter Three: POLITICAL LEGITIMACY AS A MYTHOLOGICAL PROBLEM*

David recusò, dicendo con quelle non si potere bene valere di sé stesso – Niccolò Machiavelli, Il Principe, XIII

die geheime schwarze Kunst einer wahrhaft grossen Politik der Rache

– Friedrich Nietzsche, Zur Genealogie der Moral, I.8

On July 28, 1834, Félix Marie Charles Texier set out, Strabo in hand, to find the

ancient city of Tavium, famed for its colossal bronze statue of Zeus.1 The

Frenchman was on a scientific “voyage d’exploration” in Anatolia at the behest of

his monarch, Louis Philippe I, the last king of France. Near the village of

Bo!azköy, Texier happened upon the ruins of a major settlement—but it was not

Tavium. What he found instead were the remains of an imperial city unmentioned

by any classical historian: Hattusa, capital of the Hittites.2 After Texier had taken

stock of palace and temple, a local guide led him to a concealed open-air

sanctuary nestled between rock outcroppings east of the ancient city. Texier * An earlier version of this material was presented at the Ugaritic Studies and Northwest Semitic Epigraphy unit of the 2010 Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting. I would like to thank Phil Schmitz for inviting me to present and the audience of that session for their thoughtful comments. The thoughts presented here have also greatly benefited from discussions with Brickey LeQuire, Hugh Liebert, and Seth Sanders. This is a work in progress; comments are welcome and can be sent to atugendhaft@gmail.com. Please do not cite or circulate without the author’s permission. All translations from languages other than Hittite are my own unless otherwise noted. For Ugaritic letters available in COS, Amarna letters, and documents in HDT, I have largely followed Pardee, Moran, and Beckman, respectively, adapting their translations when necessary, often only to maintain uniform terminology. 1 Charles Texier, Description de l’Asie mineure faite par l’ordre du gouvernement français, de 1833 à 1837, vol. 1 (Paris: Institut de France, 1839), 207; cf. Strabo, Geography, 12.5.2. 2 The identification of the site as Hattusa had to wait until Hugo Winkler and Theodor Makridi began excavations in 1906. But, recognizing that the ruins could not be those of Tavium, Texier replaced his Strabo with a copy of Herodotus and identified the remains as ancient Pteria—site of Croesus’ battle with Cyrus the Great (Texier, Description, 221-25; cf. Herodotus, 1.76). For an account of the discovery and identification of Hattusa, see Kurt Bittel, Hattuscha, Hauptstadt der Hethiter: Geschichte und Kultur einer altorientalischen Großmacht (Cologne: DuMont Buchverlag, 1983), 9-31.

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describes how “when, after following a bend in the rock, I found myself in front

of this masterpiece of primitive barbarian art I could not hide my admiration, and

I rewarded the guide to whom I owed this discovery with a gift (baksheesh).”3

The graduate of the École des Beaux-Arts had come upon the monumental relief

carvings known locally as Yazılıkaya.4

Among the stone sculptures of Yazılıkaya is a relief of a human figure in

the embrace of a god (figs. 1, 2).5 Both facing to the viewer’s left, the deity,

distinctly taller, wraps his left arm around the shoulder of his companion, while

simultaneously grasping the latter’s right arm by the wrist. Each figure is

identified by a hieroglyphic inscription, one over the hand of the deity and the

other—the royal cartouche—in the upper right hand corner of the relief. From

these we learn that the smaller figure is the penultimate great king of Hatti,

Tudhaliya IV, while his larger guide is the king’s patron deity Sharruma. At the

outskirts of the imperial capital, the divine supervision enjoyed by Hatti’s human

king has been permanently set in stone.

The Umarmungsszene, as it has come to be known, is a well-known motif

in Hittite royal iconography, most commonly appearing on royal seals.6 The

3 Texier, Description, 214. 4 On Yazılıkaya, see Kurt Bittel, et al., Das Hethitische Felsheiligtum Yazılıkaya (Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag, 1975); cf. Bittel, Hattuscha, 133-61; Robert L. Alexander, The Sculpture and Sculptors of Yazılıkaya (Newark: Univ. of Delaware Press, 1986). The Turkish name means “inscribed stone.” 5 Bittel, Hethitische Felsheiligtum, 155-57 and plate VII. See also Winfried Orthmann, “Zum Relief Nr. 81 in Yazılıkaya,” in Beiträge zur Altertumskunde Kleinasiens. Festschrift für Kurt Bittel (ed. R. M. Boehmer and H. Hauptmann; Mainz: Von Zabern, 1983), 427-31. 6 See Suzanne Herbordt, “The Hittite Royal Cylinder Seal of Tuthaliya IV with Umarmungsszene,” in The Iconography of Cylinder Seals (ed. P. Taylor; London: Warburg Institute, 2006), 82-91 and figs. 130-40; cf. David Hawkins, “Urhi-Te"ub, tuhkanti,” in Akten des IV. Internationalen Kongress für Hethitologie (ed. G. Wilhelm; Studien zu den Bo!azköy-Texten 45; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2001), 167-79; Isabelle Klock-Fontanille, “Écritures et langages

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earliest attested exemplum is found on a bulla dating to the reign of Muwatalli II

depicting the king protected by the Great Storm-god (fig. 3).7 Impressions

containing the motif are also known from seals belonging to Mursili III (Urhi-

Teshub) and Tudhaliya IV (figs. 4, 5).8 Through use of such seals, Hittite kings

would impress upon their audiences the divine benefaction that favored their

reign. The iconography of divine embrace parallels the written record, in which

Hittite kings often speak of a god leading them by the hand.9 In these ways,

Hittite kings represented political action as a product of divine guidance.10

This correspondence between the divine realm and earthly political order

is succinctly expressed in an early Hittite text. A clay tablet unearthed in the

visuels sur les sceaux digraphes de l'empire hittite: Quelques propositions pour une rhétorique de l'écriture,” in Akten des IV. Internationalen Kongress für Hethitologie, 292-307. 7 Thomas Beran, Die hethitische Glyptik aus Bo!azköy, vol. 1: Die Siegel und Siegelabdrücke der vor- und althethitischen Perioden und die Siegel der hethitischen Großkönige (Wissenschaftliche Veröffentlichungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 76; Berlin: Mann, 1967), no. 250a; cf. Hans Gustav Güterbock, “Seals and Sealing in Hittite Lands,” in Perspectives on Hittite Civilization: Selected Writings of Hans Gustav Güterbock (ed. H. A. Hoffner, Jr.; Chicago: Oriental Institute of Chicago, 1997), 127-35, esp. 132 and figs. 12 and 13. 8 For Mursili III, see Heinrich Otten, Zu einigen Neufunden hethitischer Königssiegel (Mainz: Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, 1993), 22-27 and figs. 16-20. For Tudhaliya IV, see RS 17.159 in Ug. III, 14-20 and figs. 24-26, and the fragmentary impressions of the same seal found in the Ni#antepe archive and published in Otten, Neufunden hethitischer Königssiegel, 35-37 and figs. 29-31. 9 For discussion of the relationship between text and image, see Horst Klengel, “‘An der Hand der Gottheit’: Bemerkungen zur ‘Umarmungsszene’ in der hethitischen Tradition,” in Silvia Anatolica: Anatolian Studies Presented to Maciej Popko on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday (ed. P. Taracha: Warsaw: Agade, 2002), 205-10; cf. Stefano de Martino and Fiorella Imparati, “La ‘Mano’ nelle più significative espressioni idiomatiche ittite,” in do-ra-qe pe-re. Studi in memoria di Adriana Quattordio Moreschini (ed. L. Agostiniani; Pisa: Istituti editoriali e poligrafici internazionali, 1998), 175-85, 181-82; Itamar Singer, Muwatalli’s Prayer to the Assembly of Gods through the Storm-god of Lightning (Atlanta: Scholar’s Press, 1996), 68. 10 On the general topic of Hittite kingship and its relationship to the divine, see Gary Beckman, “Royal Ideology and State Administration in Hittite Anatolia,” in Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, vol. 1 (ed. J. M. Sasson; New York: Scribners, 1995), 529-43; Amir Gilan, “Sakrale ordnung und politische Herrschaft im hethitischen Anatolien,” in Offizielle Religion, lokale Kulte und individuelle Religiosität: Akten des religiongeschichtlichen Symposiums “Kleinasien und angrenzende Gebiete vom Beginn des 2. bis zur Mitte des 1. Jahrtausends v. Chr.” (ed. M. Hutter and S. Hutter-Braunsar; Münster: AOAT 318; Ugarit-Verlag, 2004), 189-205; Ilya Yakubovich, “Were Hittite Kings Divinely Anointed? A Palaic Invocation to the Sun-god and Its Significance for Hittite Religion,” JANER 5 (2005): 107-37.

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imperial capital contains a priestly invocation. When the king would pay homage

to the gods, the text states, a priest would recite:

May the Tabarna, the king, be dear to the gods! The land belongs to the storm-god alone. Heaven, earth, and the people belong to the storm-god alone. He has made the Labarna, the king, his administrator and given him the entire Land of Hatti. The Labarna shall continue to administer with his hand the entire land. May the storm-god destroy whoever should approach the person of the Labarna, [the king], and the borders (of Hatti).11

The prayer evokes an image of proper order wherein the human king is beloved

by the gods because he governs the land in accord with their will. He has the right

to do so because he has been chosen by the storm-god as administrator of a land

and people that properly belongs to the deity. Because divinely apportioned, both

the borders of the land and the body of the king possess a sacred dimension that

must not be transgressed. Cosmic organization underpins earthly political rule.

Politico-theological ideas of this general type are well attested-to among

the cultures of the ancient Near East.12 Parallels abound from Egypt, Babylonia,

11 IBoT 1.30. English translation in Gary Beckman, “Royal Ideology,” 530; cf. Albrecht Goetze, review of H. Bozkurt, M. Çi!, and H. G. Güterbock, Istanbul Arkeoloji Müzelerinde Bulunan Bo!azköy Tableterinden Seçme Metinler, JCS 1 (1947): 90-91. See also Alfonso Archi, “Auguri per il Labarna” in Fs Piero Mariggi (StMed 1; Pavia: Aurora, 1979), 27-51, esp. 31-32; Gilan, “Sakrale ordnung,” 190; Ada Taggar-Cohen, Hittite Priesthood (THeth 26; Heidelberg: Universtätsverlag Winter, 2006), 253-54. 12 The classic though now somewhat dated study of ancient Near Eastern political theology is Henri Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods: A Study of Ancient Near Eastern Religion as the Integration of Society & Nature (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1948). Since Frankfort’s time, the scholarly literature on this subject has ballooned. Though not focused on divine matters, Mario Liverani’s International Relations in the Ancient Near East, 1600-1100 BC (New York: Palgrave, 2001) remains essential for understanding Late Bronze Age “royal ideology.” See also the essays collected in Nicole Brisch, ed., Religion and Power: Divine Kingship in the Ancient World and Beyond (Oriental Institute Seminars 4; Chicago: Oriental Institute, 2008), with references. Also important are Erich Voegelin, Order and History, vol. 1: Israel and Revelation, republished in The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, vol. 14 (ed. M. P. Hogan; Columbia, Missouri: Univ. of Missouri Press, 2001 [1956]), esp. 39-156; cf. Peter Machinist, “Mesopotamia in Eric Voegelin’s Order and History,” in Occasional Papers XXVI (ed. P.J. Opitz and D. Herz; Munich: Eric-Voegelin-Archiv, 2001), 5-54; Jan Assmann, Politische Theologie zwischen Ägypten und Israel (Munich: Carl Friedrich von Siemens Stiftung, 1991); Bruce Lincoln, Religion, Empire, and

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Assyria, and Persia. Though none of the political ideas that emerged from these

societies are identical, they share a conception of politics grounded in an order

governed by the gods. Or, to be more precise, according to this way of thinking

legitimate political actions or institutions must be rooted in the divine order.

Those that are not so rooted are considered transgressions of the divine order and

hence illegitimate. Now, determining which political facts correspond to the

divine will and which constitute transgressions is not always a simple

undertaking. A certain amount of circular thinking always threatens to be

involved. The Hittite usurper Hattusili III, for instance, accounts for his political

success by attributing it to Ishtar’s divine providence, asking rhetorically: “If he

(scil. the usurped Great King) had in no way opposed me, would they (scil. the

gods) really have made a Great King succumb to a petty king?”13 However the

difficulty of determining what “counts” as providential is resolved, all such

approaches to politics depend upon an ordered divine realm and the possibility of

correspondence between that realm and earthly political power.

