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The Heritage of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East

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Ninus Romance (1)

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Topics (move over topic to see place in topic list) Garden 02 Religious and ideological symbols and iconographic motifs 02.04 Botanical symbols, imagery and iconographic motifs 02.04.01 Garden Royal inscriptions 05 Scientific knowledge and scholarly lore 05.11 Historiography 05.11.01 Royal inscriptions	Keywords novels
Period 1st century BCE	Channel No channel specified

Text
The Greek novel, which arose mainly in Hellenized cities in Anatolia, may owe a genuine debt to Assyria. The legendary figures of Ninus and Semiramis are the main characters of the Ninus Romance, the oldest Greek novel extant, now dated around the first century BCE. The startlingly new theme of romantic royal love seems to have evolved out of a royal inscription, in which the king Sennacherib records for posterity his love for his wife Tašmetum-šarrat.

Bibliography

Dalley and Reyes 1998, 118

Dalley, S. and A. T. Reyes. “Mesopotamian Contact and Influence in the Greek World.” In: S. Dalley (ed.). The Legacy of Mesopotamia. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1998, 85-124.

Stephanie Dalley

URL for this entry: http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/database/gen_html/a0000667.php

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