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The Gods Themselves: Rhetoric and Myth in Sumer, Egypt, and Greece Before 355 BCE: Copyright Page

The Gods Themselves: Rhetoric and Myth in Sumer, Egypt, and Greece Before 355 BCE
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Notes

table of contents
  1. Cover Page
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Contents
  5. List of Illustrations
  6. Foreword
  7. Introduction
    1. The Recorded Emergence of Rhetoric in Antiquity
    2. The History of Rhetoric and Onomastic Fallacy
    3. How Myths Made Meaning
    4. The Ontology of Mythic Rhetoric
    5. The Ontological Nature of Rhetorical Myth
    6. Relational Ontology
    7. The Shape of Things to Come
  8. Chapter 1: Nisaba and the Identification of Sumerian Rhetoric
    1. The Nature of Divine Agency in Sumer
    2. Nisaba, Signs, and Divination in Mesopotamia
    3. Sumerian Metaphor and Anthropomorphism
    4. Signs, Nisaba, and Her Ontology in the Sumerian Corpus
    5. Nisaba as a Contrastive Identification of Rhetoric
  9. Chapter 2: Sumerian Narrative Myth and the Relational Nature of Rhetoric in the Aratta Epics
    1. The Contextual Background for Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta
    2. Enmerkar and En-suhgir-ana as Illustration of Inim, Rhetoric, and Relational Ontology
    3. The Rhetorical Nature of Human–Divine Communication
    4. Sign, Word, and Writing
    5. The Rhetorical Function of the Enmerkar Cycle
    6. The Analogical Function of Myth in Lugalbanda and the Anzud Bird
  10. Chapter 3: Egyptian Rhetoric, Seshat, and Rhetoric-as-Being
    1. The “Problem” of Egyptian Myth
    2. Archival Knowledge and the Primordial Rhetorical Goddess
    3. Preceptive and Generative Design
    4. Seshat as Mediating Rhetorical Agent
  11. Chapter 4: Thoth and the Relational Nature of Egyptian Rhetoric
    1. Thoth in Egypt as the Messenger and Expression of Relational Rhetoric
    2. Prayers and Hymns to Thoth and the Haremhab Scroll
    3. Thoth’s Egyptian Identity as Narrative Exemplar
    4. Magic and Thoth’s Rhetorical Role
    5. The Long Afterlife of Thoth
  12. Chapter 5: The Beginnings of Rhetorical Myth in Ancient Greece
    1. The Derveni Papyrus, Prodicus of Ceos, and Anthropogenic Theogony
    2. Isocrates, Rhetorical Myth, and the Busiris
    3. Plato’s Protagoras and Theuth
  13. Chapter 6: Plato, Atlantean Rhetoric, Mythic σχῆμα (Schema), and the Speeches of Critias
    1. Plato’s Myths and the Timaeus-Critias in Rhetorical Theory
    2. Timaeus, the Priest of Sais, and skema muthos
    3. Atlantis as a Skema for a Scriptocentric and Rhetorical Social Order
    4. Atlantis as a Relational Rhetorical Myth
  14. Conclusion
  15. Acknowledgments
  16. Notes
    1. Introduction: Rhetoric, Myth, and Rhetorical Myth
    2. Chapter 1: Nisaba and the Identification of Sumerian Rhetoric
    3. Chapter 2: Sumerian Narrative Myth and the Relational Nature of Rhetoric in the Aratta Epics
    4. Chapter 5: The Beginnings of Rhetorical Myth in Ancient Greece
    5. Chapter 6: Plato, Atlantean Rhetoric, Mythic σχῆμα (Schema), and the Speeches of Critias
    6. Conclusion: An Apologia for the Persistently Magical
  17. Bibliography
  18. Index

© 2026 University of South Carolina

The text of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

Published by the University of South Carolina Press

Columbia, South Carolina 29208

uscpress.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data can be found at http://catalog.loc.gov/.

ISBN: 978-1-64336-619-7 (hardcover)

ISBN: 978-1-64336-650-0 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-64336-656-2 (ebook)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.61162/9781643366562

The inclusion of this book in the Open Carolina collection is made possible by the generous funding of the University of South Carolina Libraries.

Cover art: Group statue of Thoth-ibis and devotee on a base inscribed for Padihorsiese, ca. 664–525 bce. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Edith Perry Chapman Fund, 1958.

Cover designer: Daniel Benneworth-Gray

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