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1 results

  • Chapter 1 - The Myth of the Servant

  • Christopher Metcalf, University of Oxford
  • Book:
    Three Myths of Kingship in Early Greece and the Ancient Near East
    Published online:
    19 December 2024
    Print publication:
    02 January 2025, pp 13-75

  • Summary

    This chapter identifies a well-attested but so far unrecognised story-pattern that was used to explain how an individual of non-royal lineage rose to power from obscure origins: the Myth of the Servant. The myth is first documented in connection with the early Mesopotamian king Sargon of Akkad, the founder of the Old Akkadian dynasty in the third millennium BC. In later periods the story-pattern was applied to other rulers who seemingly emerged from nowhere and created influential new royal dynasties: these include king David of Israel and Judah (according to the Hebrew Bible), and Gyges of Lydia, Cyrus of Persia and Semiramis of Assyria (according to Greek historians). In some parts of the ancient Near East the Myth of the Servant was also used to explain the early history of divine kingship among the gods.