Introduction

This book begins with a definition of the terms which will be investigated during this study, i.e. divination, warfare and what I understand to be the relation- ship between the Mesopotamian and Greek civilizations within these fields. There are three key-words which have an impact on this book: divination, warfare and civilization.

1 Divination

First, it should be noted that religion was extremely important fac- tor of the life of the ancient Mesopotamians,1 and no less so for the

1 An introduction to Mesopotamian religion: M. Jastrow Jr, Die Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens, 2 vols., Gießen, 1905–1912; J. van Dijck, ‘Sumerische Religion’ in ria 3 (1971) 431–96; T. Jacobsen, The Treasures of Darkness. A History of Mesopotamian Religion, London, 1976; A.L. Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization, Chicago, 1977; H. Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods. A Study of Ancient Near Eastern Religion as the Integration of Society and Nature, Chicago, London, 1978; T. Jacobsen, The Harps that Once … Sumerian Poetry in Translation, New Haven, London, 1987; J. Bottéro, Mesopotamia: Writing, Reasoning, and the Gods, Chicago, London, 1992; B.R. Foster, From Distant Days: Myth, Tales, and Poetry of Ancient Mesopotamia, Bethesda, 1995; M. Hutter, C. Bonnet, H. Niehr, M. Görg (eds.), Religionen in der Umwelt des Alten Testaments, 3 vols., Stuttgart, 1996–2010; A. Livingstone, ‘New Dimensions in the Study of Assyrian Religion’ in Parpola, Whiting, 1997, 165–77; S. Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia. Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others, Oxford, 2000; J. Bottéro, ‘Religion and Reasoning in Mesopotamia’ in: J. Bottéro, C. Herrenschmidt, J.-P. Vernant, Ancestor of the West. Writing, Reasoning, and Religion in Mesopotamia, Elam, and Greece, Chicago, London, 2000, 1–66; S. Moscati, The Face of the Ancient Orient. Near Eastern Civilization in Pre-Classical Times, Mineola (NY), 2001, 27–48 and 68–88; J. Bottéro, Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia, Chicago, London, 2001; D.O. Edzard, ‘Altbabylonische Literatur und Religion’ in D. Charpin, D.O. Edzard, M. Stol (eds.), Mesopotamien. Die altbabylonische Zeit, Freiburg, Gottingen, 2004, 481–640; Part 8: Religion and Science in J. Sasson (ed.), Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, vol. iii & iv, New York, 2006, see Part 5: Religion in G. Leick (ed.), The Babylonian World, New York, London, 2007; B. Nevling Porter (ed.), What Is a God? Anthropomorphic and Non- Anthropomorphic Aspects of Deity in Ancient Mesopotamia, Winona Lake, 2009; D.C. Snel, Religions of the Ancient Near East, Cambridge, 2010; W.G. Lambert, Babylonian Creation Myths, Winona Lake, 2013; I. Hrůša, Ancient Mesopotamian Religion: A Descriptive Introduction, Münster, 2015. More about the Ancient Near East civilizations, see Cambridge History of the Ancient World, I.E.S. Edwards, C.J. Gadd, N.G.I. Hammond, E. Sollberger (eds.), 3rd edition, Cambridge, 1970; J.B. Pritchard (ed.), The Ancient Near East, A New Anthology of Texts and Pictures, 2 vols., Princeton, 1975; A.B. Knapp, The History and Culture of Ancient Western Asia and Egypt, Belmont, 1988; H.J. Nissen, The Early History of the Ancient Near East 9000–2000 B.C., Chicago, 1990; G. Algaze, The Uruk World System. The Dynamics of Early Mesopotamian Civilization, Chicago, 2005; J. Sasson (ed.), Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, vol. i & ii

