Читать книгу A Companion to the Hellenistic and Roman Near East онлайн

160 страница из 236

Of course this is no mere replay of Hesiod. But the places where Philo departs from the Theogony are unlikely to represent alternative Ancient Near Eastern tradition. The major players, Ouranos and Cronos, are both given more wives and progeny, as if they are being used as pegs on which to hang a more comprehensive genealogy than could be supplied by Ouranos’s monogamous marriage to Gaia, or Cronos’s to Rhea. Specific correspondences with the Kumarbi myth are hard to find (Barr 1974–1975: 51–52); on the contrary, there are several matches with the succession myths of Euhemerus and his follower Dionysius Scytobrachion, suggesting Philo’s de facto familiarity with Hellenistic Greek sources (Baumgarten 1981: 242–243, 263). In short, the succession myth – and indeed the whole treatise – looks like a medley of traditions from different times and places, assembled in an artificial literary composite. Different Phoenician cities drift in and out of focus (compatible with Porphyry’s presentation of Sanchuniathon’s compilatory activities); after the main structure, gods – important ones in the Hellenistic and imperial eras like Adodos/Hadad, Melcathros/Melqart, Asclepius/Eshmun – are tacked on at the end and accorded a minimalist treatment; and there are numerous pieces of reduplication, including a threefold invention of sailing. We should resist the temptation to interpret Philo’s pantheon as one specific to any time or place; and, as with Lucian, we have to ask which (if any) Phoenicians would have accepted, or even been familiar, with the ideas and structures presented here (Nautin 1949: 577).