The various Near Eastern polities named above all have in common that

they maintained relatively powerful empires. Rather little politico-theological

writing survives from more minor political players. This fact is partly the result of

historical accident. We simply possess more data from the powerful states of the

ancient world—states large enough to maintain the infrastructure necessary to

Torture: The Case of Achaemenian Persia, with a Postscript on Abu Ghraib (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2007). 13 “Apology of Hattusili III,” §10c (trans. Th. P. J. van den Hout, COS 1.77:203); for the description of the composition as an account of Ishtar’s providence, see §2, p. 199.

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produce official literature on durable clay and stone.14 Ugarit is an important

exception to this general rule. The small, cosmopolitan kingdom located in the

contested border region between the Hittite and Egyptian empires has left us a

treasure of documentation, and thus provides an opportunity to study what a small

state, often at the mercy of larger empires, thought about the relationship between

politics and the gods.

As I plan to demonstrate, Ugaritic political thought differs radically from

the politico-theological understandings characteristic of the city-state’s imperial

neighbors. This radical difference has yet to be recognized properly by those who

have studied Ugarit and its poetry. From the time of the Baal Cycle’s discovery

early in the twentieth century, the reigning scholarly assumption has been that the

poem is typical. First, scholars under the influence of Frazer considered it a

typical fertility myth;15 more recently, interpreters of a more political bent have

seen it as typical of ancient Near Eastern “royal ideology.”16 Above all, perhaps,

the Baal Cycle has been treated as typical Canaanite mythology and hence as a

foil to ancient Israel’s monotheistic revolution.17 I want to suggest that Ugarit’s

14 For a fascinating treatment of this point and its limitations, see Seth L. Sanders, The Invention of Hebrew (Urbana and Chicago: Univ. of Illinois Press, 2009), 76-102. Cf. Eva von Dassow, “Preface,” in Rebellions and Peripheries in the Cuneiform World (ed. S. Richardson; American Oriental Series 91; New Haven, Conn.: American Oriental Society, 2010), ix-xv. 15 Above all, Theodor Gaster, Thespis: Ritual, Myth, and Drama in the Ancient Near East (New York: Doubleday, 1961); Johannes C. de Moor, The Seasonal Pattern in the Ugaritic Myth of Ba‘lu: According to the Version of Ilimilku (AOAT 16; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker, 1971); cf. Samuel E. Loewenstamm, Comparative Studies in Biblical and Ancient Oriental Literatures (AOAT 204; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker, 1980), esp. 160-65. 16 See especially Nicolas Wyatt, Myths of Power: A Study of Royal Myth and Ideology in Ugaritic and Biblical Tradition (Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1996); idem, Word of Tree and Whisper of Stone, and Other Papers on Ugaritian Thought (Piscataway, N.J.: Gorgias, 2007). 17 This tradition is best represented by William F. Albright, Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan: A Historical Analysis of Two Contrasting Faiths (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1968); Frank M. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1973); cf. Mark S. Smith, The Origins of Biblical

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understanding of politics and the divine is anything but typical. For in the Baal

Cycle, Ugarit responded to imperial political theology by producing, in the

medium of myth, a critique aimed at the very foundations of that way of thinking.

Coming to see this today requires taking the path of philological exegesis.

Ugarit expressed its political ideas in poetry. On its surface that poetry shares

many themes and motifs with the mythology of Ugarit’s imperial neighbors. This

superficial similarity has contributed in no small measure to mistaking the poem

for a reiteration of commonly held ideas—certainly among modern scholars, and

perhaps, one wonders, among ancient audiences as well. The poem does its work

at the level of subtle differences and details. Careful reading is therefore essential.

But because the poem builds its message by playing off of the expectations of its

audience, it is also necessary to become familiar with the world that Ugarit knew.

Ugarit’s experience of politics—the ways it functioned in practice, the ways it

was represented in speech, text, and image, and the tensions that emerged

between these two—is the ground out of which its understanding of politics grew.

This chapter attempts to demonstrate the dialectic between political practice and

representation by focusing on one politically rich episode of the Ugaritic poem.

As an emblem of this issue we may contrast the indigenously produced

tablets of the Baal Cycle with a document that traveled to Ugarit from Hattusa.

Among the texts discovered in Ugarit’s palace is an edict from Tudhaliya IV in

which the Hittite suzerain dictates marital policy to his dependant, the king of

Monotheism: Israel’s Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2001). The history of Ugaritic studies’ relationship to biblical studies has been written about by Smith, Untold Stories: The Bible and Ugaritic Studies in the Twentieth Century (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2001).

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Ugarit, Ammistamru II.18 At the center of the tablet there is an impression of the

Great King’s royal seal depicting the same Umarmungsszene that amazed Texier

at Yazılıkaya (fig. 6, together with fig. 5). Hittite politico-theological ideas were

made manifest before the Ugaritic kings’ eyes by means of the messages

dispatched from the imperial capital. Whereas Tudhaliya’s edict is written in the

Akkadian lingua franca, inscribed using syllabic cuneiform, and sports an

imperial seal depicting the king embraced by a Hittite storm-god, the tablets

labeled “Of Baal” are inscribed in an alphabetic cuneiform script invented to

record Ugarit’s own vernacular language.19 In this work, the royally sponsored

poets of Ugarit expressed a conception of divine politics that starred their own

storm-god. How did the Ugaritic vision of politics compare to the political

theology of the Umarmungsszene?

1.

The episode itself involves an early scene of the Baal Cycle that depicts an envoy

of messengers sent by the god Yamm to the assembly of gods headed by El. In an

article from 1967 devoted to treaty terminology in the Bible, the renowned

northwest Semitic philologist Jonas Greenfield noted that the language used in

this scene to define the relationships between its principal protagonists reflects

Late Bronze Age diplomatic conventions.20 The text reads as follows:

18 RS 17.159 = PRU IV, pp. 126-27 and pl. XXII. 19 Cf. Sanders, Invention of Hebrew, 54-57. 20 Jonas C. Greenfield, “Some Aspects of Treaty Terminology in the Bible,” in Proceedings of the Fourth World Congress of Jewish Studies, vol. 1 (Jerusalem: 1967), 117-19; reprinted in ‘Al Kanfei Yonah: Collected Studies of Jonas C. Greenfield on Semitic Philology, vol. 2 (ed. S. M. Paul, M.E. Stone and A. Pinnick; Leiden: Brill, 2001), 901-6, esp. 901-2; cf. F.C. Fensham, “Notes on Treaty Terminology in the Ugaritic Epics,” UF 11 (1979): 265-74. Building off the

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Yamm sends envoys, Ruler Nahar, an embassy. [They rejoice] “Go, lads, don’t dally, head for the assembled council, for Mount Lalu. Don’t fall at El’s feet, nor bow to the assembled council. Standing, speak the speech, recite your instructions. Say to the Bull, [my] father [El], recite to the assembled council: Message of Yamm, your lord, your master, Ruler Nahar: Give up, gods, the one you protect, the one the multitude fears; Give up Baal so I may humble him, Dagan’s son, so I may seize his gold.” The lads depart. They don’t dally. They head for Mount Lalu, for the assembled council. Meanwhile the gods sit down to feast, the sons of the Holy One, to dine. Baal standing by El. The gods see them, they see Yamm’s envoys, the embassy of Ruler Nahar. The gods lower their heads to their knees, onto their princely thrones. Baal rebukes them: “Why, gods, do you lower your heads to your knees, onto your princely thrones? As one the gods must answer the tablet of Yamm’s envoys, the embassy of Ruler Nahar. Raise, gods, your heads from your knees, off of your princely thrones. And I myself will answer Yamm’s envoys, the embassy of Ruler Nahar.” The gods raise their heads

insights of Greenfield and Fensham, Mark Smith has been instrumental in developing an approach to the Baal Cycle that takes seriously its political dimensions, a topic that arises repeatedly throughout his two commentaries on the poem (the second written with Wayne Pitard).

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from their knees, off of their princely thrones. Then Yamm’s envoys arrive, the embassy of Ruler Nahar. At El’s feet they don’t fall, nor bow to the assembled council. Standing, they speak the speech, Recite their instructions. Like a flame, two flames, they appear, Their tongue a sharpened sword. They say to the Bull, his father El: “Message of Yamm, your lord, your master, Ruler Nahar: Give up, gods, the one you protect, the one the multitude fears. Give up Baal so I may humble him, Dagan’s son so I may seize his gold.” The Bull, his Father El, answers: “Baal is your servant, O Yamm, Baal is your servant, O Nahar, Dagan’s son, your prisoner. He will indeed bring you tribute, like the gods he’ll bring you a gift, the sons of the Holy One, offerings.” Then Prince Baal gets agitated. He grabs a club with his hand, with his right hand a bat. He clobbers the lads. Anat grabs his right hand, Athtart grabs his left. “How could you batter Yamm’s envoys, the embassy of Ruler Nahar?”

[Baal responds:] “I, for my part, say to Yamm, your lord, [your] master, [Ruler Nahar]...”21

Here the tablet breaks off, leaving Baal’s response to the modern reader’s

imagination.

Greenfield singles out one specific passage from the episode. In his reply

to Yamm’s messengers, El declares that Baal is Yamm’s servant and that he will

behave accordingly. The term translated as “servant” (‘bd; lit. “slave”) is often 21 KTU 1.2 I 11-46.

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rendered by the term “vassal” in this kind of context. Though the parallel with

medieval European feudalism is imperfect, the latter term does help to clarify that

in certain situations the unmarked term ‘bd was used to denote specifically a

political subordinate.22 The king of Ugarit refers to himself in this way, for

instance, in an Ugaritic letter addressed to the king of Egypt.23 Most international

correspondence, however, survives in Akkadian so parallels are mostly found

with the equivalent Akkadian term, ardu. It is as an ardu that the king of Ugarit

regularly presents himself in his correspondence with the Hittite monarch.24 By

calling Baal a “servant” of Yamm, El evokes a situation that would have been

immediately recognizable to an Ugaritic audience as political and, more

specifically, international.

More than just the word ‘bd links El’s speech to the politics of Ugarit’s

world. The god says that Baal will bring Yamm tribute (ybl ’argmn). Both the

noun and verb belong to standard terminology found in an Ugaritic document

listing tribute requirements to Hatti:

argmn . nqmd . mlk ugrt . d ybl . l "p" mlk . rb . b‘lh

22 On the question of using terminology derived from institutions of the European Middle Ages when discussing the Bronze Age Near East, see B. Lafont, “Relations internationales, alliances et diplomatie su temps des royaumes amorrites,” in Amurru 2: Mari, Ébla et les hourrites, dix ans de travaux, 2nd part, ed. J.-M. Durand and D. Charpin (Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 2001), 261; cf. S. Lafont, “Fief et féodalité dans le Proche-Orient ancien,” in Les féodalités, ed. E. Bournazel and J.-P. Poly (Paris: PUF, 1998), 517-30. This terminology should not be taken to imply manorialism. For the inadequacy of medieval terminology to represent ancient Near Eastern economic organization, see D. Schloen, The House of the Father as Fact and Symbol: Patrimonialism in Ugarit and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2001), 188-89. 23 RIH 78.3+30:5 = KTU 2.81 = COS 3.45M; cf. RS 16.078:5 = KTU 2.23 = COS 3.45O; EA 49. 24 RS 16.112:3 = PRU III, p. 4; RS 15.14:10 = PRU III, p. 5; RS 20.184 (passim) = Ug. V, 28; RS 20.200C:2 = Ug. V, 29; RS 20.243:11´ = Ug. V, 32.

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The tribute that Niqmadu, king of Ugarit, shall bring to the Sun, the Great King, his lord.25

For a local audience, the resonance of El’s language would have linked Baal’s

position vis-à-vis Yamm to the condition of their own city subordinate to the

imperial power based in Hattusa. The poem’s imagery grows out of an

international politics determined by domination and subordination. Yet the poem

does more than simply reflect a political situation familiar to Ugarit from its own

experience. By congealing this experience into a literary representation, the Baal

Cycle offers a particular interpretation of that experience. The important problem

for us is to gain a deeper understanding of this interpretation.

A first glimpse of this process can be obtained from the form of Yamm’s

message. The passage quoted above begins with Yamm dictating what he wants

conveyed to the other gods. His speech is modeled on contemporary epistolary

practice.26 First the message’s recipient is named (El and the assembled council),

followed by the sender (Yamm/Ruler Nahar). Yamm also identifies his own status

by including the phrase “your master/lord.” Innocuous to us, this last detail would

have unsettled a contemporary audience. Use of such “household metaphors” is

not uncommon in the epistolary corpora. For instance, merchants regularly

employ such kinship terminology when they identify themselves to their business

colleagues as “your brother.”27 But it is unusual for a superior to bother to include

such a metaphor when addressing an inferior. Kings do not normally do this when

25 RS 11.772+:24-26 = KTU 3.1. 26 UBC I, 289; cf. Robert Hawley, “Studies in Ugaritic Epistolography,” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2003), 154-65. 27 See, for example, the dossier of letters published by Daniel Arnaud as “Une correspondance d’affaires” in RSO 7, 65-78.

