In recent years, comparative research into the mythologies of early Greece and the Ancient Near East have gained considerable momentum. Ballesteros’ book is the latest contribution to this topic. It examines with a wide range of approaches the many divine assembly scenes which appear in early Greek and Mesopotamian narratives. After the introduction and an initial chapter devoted to familiarizing readers from different disciplines with the Greek, Sumerian and Akkadian texts, Part I examines the poetic techniques governing the use of assembly scenes. Chapter 2 demonstrates that both Mesopotamian and Greek sources deploy them as a structuring tool for guiding the audience’s understanding of the development of the narratives. Chapter 3 compares poetic motifs often intertwined with divine assemblies: divine unrest, banqueting, creation, and withdrawal and return, outlining a considerable degree of similarity and important cultural distinctions, for example the greater importance of the divine collective in responding to crisis in Mesopotamian poetics. Chapter 4 turns to the compositional techniques used by poets to introduce, develop and conclude assembly type-scenes, outlining a considerable degree of overlap in this respect between the cultures. Part I is heavily informed by oral-traditionalist readings and the theory of traditional referentiality. The many important conclusions of this section include that the divine assembly scene was among the many poetic tools of the early Greek oral tradition, and that the Mesopotamian texts were possibly recited orally and received aurally, a fact hardly ever considered by Assyriologists until now. The oral background of divine assemblies leads into the inevitable question of cross-cultural contact. Supported by a detailed and innovative theoretical grounding laid out in the introduction (§1), Ballesteros convincingly argues that there are no signs of text-to-text adaptations nor any evidence that the motif as a whole was borrowed from the Near East. He does so firstly by showing that the indigenous context of these type-scenes in Greece is enough to explain any similarities with their Mesopotamian comparanda, and by examining similar scenes both elsewhere in the Near East and in other distant cultures, showing that these similarities are also likely to have arisen through independent polygenesis. This is not to deny, however, that contact could have taken place, but it is suggested that it would have taken the form of a shared Eastern Mediterranean poetic culture, wherein processes of oral contact were facilitated by already-shared features.

Part II examines divine assemblies from a more analogical perspective, asking what they can tell us about differences and similarities in cultural perceptions of the gods. In many ways, this inquiry thus expands beyond just examining divine assemblies and becomes a compelling treatise on the nature of the divine in Greek and Mesopotamian religious thought. Chapters 6 and 7 investigate ideas pertaining to cosmic history and the relationship between the divine assembly and human rulers, all through the perspective of distance and proximity between gods and mortals. A significant degree of overlap is shown, for example in the fact that both cultures envisage a gradual separation marked by a decisive moment of destruction, as well as clear differences, such as the fact that periods of divine proximity come after the great destruction in Mesopotamian thought, but before it in Greece. The final chapters look at intra-divine relations, including the Chaoskampf myths (Chapter 8) and the establishment of divine rulership (chapters 9–10), where an insightful distinction is made between Mesopotamian divine kingship as an immanent office, part of the established cosmic order and independent from the office-holder, and Greek divine kingship, the stability of which relies much more on the skill and strength of Zeus. Finally, Chapter 11 maps these differences onto historical conceptions of human kingship.

It is impossible in so short a space to do justice to this book’s many merits. It demonstrates philological rigour on the smallest scale in the translations of and comments to Greek, Akkadian, and Sumerian passages, while also covering a wide range of texts, including many sources often overlooked in comparative studies. Ballesteros’ analysis intertwines the different traditions with fascinating results, whilst avoiding the trap of oversimplifying parallels, instead remaining sensitive to the subtle differences and giving each culture equal weight. The writing is expressed in such a way as to make the Assyriological sources and theories accessible to Classicists and vice versa, facilitated by detailed footnotes and an extensive bibliography. Ballesteros thus bridges many methodological gaps between Classics and Assyriology resulting from different scholarly traditions and the different nature of the sources, to produce a contribution to comparative studies the value of which cannot be overstated.