Net of the god (1)

Text
The chorus in Aeschylus’ play Agamemnon, after hearing Clytaemestra’s claim that the city of Priam has fallen, invokes Zeus and Night, who has thrown over the battlements of Troy such a net that neither large nor small can escape the meshes of a catch-all doom (357-361). The image that a god catches wrongdoers in his net had been a commonplace in the Near East since the third millennium. In the treaty between Eannatum of Lagaš and the men of Umma (24th century) it is laid down that ‘if they violate these provisions, the Great Net will destroy them’. The accompanying stele relief shows the god Ningirsu with all his enemies confined in a net which he has drawn up and holds suspended. A court official at Mari in the Old Babylonian period reports in a letter that a prophet of the god Dagan has uttered a prophecy beginning ‘O Babylon, why do you keep acting (thus)? I will gather you in the Net!’ (ARM 13 23.8-10). In the Etana Epic, when the treacherous eagle reveals its intention of eating the snake’s young, one of its sons warns it not to: ‘Do not eat (them), father! The net of Šamaš will catch [you]!’ (2.46f.) The divine net cast over Troy must be seen against this traditional background.

Sources (list of abbreviations)
Aeschylus, Agamemnon 357-361
ARM 13 23.8-10
Etana Epic 2.46-47

Bibliography

Amar Annus

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