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addressing their subjects. To the poem’s audience, who would have been

acquainted with local epistolary style, Yamm’s remark would have appeared to be

a violation of established protocol.28 If he were recognized as sovereign, he need

not have said so; that he does say so may signal that his sovereignty was

uncertain.

Yamm’s inclusion of El in the collectivity of gods over whom he claims

sovereignty adds an additional level of ambiguity to the scene. Elsewhere in the

poem, El orders the craftsman-god Kothar-wa-Hasis to build Yamm a royal

palace.29 This suggests that Yamm is in fact beholden to El for his throne. In the

world of Late Bronze Age politics, when a king grants someone a palace (i.e., a

kingdom) the granter takes on the role of suzerain and the recipient becomes his

vassal. Yet in our passage Yamm does not recognize El as his superior. These are

the stakes in the messengers’ not bowing upon their arrival at Mount Lalu. As we

learn from a letter discovered at Mari, only the messengers of a vassal king were

28 Robert Hawley, “Household Metaphors in the Epistolary Traditions of Ugarit,” in Society and Administration in Ancient Ugarit (ed. W.H. van Soldt; Leiden: NINO, 2010), 71-83, esp. 75. Cf. RS 18.038 = KTU 2.39 = COS 3.45I; RS 13.7B = PRU III, p. 6; RS 17.132 = PRU IV, p. 35; RS 17.130 = PRU IV, p. 103; RS 17.133 = PRU IV, 118; RS 17.292 = PRU IV, p. 188; RS 17.289 = PRU IV, p. 192; RS 17.423 = PRU IV, p. 193; RS 17.385 = PRU IV, p. 194; RS 20.174A = Ug. V, 25; RS 20.22 = Ug. V, 27; RS 20.237 = Ug. V, 31; RS 20.216 = Ug. V, 35. 29 KTU 1.2 III 6-9. For the placement of this fragment in relation to the other parts of the poem, see: UBC I, 21-25; Dennis Pardee, review of Mark S. Smith, The Ugaritic Baal Cycle. Vol. 1, JNES 57 (1998): 46-48; idem, “RS 3.367, Colonne ‘IV’: étude épigraphique suivie de quelques remarques philologiques,” in “He unfurrowed his brow and laughed”: Essays in Honour of Professor Nicolas Wyatt (ed. W. G. E. Watson; AOAT 229; Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2007), 227, n. 1. A fragmentary passage from tablet one seems to depict a scene in which Yamm is enthroned by El (KTU 1.1 IV). It remains a debated question whether this tablet actually belongs to the poetic cycle of tablets two through six. For discussion of this matter, see UBC I, 14-15; Dennis Pardee, “The Ba‘lu Myth,” COS, 1.86: 243, n. 7; idem, “La première tablette du cycle de Ba'lu (RS 3.361 [CTA 1]): mise au point épigraphique,” in Le Royaume d'Ougarit de la Crète à l'Euphrate: Nouveaux axes de recherche (ed. J.-M. Michaud; Sherbrooke, Quebec: GGC, 2007), 105-30.

14

required to bow when presenting their message at a foreign court.30 By not

bowing, Yamm’s messengers assert that Yamm is not subject to El or the divine

council. If Yamm holds his power thanks to El, this failure to bow signals that

something is askew in the power relations depicted in the scene.

But we can go further. Yamm must instruct his messengers how to behave.

He must tell them not to bow. This, too, highlights authority as problematic. One

would expect the messengers to know the protocol; nowhere else in the poem do

messengers need to be instructed how to act. If El were unequivocally subject to

Yamm, the messengers would not need to be told not to bow. That they are told

suggests that they might have acted differently if left to determine the appropriate

behavior on their own. Like the violation of epistolary style, telling the

messengers not to bow is an overcompensation that works to underscore the

question of authority as unsettled.

Consider further the final remaining line of the passage. Baal refers to

Yamm as your lord and your master. With these pronouns, the storm-god sets

himself apart from those subject to Yamm’s authority.31 This act of

individualization is emphasized by Baal’s use of the first person independent

30 ARM 26.21. For a discussion of this principle, see Jean-Marie Durand, “"uke’’unum = ‘Prosternation’,” NABU 1990/24; idem, LAPO 16, pp. 70-71; cf. Samuel A. Meier, The Messenger in the Ancient Semitic World (HSM 45; Atlanta: Scholars, 1988), 152-61. Technically speaking, the fact that Yamm’s messengers do not bow to El does not necessitate that Yamm is thereby asserting himself as El’s superior. In theory, a situation of equality would also not call for bowing. Combined with his declaration of being “your master,” however, it seems more likely that a relationship of subordination than one of parity is at play here. 31 This is true whether one takes the antecedent of the pronominal suffix to be the other gods or the pair of Yamm’s messengers. I consider the former option more likely because Baal here echoes Yamm’s speech at the beginning of the passage. Furthermore, sovereignty over the gods is the issue at stake in this passage, so it would serve little purpose for Baal to be highlighting the messenger’s subordination to Yamm.

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pronoun ’an, which here has the force of the English phrase “for my part.”32 Baal

does not recognize Yamm as his superior. This contrasts with the start of the

passage, where Yamm instructs his messengers to announce the “decree of

Yamm, your lord, / your master, Ruler Nahar.” Yamm presents himself as lord

and master of the other gods. The verbal resonance between the two

pronouncements raises the question of whether Baal is or is not subordinate to

Yamm.33 This is, in my view, the principal problem around which the entire

episode revolves.

The depicted contest between Yamm and Baal would have elicited

contemporary political associations from its Ugaritic audience. Unearthed

diplomatic documents make it possible for us to achieve a similar attunement. In a

letter discovered in the palace at Ugarit, an anonymous Ugaritic king gleefully

informs his mother of a successful audience that he has had with the Hittite

sovereign. He writes:

To the queen, my mother, say: Message of the king, your son. At my mother’s feet I fall. With my mother may it be well! May the gods guard you, may they keep you well. Here with me everything is well. There with my mother, whatever is well, send word (of that) back to me. From the tribute they have vowed a gift to the queen. My words she did indeed accept and the face of the king shone upon us.34

The unnamed king likely reigned towards the end of Ugarit’s existence because

another letter almost certainly from his hand mentions military movements that

32 For a discussion of the grammar, see UBC I, 313. 33 Mark Smith has raised a similar question, asking: “This use of b‘l as one of Yamm’s titles in this greeting raises a question over Baal’s identity: is he b‘l or is Yamm?” (UBC I, 289). 34 RS 11.872 = KTU 2.13 = COS 3.45E.

16

would fit the historical context of those years.35 The trip to present himself before

the Hittite ruler, however, was an old custom—dating back to the beginning of

Ugarit’s subjection to Hatti.

The duty of a vassal to present oneself before one’s sovereign was a

common feature in the international relations of the period.36 The requirement is

clearly stated, for instance, in the treaty between Suppiluliuma of Hatti and Aziru

of Amurru. The document dates to the time when Ugarit’s southern neighbor

Amurru transitioned from the Egyptian to the Hittite sphere of influence. After

stipulating Amurru’s tribute requirement at 300 shekels of first-class gold, the

Hittite king addresses Aziru directly. Referring to himself as “the Sun,”

Suppiluliuma declares: “[You], Aziru, [must come] yearly to the Sun, [your lord],

in Hatti.”37

Such a demand would have come as no surprise to Aziru. Letters that date

prior to Aziru’s subordinating himself to Hatti attest to his having made a similar

visit to Pharaoh in Egypt. In one of these letters, Aziru recalls the visit that he

undertook at the beginning of his reign that established him as a subordinate of

the Egyptian crown.38 He reminds Pharaoh of what he had said on that occasion:

35 RS 16.379 = KTU 2.30 = COS 3.45F; Pardee, COS 3.45:92, n. 30. 36 Gary Beckman, “International Law in the Second Millennium: Late Bronze Age,” in A History of Ancient Near Eastern Law (ed. R. Westbrook; Leiden: Brill, 203), 761. See HDT 2, §§9-10; 4, §2; 6A, §4; 9, §1; 10, §10; 11, §5, 15; 13, §7; 28A, §§10-11; 29, §3; 30, §2, 11. 37 HDT 5, §1. 38 For the following discussion of Aziru’s interactions with Egypt, I have relied on the discussion in Itamar Singer, “A Concise History of Amurru,” in Shlomo Izre’el, Amurru Akkadian: A Linguistic Study (Harvard Semitic Studies 41; Atlanta: Scholars, 1991), vol. 2, 148-58.See also Shlomo Izre’el and Itamar Singer, The General’s Letter from Ugarit: A Linguistic and Historical Reconstruction of RS 20.33 (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 1990), esp. 128-54. Also important—despite having been written before Izre’el had reanalyzed the relevant Amarna letters, thereby showing that Aziru had travelled only once to Egypt, and that at the beginning of his reign—is the rhetorical analysis of provided in Mario Liverani, “Aziru, servitore di due padroni,” in Studi Orientalistici in Ricordo di Franco Pintore (ed. O. Carruba, M. Liverani, and C.

17

“My lord, do not listen to the treacherous men that denounce me in the presence

of the king, my lord. I am your servant forever.”39 Despite such assurances, his

Egyptian overlord was not entirely convinced of Aziru’s loyalty. Military

developments in Syria suggested to the court in Egypt that their vassal could not

be trusted. The situation was exacerbated by Aziru’s failure to continue presenting

himself before his suzerain. Accordingly, Aziru was sent a letter detailing his

offenses and reiterating the requirement that he travel to Egypt. Pharaoh was

losing his patience. Here is the relevant passage:

And when you wrote, saying, “May the king, my lord, give me leave this year, and then I will go next year to the king, [my] l[ord]. If this is impossible, I [will send] my son [in m]y place”—the king, your lord, let you off this year, in accordance with what you said. (Now)[co]me yourself, or send your son, and you will see the king at whose sight all lan[ds] live. You are not to say, “May he give me this year, too.” If it is impossible to go to the king, your lord, send your son to the king, your lord, in your place. If it is impossible, he is to come.40

In the past Egypt may have shown leniency with respect to their vassal’s duties,

but no longer. Despite the strong words, Aziru did not come. He sent several

letters assuring his lord that he would come—in fact often phrasing matters in the

stative to denote “I am coming”—but, as Mario Liverani has insightfully shown,

these epistles actually convey the opposite message albeit in a coded form.41

Rather than obeying by travelling to Egypt, Aziru uses the requirement to travel

as a way to negotiate his position vis-à-vis his Egyptian overlord. Liverani has Zaccagnini; Pavia: GJES, 1983), 93-121, reprinted in English translation as “Aziru, servant of two masters,” in idem, Myth and Politics in Ancient Near Eastern Historiography (ed. Z. Bahrani and M. Van De Mieroop; Ithaca, New York: Cornell Univ. Press, 2004), 125-44. 39 EA 161:7-10. 40 EA 162:42-54. Cf. Raymond Westbrook, “The Law and Politics of Rebellion in the Late Bronze Age,” in Rebellions and Peripheries, 75-83, esp. 76-77. 41 EA 164, 165, 166, and 167. See the discussion in Liverani, “Aziru, servant of two masters,” esp. 126-32.

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suggested that Aziru’s ultimate ambition was to achieve independence.42 Things

didn’t turn out that way. Aziru eventually accepted subordination to the king of

Hatti—who would also require regular visits from his vassal.

What about Ugarit? The relatively short treaty between Suppiluliuma and

Niqmaddu of Ugarit—the first such accord linking the two polities—does not

contain any explicit requirement that the subject king present himself before his

suzerain. Such a clause first appears in the treaty that Suppiluliuma’s son, Mursilli

II, provided for Niqmaddu’s son Niqmepa. The Hittite commands the new king of

Ugarit: “Now you, Niqmepa, come before the king!”43 The requirement to show

one’s loyalty by presenting oneself before the Hittite sovereign belonged to the

institutions that structured the Ugaritic king’s submission to his overlord.

This does not mean that the kings of Ugarit were always dutiful in this

regard. Like Aziru, they could use the expectation of this official visit to push

boundaries and test their suzerains’ limits. This could lead in turn to reprimands

like the one Pharaoh sent to Aziru. For instance, the Hittite prince Piha-walwi—

on behalf of his father the king—rebukes Ibiranu of Ugarit: “Why have you not

come before the Sun since you have assumed the kingship of the land of Ugarit?