Greeks.2 Religion, as a metaphysical and social phenomenon, played one of the most decisive roles in ancient civilization. In antiquity, it was impossible to separate religious and rational elements in thought, because they both were treated as essentially the same.3 The currently existing boundaries between these two worlds are false. Divination, as an indispensable part of religion, played a central role not only in civilizations of the ancient Near East, but also in those of the ancient Mediterranean.4 The first important translations were made by Lenormant 1873–

and iii & iv, New York, 2006; M.W. Chavalas (ed.), The Ancient Near East Historical Sources in Translation, Oxford, 2006; A. Benoit, Art et archéologie: les civilisationes du Proche-Orient ancient, Paris, 2007; A. Kuhrt, The Ancient Near East c. 3000–330 BC, 2 vols., London, New York, 2008; M. Van De Mieroop, History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000–323 BC, Oxford, 2015; G.B. Lanfranchi, R. Mattila, R. Rollinger (eds.), Writing Neo-Assyrian History: Sources, Problems, and Approaches. Proceedings of an International Conference Held at the University of Helsinki on September 22–25, 2014, Helsinki, 2019. 2 An introduction to Greek religion: M.P. Nilsson, Geschichte der griechischen Religion, 2 vols., München, 1950; C. Sourvinou-Inwood, ‘What Is polis Religion?’ in O. Murray, S. Price (eds.), The Greek City. From Homer to Alexander, Oxford, 1990, 295–323; J.-P. Vernant, Mortals and Immortals: Collected Essays. Edited by F.I. Zeitlin, Princeton, 1991; R. Hägg (ed.), The Role of Religion in the Early Greek polis. Proceedings of the Third International Seminar on Ancient Greek Cult, organized by the Swedish Institute at Athens, 16–18 October 1992, Stockholm, 1996; J.N. Bremmer, Greek Religion, Cambridge, 1999; Thesaurus Cultus et Rituum Antiquorum (ThesCRA), R. Garland, Religion and the Greeks, London, 1998; B.C. Dietrich, The Origins of Greek Religion, Bristol, 1974; E. Kearns, ‘The Gods in the Homeric Epics’ in R.L. Fowler (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Homer, Cambridge, 2004, 59–73; J.D. Mikalson, Ancient Greek Religion, Malden (MA), 2005; S. Price, Religions of the Ancient Greeks, Cambridge, 2006; R. Parker, Polytheism and Society at Athens, Oxford, 2005; D. Ogden (ed.), A Companion to Greek Religion, Oxford, 2007, L. Bruit Zaidman, P. Schmitt Pantel, Religion in the Ancient Greek City, Cambridge, 2007; W. Burkert, Greek Religion. Archaic and Classical, Oxford, 2007; W. Burkert, Greek Religion. Archaic and Classical, Oxford, 2007; D. Turkeltaub, ‘Perceiving Iliadic Gods’ hscp 103 (2007) 51–81; J.E. Stambaugh, Sources for the Study of Greek Religion, 2009; A.B. Lloyd (ed.), What Is a God? Studies in the Nature of Greek Divinity, Swansea, 2009; J.N. Bremmer, ‘Manteis, Magic, Mysteries and Mythography: The Messy Margins of polis Religion?’ Kernos 23 (2010) 13–25; J.N. Bremmer, A. Erskine (eds.), The Gods of Ancient Greece. Identities and Transformations, Edinburgh, 2010; R. Parker, On Greek Religion, Ithaca (NY), London, 2011; P. Bonnechere, ‘The Religious Management of the polis: Oracles and Political Decision‐Making’ in H. Beck (ed.), A Companion to Ancient Greek Government, Malden (MA), 2013, 366–81; P.J. Ahrensdorf, Homer on the Gods and Human Virtue. Creating the Foundations of Classical Civilization, Cambridge, 2014. 3 M.A. Flower, The Seer in Ancient Greece, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 2008, 223; J. Scurlock, ‘Divination Between Religion and Science’ in J.C. Fincke (ed.), Divination as Science: A Workshop Conducted During the 60th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Warsaw, 2014, Winona Lake, 2016, 1–10; M.A. Flower, ‘Divination and the “Real Presence” of the Divine in Ancient Greece’ in L.G. Driediger-Murphy, E. Eidinow (eds.), Ancient Divination and Experience, Oxford, 2019, 203–25. 4 A short bibliography about divination in Mesopotamian civilization, see I. Starr, The Rituals of Diviner, Malibu, 1983; J.-W. Meyer, Untersuchungen zu den Tonlebermodellen aus dem Alten