The Silver race (1)

Text
Lagaš King List 1.14-19:
In those days a child spent a hundred years in nappies (?), spent a hundred years in his rearing. He was not made to perform (any) assigned tasks. He was small, he was feeble (or: stupid); he was [with] his mother.

Hesiod, Works and Days 126-139: They who dwell on Olympus made a second generation which was of silver and less noble by far. It was like the golden race neither in body nor in spirit. A child was brought up at his good mother’s side a hundred years, an utter simpleton, playing childishly in his own home. But when they were full grown and were come to the full measure of their prime, they lived only a little time and that in sorrow because of their foolishness, for they could not keep from sinning and from wronging one another, nor would they serve the immortals, nor sacrifice on the holy altars of the blessed ones as it is right for men to do wherever they dwell. Then Zeus the son of Kronos was angry and put them away, because they would not give honor to the blessed gods who live on Olympus.

Sources (list of abbreviations) (source links will open in a new browser window)
Hesiod, Works and Days 126-139
Lagaš King List 1.14-19

Bibliography

Amar Annus

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