And why have you not sent your messengers? Now the Sun is very angry about

this matter.”44 Similarly, a letter from the Hittite sovereign himself voices a

complaint against Ammurapi, the last king of Ugarit:

Message of the Sun: To Ammurapi say: With the Sun everything is very well. In the presence of the Sun’s father, your father, his servant, did indeed dwell. For a se[rvant] indeed, his possession,

42 Liverani, “Aziru, servant of two masters,” 143. 43 CTH 66 = HDT 9, §1. 44 RS 17.247:6-15 = PRU IV, p. 191.

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was he. And he did indeed guard [his] l[ord]. My father never lacked g[rain]. But you, for your part, have not recognized [...]. Now you also belong to the Sun your lord; a ser[vant] indeed, his possession are you. But [yo]u, for your part, you have not at all recognized the Sun, your master. To me, the Sun, your lord, from year to year, why do you not come?45

The Ammurapi addressed here is likely the same king who wrote his mother

about a successful audience before the Hittite sovereign.46 It appears that this

Hittite rebuke was more successful than the one Aziru received from Pharaoh.

Whether the vassal kings were compliant or remiss, whether their lords

were forgiving or cross, the duty to show one’s loyalty by appearing before one’s

sovereign was a central feature of diplomatic relations in this period. Moreover, it

often operated as a site at which contests of will between suzerain and vassal were

played out. By framing the interaction between Baal and Yamm in terms of this

feature of diplomatic protocol, the poem colors divine relations with the brush of

contemporary politics and signals thereby the contests of authority that frequently

accompanied suzerains’ demands. Such contests provide fertile ground for

thinking through the political meanings embedded within the Baal Cycle.

2.

The texts surveyed in the previous section follow a simple discursive structure.

There are only two participants: the sovereign who demands and the vassal who

either obeys or is remiss in obeying. In the Baal Cycle the situation is not so

45 RS 18.038:1-16 = KTU 2.39 = COS 3.45I. By synchrony it is possible to identify the unnamed Hittite king as Suppiluliuma II. His father would have been Arnuwanda and Ammurapi’s father would have been Niqmaddu III (Pardee, COS, 3.45:94-95, n. 50). 46 Pardee, COS, 3.45:94-95, n. 50.

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straightforward. If it is correct to identify in Yamm’s message reverberations of a

suzerain’s demand that his vassal appear before him, it is also necessary to

recognize that in the poem that demand is not directed to the individual who is

supposed to perform the obeisance. Yamm addresses El, not Baal. This fact raises

further questions about authority because it implicitly renders the poem’s hero not

simply a vassal, but an outlaw. To see this requires accurately identifying the

type-scene that the poem employs.

Mark Smith has compared the envoy of Yamm’s messengers to a passage

in the Hebrew Bible that also features messengers sent with a royal demand.47 The

Hebrew text belongs to the account of a war between King Ben-hadad of Aram

and King Ahab of Israel. The relevant passage reads:

And Ben-hadad the king of Aram gathered all his army, and there were thirty-two kings with him, and horses, and chariots; and he went up and besieged Samaria, making war on it. And he sent messengers into the city to Ahab king of Israel, and said to him, “Thus says Ben-hadad: ‘Your silver and your gold are mine; your fairest wives and children also are mine.’” And the king of Israel answered, “As you say, my lord, O king, I am yours, and all that I have.”48

Smith notes five elements this scene shares with the Ugaritic episode. First, Ben-

hadad, like Yamm, makes use of messengers. Second, the messengers in the

biblical passage quote the introductory formula “Thus says Ben-hadad,” just as

Yamm’s messengers repeat “Message of Yamm, your lord.” Third, the message in

both texts is memorized and proclaimed orally before the adversary. Fourth, the

possessions of the submitting foe are claimed. Fifth, and finally, both passages

contain an expression of submission on the part of the defeated. Along with these 47 UBC I, 294. 48 1 Kings 20:1-4.

21

similarities, Smith mentions one divergence: whereas Ahab submits to Ben-hadad

himself, “it is El who on behalf of the divine assembly formally declares Baal’s

surrender. Baal does not express his own surrender.”49

This divergence points to a deeper tension between the passages. The

comparison rests on an analogy between Baal and Ahab as figures under pressure.

Why, then, do Yamm’s messengers address El rather than Baal (whereas Ben-

hadad’s messengers speak to Ahab directly)? Mapping out the discursive

situations of the two passages suggests that the respective positions of Baal and

Ahab are not actually analogous. Consider a simple diagram consisting of three

terms:

demander >>>addresses>>> demandee (with respect to)

object demanded

In the biblical passage the demander is Ben-hadad, the demandee is Ahab, and the

object demanded is tribute (silver, gold, fairest wives, and children). In the

Ugaritic episode, Yamm, of course, is the demander. But what about Baal? Rather

than fitting the slot of demandee, Baal plays instead the role of object demanded.

In the Ugaritic poem the demandee is El. What is the significance of this

difference?

The purpose of demanding tribute is not primarily economic. It is political.

Ben-hadad wants Ahab to give up his possessions because this functions as a sign

of the Israelite king’s subservience to Aram. After agreeing to the messengers’

demand, Ahab now calls Ben-hadad “my lord” (’ad#nî). The real objective of the

siege and transfer of goods is to pummel Ahab into political submission. If the 49 UBC I, 294, n. 134.

22

Ugaritic and biblical scenes were precisely parallel, Yamm’s demand should

intend El’s submission. And the surrender of Baal—like the riches and family

members belonging to Ahab—would be only the sign of that submission. But

taking things thus would be to misread the Ugaritic text. Though success in his

endeavor might reinforce his domination over El, Yamm’s primary purpose in this

episode is not to force El into submission. That submission is presupposed—no

matter how fragile it might be. It is not El’s submission that Yamm is after, but

Baal’s. The sea-god states explicitly that he wants Baal to be handed over so that

he can “humble him” (w‘nnh).50 This presumes that Baal is not currently

compliant towards Yamm, while the other gods are. What kind of scenario

corresponds to the situation here described?

A different Hebrew text helps to provide an answer. Toward the end of the

Book of Samuel a rebellion takes place in King David’s realm. Sheba the son of

Bichri publicly denies David’s authority and as a result all but the tribe of Judah

withdraw their allegiance from the king. In response, David sends out his army to

capture Sheba. The latter takes refuge in Abel of Beth-maacah, leading David’s

general Joab to lay siege to that city. A woman engages Joab in conversation from

the walls, trying to save the city from destruction. In reply to her plea, Joab

responds that his intention is not to destroy the city but only to capture the man

who “has raised his hand against the king, against David.”51 If only they hand him

over, Joab explains, all will be well for the city.

50 On this word, see UBC I, 291-92. 51 2 Samuel 20:21a.

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By supplying the gloss “against David” to the phrase “against the king,”

Joab signals on the semantic level the crisis of political authority that the story

narrates. The equivalence that should reign between the two terms “David” and

“king” is currently in question. The town’s response will determine whether the

people accept the equation that Joab articulates. The story concludes:

And the woman said to Joab, “Look, his head is about to be flung to you from the wall.” And the woman came in her wisdom to all the people, and they cut off the head of Sheba son of Bichri and flung it to Joab. And he blew the ram’s horn and they dispersed from the town, every man to his tent, but Joab came back to Jerusalem.52

By handing Sheba over (or, at any rate, his head), the city acknowledges its

allegiance to David as king. The crisis is resolved and all returns to normal.

Structurally, this story is far more similar to the one in the Baal Cycle than

was the passage from the Book of Kings cited by Smith. Yamm and David

parallel each other as monarchs residing at a distance from the main scene of

action. Just as Yamm sends his messengers, David sends Joab.53 Both are tasked

with the capture of an individual who refuses to show obeisance to the king.

When they arrive at their destination, neither Yamm’s messengers nor Joab

address themselves directly to the sought after individual. Yamm’s messengers

state their demand to El and the assembled gods, Joab to the woman as

spokesperson for the town collective. Both Yamm’s messengers and Joab demand

that their addressees give up the sought-after individual—the Ugaritic text using

52 2 Samuel 20:21b-22. 53 Who David in fact sends as his representative is complicated by palace intrigue in Jerusalem (cf. 2 Samuel 20:4-7). For our purposes it suffices that Joab presents himself as acting on David’s behalf in his siege of Abel of Beth-maacah (and returns to David in Jerusalem at the end of the episode).

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the G-stem imperative of the verb *ytn in the sense of “give up, surrender, hand

over,”54 while the imperative from the cognate root *ntn is used in the Hebrew. In

both episodes, those addressed choose to meet the demands of the distant king.55

By having Yamm’s messengers address El rather than Baal, the Ugaritic poem

evokes a narrative tradition that puts Baal in the position of a fugitive rebel.56

Though the Hebrew Bible dates to the Iron Age, the literary topos of the

demand for a fugitive is much older. The Old Hittite “Tale of Zalpa” records the

story of how Happi, an out-of-favor Hittite prince, incited the city of Zalpa to

rebel against the king of Hatti. The Hittite sovereign learns of this and sets out

with his troops. The Hittites and Zalpans then meet in battle. Though the Hittites

win, Happi escapes and takes refuge within city of Zalpa. Time passes before the

king initiates another campaign to capture the rebel prince. The story continues:

In the third year the king went and blockaded Zalpa. He remained there for two years. He demanded the extradition of Tabarna and Happi, but the men of the city would not give them up. So (the Hittite troops) besieged them until they all died. The king returned to Hattusa to worship the gods, but he left the old king there. He went up against the city (saying) “I will become your king.” But the population was with them (the rebels), so he destroyed the city.57

54 DULAT, 190-92; cf. UBC I, 290, n. 124. 55 Whereas the people cut off Sheba’s head (presumably against the rebel’s will), El’s decision to hand Baal over incites the storm-god to attack Yamm’s messengers. By the end of the biblical story, the crisis of authority in Israel is resolved. The same cannot be said for the situation in the Ugaritic poem. Baal’s resistance to being handed over exacerbates the crisis in Yamm’s authority rather than resolves it. 56 It should be noted that the story of the slaughter of the Benjaminites in Judges 19-20 manifests the same basic structure. There, too, a demand that perpetrators of an offence be handed over is directed to a larger population: “Now, give up [*ntn] those men, the scoundrels, who are in Gibeah so that we may put them to death and purge the evil from Israel” (Judges 20:13). In this case, those addressed refuse to hand over the sought men. A war between the Benjaminites and the other Israelite tribes ensues, leading to the destruction of “the towns, people, and cattle” of Benjamin (Judges 20:48). 57 KBo 22.2; Harry A. Hoffner, Jr., “The Queen of Kanesh and the Tale of Zalpa,” COS 1.71:182. Translation of the final line follows F. Starke, Die Funktionen der dimensionalen Kasus und Adverbien im Althethitischen (Studien zu den Bo!azköy-Texten 23; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz,

25

Like in the story of Sheba, a rebel leader incites a population against the

sovereign ruler. In response, the ruler dispatches the army against the rebel. As a

result, the rebel takes refuge in a city, which leads in turn to a siege. While

besieging the city, the royal authority demands that the city give up the rebel. The

city is faced with a choice: either they give up the rebel—an act that proves their

loyalty to the king and therefore saves them from destruction—or they protect the

fugitive and take his guilt upon themselves.58 The wise woman of Abel of Beth-

1977), 183; cf. Amir Gilan, “How Many Princes Can the Land Bear? Some Thoughts on the Zalpa Text,” SMEA 49 (2007): 313, n. 55. On the Zalpa text generally, see Gilan, “How Many Princes,” 305-18, esp. 313-14; G. B. Holland and M. Zorman, The Tale of Zalpa: Myth, Morality, and Coherence in a Hittite Narrative (StMed 19; Pavia: Italian University Press, 2007); M. Zorman, “CTH 3: The Conquest of Zalpa Justified ” SMEA 50 (2008): 861-870; R. H. Beal, “The Predecessors of $attu"ili I,” in Hittite Studies in Honor of Harry A. Hoffner Jr. on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday (ed. G. Beckman, R. Beal, and G. McMahon; Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2003), 13-35; M. Forlanini, “The Historical Geography of Anatolia and the Transition from the K%rum-period to the Early Hittite Empire,” in Anatolia and the Jazira during the Old Assyrian Period (ed. J.G. Dercksen; PIHANS 111; Leiden: NINO, 2008), 76, n. 96. (I would like to thank Amir Gilan for his assistance with this text.) 58 According to a Hittite treaty between Arnuwanda I and the men of Ismerika only those individuals who commit an offense are to be punished (CTH 133 = HDT 1A, §10). The relevant clause reads:

If within the land a single city commits an offence, you [men] of the land of Ismerika will intervene, and you shall defeat [that city], together with its men. You shall bring the civilian captives before the Sun, but [take] the oxen and sheep for yourselves. If within a city a single household [commits an offense], that household, including its free men, shall perish. You shall bring its servants to the Sun, but [take] the oxen and sheep for yourselves. [If] a single man commits an offense, [he alone shall die].

