Beyond the Parallel: The Iliad and the Epic of Gilgames in Their Macro-Regional Tradition

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