However, by aiding a fugitive or not handing him over to the authorities, one could take upon oneself the same guilt as the offending party. The idea is expressed in a Middle Hittite letter from the king to a regional official named Ka""& (HKM 13 = LHK 18):

Thus speaks His Majesty: Say to Ka""&: This capitulation (to the enemy) by Marruwa, the ruler of $immuwa, about which you wrote me: ‘I have dispatched him (to you).’ On a tablet you wrote me about him: ‘I have dispatched him (to you),’ but as of now he has not come. Now put him in the charge of an officer, and have him conduct him quickly before My Majesty. Otherwise, you take upon yourself his “sin.”

This legal notion should be borne in mind when considering the response of the other gods to Yamm’s demand.

26

maacah persuaded her compatriots to opt for the first option; the population of

Zalpa, perhaps lacking a wise woman to guide them, takes the second course.

Though in the Hebrew story the city is saved, while in the Hittite account it is

destroyed, both stories conclude similarly with the suppression of the revolt and

hence a resolution to the crisis. As these two stories show, the authority of the

king can be restored in one of two ways: either the people demonstrate their

allegiance to the king by handing over the rebel who then gets his comeuppance,

or they show themselves disloyal and all collectively annihilated.

It should come as no surprise that the literary topos of the demand for a

fugitive reflects real-world experience. Turning to non-literary texts, we come

across the issue of fugitives and their return throughout the extant sources. The

following letter unearthed at Ugarit is a good place to begin because it shares not

only thematic parallels with our poetic passage, but also lexical ones. The queen

of Ugarit writes to one Yarmîhaddu regarding a slave that she has been trying to

retrieve:

[Me]ssage of the queen: To Yarmîhaddu, my brother, say: (As for) the tablet (in which I said): “Your man whom I took [...]; and I, for my part, gave his wife to you; and that man labored on my farm; but that man returned to his wife at your house; and you are the lord [...]; so this man must be seized, and deliver him over to my messenger-party.” Now, seeing that he has not moved, and (that) I have not sent a messenger to the king, but to you have I sent, so now, you must deliver him over to my messenger-party.59

If Yamm’s message is modeled on contemporary epistolary style, then this letter

provides a strikingly relevant example of the kind of material that the poet would

have had as a model. The queen’s letter opens with the word $%m followed by the

59 RS 96.2039 = MOU 33 = COS 3.45S.

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sender’s name, the recipient’s name (in the poem the recipient is named earlier),

and a “household metaphor.” Prostration is lacking, just as it is explicitly

renounced in the poem. Overall, the queen’s epistolary formula conveys a rather

cool tone that is not particularly deferential.60 This is fitting to her purposes, as it

is also appropriate to Yamm’s needs.

Form aside, there are important parallels between the content of the two

messages. Both the queen and Yamm send messengers with the task of escorting a

sought after individual back to his master. For the queen, this is her second

attempt. She refers to her previous effort as a l%t, literally a “tablet.” Her demand

is equated with the physical item upon which it was written.61 Similarly, in the

poem Baal rebukes the other gods for not answering “the tablet (l%t) of Yamm’s

messengers.”62 He, too, has in mind the demand written upon the tablet. In both

places, the demand is phrased using the verb *ytn to designate the action that the

addressee is ordered to accomplish.63 And finally, the demand is in each case

addressed to a party other than the person being sought. Like the queen’s slave,

Baal is talked about rather than addressed directly. All these parallels suggest that

the Ugaritic poem tints Baal’s situation as that of a fugitive.

The queen’s letter refers to the runaway as a bn" (“man, laborer”).64

Though the letter corresponds in remarkable ways to the passage from the Baal

Cycle, the queen’s concerns are not political in the way Yamm’s are. In the 60 Hawley, “Household Metaphors,” 79. 61 For l%t used in an abstract sense, see the discussion in UBC I, 304-5; cf. the usage in RS 8.315:14-16 = KTU 2.72 = COS 3.45C. 62 KTU 1.2 I 26. 63 On the energic form of the verb employed by the queen, see Holger Gzella, “Linguistic Variation in the Ugaritic Letters,” in Society and Administration in Ancient Ugarit, 60-61. 64 See DULAT, 230-32; J. Tropper, “Kanaanäische Lehnwörter im Ugaritischen,” UF 35 (2003): 663-65.

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context of the poem, the return of a runaway constitutes an extradition.

Contemporary diplomatic documents reveal that the extradition of fugitives was

of paramount concern in the Late Bronze Age.65 Stipulations in treaties from the

period are repeatedly devoted to this problem. Such documents attest to a desire

on the part of sovereigns to ensure that no insubordination go unpunished—one

sovereign relying on the others to produce an environment in which no rebel

could get away with challenging a king. A treaty between Hatti and Kizzuwatna

phrases the issue this way: “If a subject of the Great King plots against his lord

and then enters the land of Kizzuwatna, and the Great King sends after the

fugitive, saying thus: ‘He revolted against me. I will have him returned!’ [...] The

fugitive must be returned.”66 A similar clause is found in a Hittite treaty with

Ugarit, according to which “if a fugitive flees from Hatti and comes to the land of

Ugarit, Niqmepa shall seize him and return him to Hatti.”67 But of all the

documents that treat of extradition, certainly the most famous is the agreement

65 See David Elgavish, “Extradition of Fugitives in International Relations in the Ancient Near East, Jewish Law Association Studies 14 (2003): 33-57; Amnon Altman, “On Some Basic Concepts in the Law of People Seeking Refuge and Sustenance in the Ancient Near East,” Zeitschrift für altorientalische und biblische Rechtsgeschichte 8 (2002): 323-342; Daniel C. Snell, Flight and Freedom in the Ancient Near East (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 86-98. Cf. Jack M. Sasson, “Scruples: Extradition in the Mari Archives,” in Festschrift für Hermann Hunger, zum 65. Geburtstag gewidmet von seinen Freunden, Kollegen, und Schülern (WZKM 97; Vienna: Institut für Orientalistik, 2007), 453-73; Walter W. Waters, “A Letter from Ashurbanipal to the Elders of Elam (BM 132980),” JCS 54 (2002): 79-86. 66 CTH 26 = HDT 1, §1. See also: HDT 1A, §§7-8; 2, Hitt. §§5-9; 4, §3; 5, §§8-13; 6A, §9; 7, §§7, 9-10; 8, §§11, 13-15; 9, §§7-9, 11-13; 10, §§6, 12; 11, §§22-23; 12, §§4, 11-12; 13, §15; 15, §§12-19; cf. 27, §6. To be clear, not all these passages concern the extradition of political rebels. One must distinguish between various kinds of fugitives discussed in the Hittite treaty texts. Often those called fugitives are civilian populations that have crossed borders. The interest in fugitives of this type derives from a concern to secure an adequate supply of manpower in the Hittite realm (Beckman, HDT, p. 64). Other stipulations deal rather with the return of individual slaves who have fled their masters. (See also AT 2; cf. Mario Liverani, “L’Estradizione dei refugiati in AT 2,” Rivista degli Studi Orientali 39 [1964]: 111-15.) Finally, and most importantly for our purposes, the treaties also discuss the treatment of individuals fleeing for political reasons. (For a useful chart related to these matters, see Snell, Flight and Freedom, 93-94.) 67 CTH 66 = HDT 9, §12.

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that brought decades of hostility between Egypt and Hatti to an end.68 The historic

peace treaty between Ramses II and Hattusili III meticulously enumerates the

rules of extradition to be followed by each party in various scenarios. Nearly half

of the accord is devoted to this theme!69

The Hittite sovereign who made peace with Egypt was himself a usurper

to the throne. Hattusili III was the brother of the Hittite king Muwatalli II. When

Muwatalli died, his son became king. That king, Mursili III (better known by his

Hurrian name Urhi-Teshub), was later deposed by his uncle.70 Hatti and Egypt

were still at odds when Hattusili took the throne, and it appears that Urhi-Teshub

eventually escaped his uncle to take refuge in Egyptian territory. Hattusili wrote

to Ramses demanding his nephew’s extradition, but the Egyptian sovereign

refused. The Hittite monarch describes the rebuff in a letter to the young king of

Babylonia, Kadashman-enlil II: “My enemy (scil. Urhi-Teshub) who [had

escaped] to another country went to the king of Egypt. When I wrote to him (scil.

68 For the history of this conflict, see: William J. Murnane, The Road to Kadesh: A Historical Interpretation of the Battle Reliefs of King Sety I at Karnak, 2nd edition (Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 42; Chicago: Illinois, 1990); Trevor Bryce, The Kingdom of the Hittites (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1998), 241-67. 69 CTH 91 = HDT 15, §§12-19. For discussions of this treaty, see: Michael B. Rowton, “The Background of the Treaty between Ramses II and Hattusili III,” JCS 13 (1959): 1-11; Anthony Spalinger, “Considerations on the Hittite Treaty between Egypt and Hatti,” SAK 9 (1981): 299-358;Dietrich Sürenhagen, Paritätische Staatsverträge aus hethitischer Sicht (Pavia: Gianni Iuculano, 1985), 65-88; Ogden Goelet and Baruch A. Levine, “Making Peace in Heaven and on Earth: Religious and Legal Aspects of the Treaty between Ramses II and Hattu"ili III,” in Boundaries of the Ancient Near Eastern World: A Tribute to Cyrus H. Gordon (ed. M. Lubetski, C. Gottleib, and S. Keller; JSOT 273; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 252-99; Bryce, Kingdom of the Hittites, 304-9. 70 For Hattusili’s version of these events, see the text known as the “Apology of Hattusili III” (trans. Th. P. J. van den Hout, COS 1.77:199-204). Urhi-Teshub was the king’s name before taking the throne name of Mursili III; Hattusili uses it derogatorily in his propagandistic writings as a way to discredit his nephew. See Bryce, Kingdom of the Hittites, 268-91; cf. Alfonso Archi, “The Propaganda of $attu"ili" III,” SMEA 14 (1971): 185-215; Harry A. Hoffner, Jr., “Propaganda and Political Justification in Hittite Historiography,” in Unity and Diversity: Essays in the History, Literature, and Religion of the Ancient Near East (ed. H. Goedicke and J.J.M. Roberts; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1975), 49-62; Ph. H. J. Houwink ten Cate, “Urhi-Tessub Revisited,” BiOr 51 (1994): 233-59.

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Ramses II) ‘[Send my enemy],’ he did not send my enemy. [Then, the king of]

Egypt [and I] became enemies of one another.”71 As Trevor Bryce has argued,

Ramses’ “failure to hand over Urhi-Teshub must have been a serious blow to

Hattusili’s credibility as the legitimate sovereign of the Hittite world.”72 This

prompted the new Hittite king to pursue vigorously a policy of détente with

Egypt, leading eventually to the peace treaty with Ramses. When negotiating that

treaty, Hattusili made a point of including provisions that would prevent any

future Egyptian support of contenders to the Hittite throne. Ramses’ agreement to

these terms provided formal recognition of Hattusili and his descendents as the

legitimate rulers in Hattusa.73

Documents from an earlier period of Hittite-Egyptian relations provide

another angle on Late Bronze Age extradition. Whereas Urhi-Teshub was a

deposed Great King, Tette of Nuhashshe was a rebellious vassal. It was

71 CTH 172 = HDT 23, §7. Cf. Wolfgang Helck, “Urhi-Tesup in Aegypten,” JCS 17 (1963): 87-97; Ph. H. J. Houwink ten Cate, “The Early and Late Phases of Urhi-Tesub’s Career,” in Anatolian Studies presented to H. G. Güterbock on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday (ed. K. Bittel, Ph. H. J. Houwink ten Cate, and E. Reiner; Istanbul: Dutch Historical-Archaeological Institute in Istanbul, 1974), 123-50, esp. 139; Werner Wouters, “Ur'i-Te"ub and the Ramses-Letters from Boghazköy,” JCS 41 (1989): 226-34. 72 Bryce, Kingdom of the Hittites, 291. 73 Though there is no indication that Ramses ever did extradite Urhi-Teshub (the deposed Hittite king simply vanishes from the record), after the treaty the king of Egypt changes his tune. In a letter to the ruler of Mira (CTH 166 = HDT 22D), Ramses claims that it was actually on Hattusili’s urging that Urhi-Teshub was brought to Egypt, where the Egyptian could do his Hittite colleague the favor of keeping an eye on the former king. Ramses even quotes correspondence with Hatti to this effect. Unless Urhi-Teshub returned to Hatti-controlled land and was then re-exiled to Egypt, such a scenario contradicts Hattusili’s claim to have demanded Urhi-Teshub’s extradition. It is probably best not to take Ramses at his word here. Rather, the letter to Kupanta-Kurunta of Mira likely shows that Hattusili eventually got the Egyptian king to present matters in a manner beneficial to the current regime in Hattusa—re-writing history as was necessary. (For further discussion of this complicated matter, see: Ph. H. J. Houwink ten Cate, “The Sudden Return of Ur'i-Te""ub to His Former Place of Banishment in Syria,” in The Life and Times of &attu"ili III and Tut'aliya IV: Proceedings of a Symposium Held in Honour of J. de Roos, 12-13 December, Leiden [ed. Th. P. J. van den Hout; PIHANS 103; Leiden: NINO, 2006], 1-8; Itamar Singer, “The Ur'i-Te""ub Affair in the Hittite-Egyptian Correspondence,” in Life and Times of &attu"ili III and Tut'aliya IV, 27-38.)

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Suppiluliuma I who made Tette a king in Nuhashshe as part of the great

conqueror’s drive to establish Hittite dominance over much of Syria, including

Ugarit.74 Years later a number of Hatti’s Syrian vassals rebelled against

Suppiluliuma’s son, Mursili II.75 Mursili refers to these events as the time when

“the kings of the land of Nuhashshe and the king of the land of Kinza became

hostile to me.”76 Ugarit itself was involved in these events, if only peripherally, on

the side of Hatti.77 The unrest in Syria belonged to a proxy war between Hatti and

Egypt. In another text, Mursili describes how his servant Tette had written to the

king of Egypt, offering to defect in exchange for Egyptian military support. Egypt

accepted the offer, and so Tette switched allegiance. Furious, Mursili wrote to his

Egyptian counterpart: “[Si]nce Tette was m[y] servant, why then did you send

your troops and chariots and [bring] him a[way]? Give my [ser]vant back to

74 See the treaty between Suppiluliuma I and Tette (CTH 53 = HDT 7). For Suppiluliuma’s Syrian campaigns, see Bryce, Kingdom of the Hittites, 168-205. Tette was likely just one of several kings in this territory, who are collectively referred to in numerous texts as the LUGALME( (KUR) URUNu''a""e, “kings of Nuhashshe,” or LÚME( [KUR] URUNu''a""e, “men of Nuhashshe” (see KUB 14.17 + KBo 50.30 obv. ii 2´, 18´, KBo 4.4 obv. i 12, 41, 45, KBo 53.282 x+1, KUB 3.14 obv. 3, 13, 15, KUB 3.119 i 4, and RS 17.227:4, 7; cf. DUMUME( KUR URUNu''a""e, “the sons of the land of Nuhashshe,” in KBo 1.6 obv. 23, 28, 31). 75 Thanks especially to recent joins made by Jared Miller, we now possess a better picture of these events. See, in particular, Jared L. Miller, “The Kings of Nu''a""e and Mur"ili’s Casus Belli: Two New Joins to Year 7 of the Annals of Mur"ili II” in Tabularia Hethaeorum: Hethitologische Beiträge Silvin Ko"ak zum 65. Geburtstag (ed. D. Groddek and M. Zorman; Dresdner Beiträge zur Hethitologie 25; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2007), 521-34; idem, “Mursili II’s Dictate to Tuppi-Te""ub’s Syrian Antagonists,” KASKAL 4 (2007): 121-52; idem, “The Rebellion of $atti’s Syrian Vassals and Egypt’s Meddling in Amurru,” SMEA 50 (2008): 533-53; cf. R. Lebrun and A. Degrève, “Fragements hittites relatifs à l’Égypte,” Res Antiquae 5 (2008): 127-29. For earlier treatments of these events, see Trevor Bryce, “Tette and the Rebellions in Nuhassi,” Anatolian Studies 38 (1988): 21-28; idem, Kingdom of the Hittites, 199-201; Horst Klengel, Syria: 3000 to 300 B.C. (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1992), 154-56; Amnon Altman, The Historical Prologue of the Hittite Vassal Treaties: An Inquiry into the Concepts of Hittite Interstate Law (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2004), 101-7. For the rebellion from the perspective of Ugarit, see Itamar Singer, “A Political History of Ugarit,” in Handbook of Ugaritic Studies, ed. W.G.E. Watson and N. Wyatt (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 636-39. 76 CTH 62 = HDT 8, §3. 77 A letter to Niqmaddu II from the Hittite viceroy in Carchemish requests that the king of Ugarit supply aid for putting down the rebellion in Nuhashshe (RS 17.334 = PRU IV, pp. 54-55 = HDT 20).

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me!”78 But like the demand his descendant Hattusili would make years later

regarding Urhi-Teshub, Mursili’s request that Egypt extradite Tette fell on deaf

ears. Unable to obtain the return of his vassal, Mursili opted to deal Egypt a

counterblow by accepting the apostasy of Egypt’s own vassal Zirtaya. This got

Egypt’s attention. Now it was Egypt’s turn to demand the extradition of a fugitive

vassal. To this Egyptian request, Mursili rebutted: “An[d you]? Wh[y] did you

[not g]ive Tette back to me?” After this, Mursili states proudly, the Egyptian

authority “said [nothing] at all!”79

One more example of real world extradition demands is worth mentioning

as background to the poetic depiction in the Baal Cycle.80 I have in mind the story

78 KUB 19.15++, vs.? i 12´-15´; J.L. Miller, “The Rebellion of $atti’s Syrian Vassals,” 536. 79 KUB 19.15++, vs.? i 22´-28´; J.L. Miller, “$atti’s Syrian Vassals,” 536. For a similar case of “tit-for-tat” diplomacy, see the historical prologue to the treaty between Tudhaliya II of Hatti and Sunashshura of Kizzuwatna (CTH 41 and 131 = HDT 2, §§2-8).

In a text belonging to the 7th Year of the Extended Annals of Mursili—and hence dealing with the same period as the historiographical text KUB 19.15++—Mursili appears to be recalling a refusal to extradite a “Nuhashshean prisoner.” (This prisoner has often been identified with Tette, which seems reasonable though not provable based on our current evidence.) It is not clear how this refusal relates to the events recounted in KUB 19.15++. The party said here to have refused the extradition request is likely either the Egyptian official ’Arma’a (based on the parallel with KUB 19.15++) or the collective “kings of Nuhashshe,” presumably not all of whom were in open rebellion against the Hittite sovereign at this time. According to the latter interpretation, it was precisely the refusal of the kings of Nuhashshe—who were apparently bound by treaty with Mursili—to turn over the prisoner that provided the causus belli for Mursili’s war in Syria (J.L. Miller, “The Kings of Nu''a""e,” 530; for Miller’s later questioning of the Nuhashshean kings as those who refused Mursili, see “Mursili II’s Dictate,” 146, n. 65.) Should a demand to turn over a prisoner have been made of the king of Nuhashshe, this would provide a striking parallel with Yamm’s demand made to the collective gods, each of whom is depicted as a king with a royal throne. 80 A number of other texts could just as well be included for discussion here, but doing so would unnecessarily prolong matters. Nevertheless, I want to put forward the following two passages from Hittite historiography without comment as further narrative parallels for the demand for a fugitive trope. The first selection comes from a text that deals with the duplicitous behavior of a Hittite vassal in western Anatolia and is known as the “Indictment of Madduwatta by Arnuwanda I of Hatti” (CTH 147 = HDT 27, §§27-28):

Niwalla, the huntsman of the Sun, [ran off] and went to Madduwatta, and Madduwatta [took him in. Then] I, the Sun, wrote after him initially: “Niwalla, the huntsman [of the Sun], ran off and went to you. [Seize him and] give him back to me!” At first Madduwatta [...] kept saying: “No one [came] to me.” Now Mulliyara has come to him and found [the fugitive in his household]. He said [as

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of Mashuiluwa, king of Mira.81 According to the official Hittite version recorded

in the historical prologue to Mursili II’s treaty with Kupanta-Kurunta, palace

intrigue forced Mashuiluwa to flee his native land in western Anatolia. Taking

refuge in Hattusa, Mashuiluwa was welcomed by Suppiluliuma I who gave him a

Hittite princess in marriage. After Suppiluliuma’s death, Mursili continued his

father’s policy of goodwill towards Mashuiluwa, installing him as lord of Mira.

Despite this treatment, “Mushuiluwa quarreled with me (scil. Mursili), stirred up

the land of Pitassa and the Hittites, my own subjects, against me, and would have

[begun war] against me.”82 Mursili’s first response was to demand of Mushuiluwa

that he travel to Hattusa and present himself before his lord. This direct appeal

failed, says Mursili, “because Mashuiluwa saw his offense [and] accordingly

follows] to [Madduwatta]: “The matter of a fugitive [is placed] under [oath] for you [as follows]: ‘You [must always send] back to the Sun whatever [fugitive] of [Hatti] comes to you.’ [But Niwalla], the huntsman of the Sun, [fled and came to you]. The Sun has written to you repeatedly, but you conceal him [and hide him. Now seize him]!”

A second passage worth bearing in mind comes from the “Indictment of Mita of Pahhuwa and Treaty with the Elders of Several Anatolian Communities,” in which an unnamed Hittite king writes to the loyal men of Pahhuwa requesting that they arrest and hand over the disloyal Mita (CTH 146 = HDT 27A, §§8-9):

Bring [to me, the Sun, Mita and Piggana], their wives, their sons, their grandsons, their household slaves, their oxen, and their sheep, together with all their possessions. You shall not hold back as much as [a strand of wool]. [...] Mita has now offended repeatedly. He has transgressed all of the matters which had been placed under oath. All of you have heard the [matters with which] I charged [Mita]. And I, the Sun [...] have now written to the men of Pahhuwa. And if the men of Pahhuwa proceed [to act] loyally, [they will bring Mita], together with his wife, the daughter of [Usapa], and his [sons], together with his secondary wife, together with his household slaves, his oxen, and his sheep, [together with all his possessions.]

81 On Mushuiluwa, see G. del Monte, “Mashuiluwa, König von Mira,” Or n.s. 43 (1974): 355-68; cf. Altman, Historical Prologue, 461-472. (I would like to thank Itamar Singer for drawing my attention to the case of Mushuiluwa.) 82 CTH 68 = HDT 11, §4.

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refused.”83 Seeing that he could get nowhere dealing directly with Mushuiluwa,

Mursili turned to the men of Masa. As he tells it:

Then I, the Sun, sent a man to the other men of the land of Masa to whom Mashuiluwa had gone over. I wrote to them as follows: “Mashuiluwa was my sworn ally, but he quarreled with me, stirred up my subjects against me, and would have begun war against me. Now he has fled before me and has just come to you. Seize him and turn him over to me! If you do not seize him and turn him over to me, I will come and destroy you, together with your land.” And when the men of the land of Masa heard this, they became frightened and seized Mashuiluwa, and turned him over to me. I took him by the hand, and [because] he had offended [against me, the Sun], I took him to Hattusa.84

The Hittite Great King describes how he sent an envoy with an extradition order

to the collective men of Masa, demanding that they hand over a vassal who was

refusing to behave properly towards his lord. Those addressed obeyed the

command and handed over the wanted individual. The parallels with the episode

in the Baal Cycle are unmistakable.

3. Mursili’s demand includes a threat of collective punishment should the

addressed group not comply. Yamm makes no such threat in the Ugaritic poem.

The gods’ behavior suggests, however, that they are aware that non-compliance

would hold undesirable ramifications. Still, their response is not simple.

Appreciating the political implications of the poetic episode requires considering

whose side the gods are on. This, in turn, will lead to a comparison of the Ugaritic

83 CTH 68 = HDT 11, §5. 84 CTH 68 = HDT 11, §6.

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treatment of its hero’s position vis-à-vis the other gods to similar scenes in the

poetry of Ugarit’s neighbors.

On seeing Yamm’s approaching messengers, the gods “lowered their

heads to their knees, onto their princely thrones.” Though the exact connotations

of the gesture elude scholars, the general impression is that the gods are

expressing timorousness.85 Why are they afraid of Yamm? Have they themselves

committed some offense against the one who calls himself their lord? (El’s later

statement, at least, implies that the other gods have been performing their duty,

and that only Baal has been remiss.) Are they aware that Baal is a wanted man

and that his presence on Mount Lalu implicates them in his crime? Or is Yamm

simply that kind of ruler who produces fear in his subjects, independent of any

actual transgression? If the poem once supplied unequivocal answers to these

questions, in its fragmentary form it does so no longer.

Baal rebukes the gods and they respond by lifting their heads from upon

their laps. It seems Baal is capable of exerting some influence over the other gods.

He has what we might call leadership skills. Yet his authority is limited. Despite

Baal’s assertion that he will be the one to answer Yamm’s messengers—an

assertion that succeeds in convincing the gods to lift up their heads again—it is El

who makes the first reply once the messengers actually arrive. And El shows

deference to Yamm’s demand—surely not the answer Baal would have given. In

light of the basic demand for a fugitive trope, one would expect the crisis to end

here. Like the situation at Abel of Beth-maacah, acquiescence to the demand is

85 For discussion of the gesture, with reference to previous literature, see UBC I, 297-300.

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preferred to collective destruction. El’s speech reconfirms Yamm’s position as

sovereign.

But then the story adds an unexpected twist. On hearing El’s reply, the

storm-god becomes furious and attacks Yamm’s messengers—a quintessential

affront to diplomatic decorum as articulated explicitly in a Hittite treaty with

Paddatissu of Kizzuwatna: “[If] the Great [King] sends either his son or his

subject to Paddatissu, Paddatissu shall not harm him.”86 So while El defers to

Yamm’s authority, Baal literally batters it. Baal shows himself more formidable

than Sheba. Rather than finding a resolution, the crisis of authority that the

demand for a fugitive topos signifies is exacerbated.

At this point one might ask where the other gods stand. Do they support

El’s decision to meet Yamm’s demand? Or, in light of their recent nod to Baal’s

leadership, do they side with the storm-god? In other words, what is divine public

opinion at this point in the narrative? A critical two lines provide an answer:

[ymnh . ‘n]t . t’u'd Anat grabs his right hand, "m’alh . t’u'd . ‘(trt Athtart grabs his left. ’ik . m[')t . ml’ak]/[. ym] “How could you batter Yamm’s envoys, [t‘]dt . (p$ . nhr the embassy of Ruler Nahar?”87

The gods respond to Baal’s assault on the messengers by restraining the storm-

god and rebuking him for his action. Once the envoys arrive, the gods show

themselves squarely on Yamm’s side. Whether from loyalty or fear, they want to

avoid the fate suffered by the people of Zalpa. The final surviving line of the

episode discussed earlier reiterates the schism between Baal and the gods. When

Baal declares, “I, for my part, say to Yamm, your lord,” he is not only disputing 86 CTH 26 = HDT 1, §3. 87 KTU 1.2 I 40-41

37

Yamm’s claim to authority over him, but is also indicating that by their present

actions the other gods have affirmed Yamm’s claim over themselves. The lines

are drawn: Yamm and the other gods on one side, Baal alone on the other.

This tension between Baal and the other gods is noteworthy. Read in light

of the passage’s allusion to an episode involving a fugitive rebel with Yamm in

the position of sovereign ruler, the gods’ behavior serves to reinforce the image of

Baal as transgressor and disturber of order. Two poetic fragments that depict a

divine council responding to the demands of a sea-god put the contours of Baal’s

situation into sharper focus. The texts come from Ugarit’s northern and southern

imperial neighbors Hatti and Egypt, respectively. Both are even more fragmentary

than the Baal Cycle and so using them to elucidate the Ugaritic poem runs the risk

of committing the philological sin of obscurum per obscurius. Nevertheless, these

two passages are thematically relevant and heuristically useful, and so they justify

the risk.

The first fragment belongs to a poem known as the “Song of the Sea” and

was discovered in Hattusa.88 The extant Hittite text is likely a translation or

reworking of a Hurrian composition. Though the text is obscure, it seems to

describe a flood produced by the sea that reaches up to the heavens, touching the

88 KBo 26.105. See Jean-François Blam, “Le Chant de l’océan: Fragment KBo XXVI 105,” in Antiquus Oriens: Mélanges offerts au Professeur René Lebrun (ed. M. Mazoyer and O. Casabonne; Paris: KUBABA, 2004), 69-81; Ian Rutherford, “The Song of the Sea (*A A.AB.BA SÌR): Thoughts on KUB 45.63,” in Akten des IV. Internationalen Kongresses für Hethitologie (ed. G. Wilhem; Studien zu den Bo!azköy-Texten 45; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2001), 598-609, esp. 603; Thomas Schneider, “Texte über den syrischen Wettergott aus Ägypten,” UF 35 (2003): 605-27, esp. 605-7; Alfonso Archi, “Orality, Direct Speech and the Kumarbi Cycle,” AoF 36 (2009): 209-29, esp. 219-21; Ph. H. J. Houwink ten Cate, “The Hittite Storm God: His Role and His Rule According to Hittite Cuneiform Sources,” in Natural Phenomena: Their Meaning, Depiction and Description in the Ancient Near East (ed. D. J. W. Meijer; Amsterdam: Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen, 1992), 83-148, esp. 117-19.

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sun, the moon, and the stars. Threatened, Kumarbi (roughly the Hittite equivalent

of El) orders that tribute of lapis lazuli, ivory, silver, and gold be handed over to

the sea. The goddess Ishtar is then mentioned, probably as the one who conveys

the tribute.

Let me speculate briefly on these few textual hints. The image of

floodwaters reaching to the sky suggests that the cosmic order—and with it the

current divine regime—is being threatened. The sea’s antagonist is not just one

disobedient god (Baal), but rather the reigning order of the gods itself. In order to

appease the sea, the gods send tribute.89 They do so as a collective because the sea

opposes them all equally.90 Their objective is to preserve order in a situation

where the sea is the disturber of order. By contrast, in the Baal Cycle, Yamm is

depicted, together with the gods, as on the side of order, while it is Baal who

breaks the law. Though both texts depict an exchange between the gods and the

sea, the meaning of that exchange is not the same. The gods in the Hittite text

send gifts to the sea as an act of appeasement designed to save the rule of law that

89 As it happens, the Hittite word for tribute, argamman-, argama-, is identical to the Ugaritic word ’argmn found both in El’s speech at KTU 1.2 I 37 and the tribute document RS 11.772+ (Johann Tischler, Hethitisches Etymologisches Glossar, vol. 1 [Innsbruck: Insbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft, 1983], 59-60; Jaan Puhvel, Hittite Etymological Dictionary, vol. 1 [Berlin: Mouton, 1984], 143-46; cf. DULAT 100-101). 90 The tribute that Kumarbi calls for looks more like an attempt to stave off destruction than a sign of submission in vassalage. It brings to mind an episode from the Ugaritic epic of Kirta in which King Pabuli offers Kirta silver and gold in an attempt to save his city Udum from destruction (KTU 1.14 V 32-45 // 1.14 VI 3-15). The idea is not that Pabuli becomes Kirta’s vassal, but rather that he is paying Kirta to leave him and Udum in peace. Similarly, the gods in the Hittite fragment seem to desire that their offer will entice the sea to return to its bounds. Admittedly, however, Pabuli calls his offerings as "lmm (= Akk. "ulm+nu, a term that can refer to the gifts that independent polities would exchange as signs of friendship; see CAD (, 244-47; cf. Marian H. Feldman, Diplomacy By Design: Luxury Arts and an “International Style” in the Ancient Near East, 1400-1200 BCE [Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2006], esp. 106-7, but also 169-70, on the ambiguities between “gifts” and “tribute”), whereas the Hittite text speaks explicitly of argaman // Akk. irbu, “gifts, presents (to a god or king)” (CAD I/J, 173-76) and mandattu, “tribute” (CAD M, 1, 13-16). The text is simply too fragmentary to know what is implied by the gods becoming tributaries to the sea.

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they themselves, in opposition to the sea, embody. On the other hand, in the

Ugaritic poem the gods hand over Baal in accord with the law that Yamm himself

represents. That Yamm is a figure of law and not the transgression of law is

suggested by the fact that, whereas in the Hittite fragment the sea is depicted as

causing a reversion to chaos by means of a flooding that reaches to the heavens,

no such “reverse cosmogonic” imagery can be found in the Ugaritic poem.91

The second fragment comes from a papyrus discovered in Egypt and is

commonly known as “Astarte and the Tribute to the Sea.”92 This title is deceptive.

Philippe Collombert and Laurent Coulon have recently identified another

fragment as belonging to the same papyrus roll—consisting, in fact, of the incipit

to the text.93 As a result, we now know that the text’s main protagonist was Seth

(equated in Egyptian thinking of the period with Baal),94 whereas Astarte played

91 The tradition of floodwaters returning the world to an earlier stage of chaos is a rich one; cf., e.g., Gilgamesh, XI, 101-102; Genesis 7; Job 38:8-11, 22-23; 1 Enoch 53:9-10; Lucian, De dea Syria, 12-13; Nonnos, Dionysiaca, VI, 206-388. In light of such texts, it becomes even more noteworthy that despite his name, Yamm is not depicted in an aqueous manner in the Baal Cycle. 92 P. Amherst (Pierpont Morgan) XIX-XXI = ANET 17-18 = COS 1.23:35-36. See A. H. Gardiner, “The Astarte Papyrus,” in Studies Presented to F. Ll. Griffith (ed. S. R. K. Glanville; London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1932), 74-85; Wolfgang Helck, “Zur Herkunft der Erzählung des sog. ‘Astartepapyrus,’” in Fontes atque Pontes: Eines Festgabe für Hellmut Brunner (ed. M. Görg; AAT 5; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1983), 214-23; Donald B. Redford, “The Sea and the Goddess,” in Studies in Egyptology Presented to Miriam Lichtheim (ed. S. Israelit-Groll; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1990), 824-35; Schneider, “Texte über den syrischen Wettergott,” 605-17; and especially the article cited in the following note. The similarity between this Egyptian text and the Hittite text discussed above was pointed out by Houwink ten Cate, “Hittite Storm God,” 117. 93 Philippe Collombert and Laurent Coulon, “Les dieux contre la mer: Le début du ‘papyrus d’Astarté’ (pBN 202),” BIFAO 100 (2000): 193-242. 94 Rainer Stadelmann, Syrisch-Palästinensische Gottheiten in Ägypten (Probleme der Ägyptologie 5; Leiden: Brill, 1967), 32-47; Herman te Velde, Seth, God of Confusion (Leiden: Brill, 1967), esp. 109-34; idem, “Seth,” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, vol. 3 (ed. D. B. Redford; Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2003), 269-71; N.-C. Grimal, Les termes de la propagande royale égyptienne de la XIXe dynastie à la conquête d’Alexandre (MAIBL 6; Paris: Imprimerie national, 1986), 393-95; Manfred Bietak, “Zur Herkunft des Seth von Avaris,” Ägypten und Levant 1 (1990): 9-16; Jean Yoyotte, “La stèle de Ramsès II à Keswé et sa signification historique,” BSFE 144 (1999): 48-52; Niv Allon, “Seth is Baal—Evidence from the Egyptian Script,” Ägypten und Levant 17 (2007): 15-22. See also Mark S. Smith, God in Translation: Deities in Cross-Cultural Discourse in the Biblical World, (Forschungen zum Alten Testament 57; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 38, cf. 54-55. For iconographic links, see especially Pierre

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but a supporting role in the narrative. As has long been noted, the work displays

clear links with Levantine mythology—both in theme and terminology.95 For

instance, the work uses the Semitic loanword ym (“Yamm”) rather than the

Egyptian wAD-wr (lit. “great green”) to designate the sea.96 The “Astarte Papyrus”

and the Baal Cycle emerge from a set of shared traditions; their divergences are

therefore that much more relevant as signals of their respective methods for

producing meaning.

The newly recognized opening portion of the text identifies the

composition’s main purpose as celebrating the exploits of Seth-Baal. The god was

likely understood as a divine model for the Egyptian sovereign Amenhotep II.97

Among the god’s praiseworthy exploits was a combat with the sea. In fact, the

introduction names “that which he (scil. Seth-Baal) did for the Ennead in fighting

the sea” as the work’s main theme.98 In light of the discussion so far, this line is

revealing. Like the Hittite poetic fragment, this Egyptian composition also depicts

Montet, “La Stèle de l’an 400 retrouvé,” Kêmi 4 (1931-1933): 191-215, esp. 200-206; cf. A. Vanel, L’Iconography du Dieu de l'orage dans le Proche-Orient ancien jusqu'au VIIe siècle avant J.-C. (Cahiers de la revue biblique 3; Paris: Gabalda, 1965), esp. 21, 78, 81-82, 147-148 and figs. 30-43; Izak Cornelius, The iconography of the Canaanite Gods Reshef and Ba,al: Late Bronze and Iron Age I periods (c 1500-1000 BCE) (Fribourg, Switzerland: University Press, 1994), 247. 95 See esp. D. B. Redford, “The Sea and the Goddess”; Collombert and Coulon, “Les dieux conre la mer,” 217-19; cf. A. M. Gnirs, “Die levantinische Herkunft des Schlangengottes,” in Stationen: Beiträge zur Geschichte Kultur Ägyptens Rainer Stadelmann gewidmet (ed. H. Guksch and D. Polz; Mainz: Zabern, 1998), 197-209. 96 Collombert and Coulon, “Les dieux conre la mer,” 220; cf. Raphael Giveon “Jam (Meer),” Lexicon der Ägyptologie, vol. 3 (ed. W. Helck and W. Westendorf; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1980), 242-43; James E. Hoch, Semitic Words in Egyptian Texts of the New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1994), 52, no. 52. 97 Collombert and Coulon, “Les dieux conre la mer,” 208-9. For the idea that Pharaoh was a manifestation of the god Seth, see Erik Hornung, “The Pharaoh,” in The Egyptians (ed. S. Donadoni; Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1997), 283-314, esp. 285. 98 Collombert and Coulon, “Les dieux conre la mer,” 200. The Ennead was the group of nine deities that constituted the core Egyptian pantheon (see Erik Hornung, Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many [trans. J. Baines; Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press, 1982], 221-23).

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a conflict between the gods, on the one hand, and the sea, on the other. Moreover,

here the deity Seth-Baal is explicitly credited as the gods’ champion.99

The actual account of the battle between Seth-Baal and the sea is missing

from the extant fragments of the papyrus. Only the introductory section and the

“Astarte and the Tribute to the Sea” episode (now identifiable as belonging to the

beginning of the narrative) survive in any substantial form. The rise of Seth-Baal

as the gods’ champion and his defeat of the sea must have been told in a later, lost

portion of the narrative. The known early episode provides a background to Seth-

Baal’s exploits. Like our passage from the Baal Cycle and the Hittite fragment,

the scene depicts the sea as making a demand of the gods. In this case, the

demand seems to consist first of tribute of “silver, gold, and lapis lazuli,” but then

also of Astarte as a wife. In this latter detail, the Egyptian text resembles the Baal

Cycle in that an individual is demanded—though one must not confuse the

semiotic value of demanding a fugitive and demanding a wife. Whereas the

former is a mark of the rule of law, the latter (if undesired) only acts to exacerbate

injustice. The poem’s explicit purpose of celebrating Seth-Baal’s act of

championing the gods against the sea suggests that this marriage (and the tribute)

was in fact imposed upon the gods against their will. In the Egyptian account, the

sea’s demands are presented as an unjust burden. For as long as they continue, the

authority of the gods is in crisis. With the defeat of the sea by Seth-Baal, that

crisis is resolved and the authority of the gods is restored. As their champion,

99 The victory of Seth over the sea is a theme attested in Egyptian medico-magical papyri. See pHearst, 11, 15-16 in Thierry Bardinet, Les papyrus médicaux de l’Égypt pharaonique: traduction intégrale et commentaire (Paris: Fayard, 1995), 397; pBerlin 3038 [189], 20, 9-21, 3 in J. F. Borghouts, Ancient Egyptian Magical Texts (NISABA 9; Leiden: Brill, 1978), no. 73; pLeiden I 343 + 345 [4] rt. 4, 9-6, 2 in Borghouts, Ancient Egyptian Magical Texts, no. 23.

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Seth-Baal achieves the will of the gods against the tyranny of the sea. By contrast,

in demanding a fugitive Baal rather than tribute and a wife, Yamm in the Ugaritic

poem is presented as the upholder of justice. In the Baal Cycle, Baal produces the

crisis in authority rather than achieves its resolution.

The two fragments discussed above provide valuable comparative

evidence for how demands made to the divine council by the sea could be

formulated in literature of the Late Bronze Age. In those texts, demands that the

gods hand over tribute or a wife marked the protagonists’ relative position to law

and order quite differently than the demand for a fugitive does in the Baal Cycle.

By way of conclusion, I would like to turn to one final literary comparison. The

Enuma elish contains both a threat to the assembly of gods and a demand for a

fugitive. But unlike in the Baal Cycle, in the Babylonian creation epic these topoi

do not occur together in the same scene. Viewing them at work separately helps to

clarify the significance of their collapse in the Ugaritic poem.

The Babylonian poem Enuma elish—after Gilgamesh probably the most

famous literary work to survive from the ancient Near East—recounts, and

thereby celebrates, the rise of Marduk to the position of supreme deity of the

pantheon.100 Marduk achieves this status by saving the gods from attack by

Tiamat—the salt waters that, together with the sweet waters of Apsu, were present

at the beginning of time. The poem situates Marduk’s victory over Tiamat within

100 Of the abundant literature on Enuma elish, see in particular Thorkild Jacobsen, The Treasures of Darkness (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, 1976), 165-91; idem, “The Battle between Marduk and Tiamat,” JAOS 88 (1968): 104-8; W. G. Lambert, “A New Look at the Babylonian Background of Genesis,” Journal of Theological Studies, n.s., 16 (1965): 287-300; A. Kragerud, “The Concept of Creation in Enuma Elish,” in Ex Orbe Religionum: Studi Geo Widengren, part 1 (Leiden: Brill, 1972), 39-49. See also Thorkild Jacobsen, “Primitive Democracy in Ancient Mesopotamia,” JNES 2 (1943): 159-72.

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a diachronic account of the universe. First there was only Tiamat and Apsu, a time

“when no gods at all had been brought forth.”101 From them the gods were

formed, generation after generation, until “in the midst of Apsu Marduk was

formed.”102 Relations between Tiamat and the younger gods become tense,

leading eventually to war. Against the gods, Tiamat “deployed serpents, dragons,

and hairy hero-men, / Lion monsters, lion men, scorpion men, / Mighty demons,

fish men, bull men, / Bearing unsparing arms, fearing no battle.”103 At the head of

this army of demons, Tiamat appoints her spouse Qingu as supreme commander.

Threatened and afraid, the younger gods appoint Marduk as their champion.

Tiamat and Marduk meet in single combat and the younger god emerges

victorious. By means of dismembering Tiamat’s body, Marduk then reorganizes

the universe to conform to the way that it is known today—with Babylon at its

center. The divine king then establishes the conventions of the earth and assigns

to each of the gods their lots. Thankful for being set free, the other gods build

Marduk a palace and do obeisance to him. The final portion of the poem praises

Marduk by listing the god’s many names.

At the height of the gods’ panic over Tiamat’s threat, unable to find a

champion to defend them, Marduk steps forward. He makes it very clear that,

should he defend them by fighting Tiamat, they must recognize him

unequivocally and grant him full authority. He states the following conditions:

If indeed I am to champion you,

101 Enuma elish, I, 7. All translations of the poem are taken from Benjamin R. Foster, Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature, vol. 1: Archaic, Classical, Mature (Bethesda, Maryland: CDL Press, 1993), 351-402. 102 Enuma elish, I, 81. 103 Enuma elish, I, 141-44.

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Subdue Tiamat and save your lives, Convene the assembly, nominate me for supreme destiny! Take your places in the Assembly Place of the Gods. All of you, in joyful mood, When I speak, let me ordain destinies instead of you. Let nothing that I shall bring about be altered, Nor what I say be revoked or changed.104

But these conditions do not only serve to determine what Marduk’s status will be

once the battle is completed. They also grant legitimacy to the very act of

combating Tiamat. Agreement to his conditions ensures that any fighting Marduk

does is done with the gods’ full backing. This is how the gods respond:

When the gods his fathers saw what he commanded, Joyfully they hailed, “Marduk is King!” They bestowed in full measure scepter, throne, and staff, They gave him unstoppable weaponry that vanquishes enemies. “Go, cut off the life of Tiamat, Let the winds bear her blood away as glad tidings!” The gods, his fathers, ordained the Lord’s destiny, On the path to success and authority did they send him marching.105

There is no question that when Marduk goes out to fight Tiamat, he goes on

behalf of the gods and in line with their wishes. From the perspective of the poem,

the regime that is established by Marduk following his defeat of Tiamat—that is,

the world in which we presently live, with Babylon at its head—enjoys full

legitimacy.

In the hands of the poets of Babylon, the demand for a fugitive trope is

employed to underscore this legitimacy. It occurs towards the end of the narrative,

after Marduk has achieved his victory. Though by this point Marduk has been

fully enthroned, Qingu remains to be dealt with. Wrapping up loose ends, Marduk

addresses the minor gods who had sided with Tiamat during the battle: 104 Enuma elish, II, 156-62 and parallels. 105 Enuma elish, IV, 27-34.

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Who was it that made war, Suborned Tiamat and drew up for battle? Let him be given over to me, the one who made war, I shall make him bear his punishment, you shall be released.106

Possessing the wisdom of the woman of Abel of Beth-maacah, the defeated gods

know what they must do. They promptly name Qingu as responsible and deliver

him to Marduk. With the eradication of Qingu, the final wrinkle is ironed out.

Nothing is left to disturb Marduk’s ordered rule of the universe.107 The trope of a

king’s demand that a fugitive be handed over belongs to poetic devices that

establish this point.

In the Enuma elish, all elements line up: the threat to divine order is

depicted as demonic and chaotic; the hero is endorsed by the gods; the hero is

victorious over the enemy and this victory is depicted as an act of freeing the gods

from bondage; the victorious god is associated with the only form of legitimate

law; the enemy of the victorious god is depicted as a fugitive rebel; all the gods

endorse the rule of the victor by handing over the criminal.

Turning back to the Baal Cycle, the situation could not be more different.

In place of alignment, we find disjunction after disjunction. Focusing solely on

the narrative elements discussed in this chapter, the following incongruities are

evident: the threat is directed against one god only, not the collective; it is

presented as the lawful punishment of an outlaw; the hero is at odds with the other

gods; the demand for a fugitive does not issue in a resolution to the crisis (through 106 Enuma elish, VI, 23-26. 107 This statement is only partially true. From Qingu’s body, Marduk creates mankind. Rebelliousness, in other words, has been displaced from the realm of the gods and now resides in human beings. If there is disorder in the world today, it stems from humans not gods. This facet of the Babylonian poem, though important and profound, need not bother us. To the extent that the divine is a closed system, Marduk’s rule is complete and admits of no challenge—and this is how it should be.

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extradition or collective destruction), but exacerbates it; the scene contains several

claimants to authority, with no clear indication of where legitimacy lies.

6.

The poets of Ugarit practice what I would like to call a poetics of disjunction.

Whereas a poem like Enuma elish emphasizes alignment and harmony within a

hierarchically organized universe, the Baal Cycle points to unresolved tensions in

a universe characterized by disharmony. The poem presents a hero who is a

rebellious vassal and a fugitive outlaw who is never quashed. It unsettles standard

portrayals of authority and suggests that political success is not the product of

divine blessing. Baal eventually acquires kingship, but only by relying on the

force of his arms and a few judiciously made bribes. That rise to kingship against

the will of the other gods is the focus of the next chapter.

I want to bring the current discussion to an end by suggesting a

comparison that can help highlight the significance of this poem for broader

concerns regarding political life’s relation to the divine. Another small polity from

the ancient Near East is well known for having developed a novel approach to this

issue: Israel. Just as the Baal Cycle emerged out of Ugaritic experience in the face

of Hittite and Egyptian imperial power, Israelite thinking was born in the shadows

of the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian empires. Ugarit and Israel provide two

significantly different versions of how small polities could react to imperial

political theology. A thorough treatment is impossible here, but the following

simple observations may serve as indications for future consideration.

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Israel responded to its political experience by developing an

eschatological vision of history. Present failures were interpreted as purposeful

events in a long-term trajectory guided by a providential god. Nebuchadnezzar of

Babylon, for instance, considered himself “the one permanently selected by

Marduk” and his military triumphs the expression of Marduk’s will.108 But

according to Jeremiah, the Babylonian king was doing the will of the god of

Israel. As Yahweh declares: “I have given all these lands into the hand of

Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, my servant.”109 By setting events into a

broader narrative, specific political failures could become setbacks relativized

against a divine master plan. The inversion contained a certain theological one-

upmanship. The static order of Marduk now became but one piece in the

diachronic order of Yahweh. Notably, though, this response to imperial political

theology remained tied to the idea that politics must correspond to divine order.

As the Apostle Paul would later put it in a letter sent to Rome, “there is no

authority if not from God, and those (authorities) that exist have been appointed

by God.”110 In Ugarit, by contrast, mundane political authority, like divine

authority, comes from a disorderly struggle for power.

108 “Nebuchadnezzar II’s Restoration of E-urimin-anikia, the Ziggurat of Borsippa” (trans. P.-A. Beaulieu, COS 2.122B:309). 109 Jeremiah 27:6. 110 Romans 13:1.

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Illustrations

Figure 1. Rock relief of Hittite king Figure 2. Line drawing after rock relief of Tudhaliya IV (ca. 125-1220 BC), Tudhaliya IV in Yazılıkaya. Chamber B, no. 81, in Yazılıkaya; 135-142 x 160-162 cm.

Figure 3. Line drawing after impression Figure 4. Line drawing after impression of of stamp seal of Hittite king Muwatalli stamp seal of Mursili III, from Hattusa; II (ca. 1306-1282 BC), from Hattusa; Bo 90/266. Museum of Anatolian Civilizations; Ankara, Bo 815/f; clay bulla; 5.6 x 5.3 cm.

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Figure 5. Line drawing after impression of stamp seal of Hittite king Tudhaliya IV (ca. 1250-1220 BC), from Ugarit; National Museum of Syria, Damascus, RS 17.159; clay; d. 5.5 cm.

Figure 6. Drawing of clay tablet indicating location of Hittite royal stamp seal (fig. 5), from Ugarit; National Museum of Syria, Damascus, RS 17.159; clay.