Ancient Flood stories: Comparing Gilgamesh vs Baucis and Philemon

Throughout the world, one story has been ubiquitous throughout the ages - the story of a great flood that wiped out humanity and destroyed villages in it's wake. To some, it is the story of "Noah" in the bible. The story has many variations - over 600, so you would assume that when my English teacher asked us to choose one of these many variations and compare it to the most ancient story (The Legend of Gilgamesh,) that I would be overwhelmed by the amount of stories to choose from, but being a lover of Greek and roman history, I instantly gravitated to the Roman version of the infamous story, "Baucus and Philemon.". 

        The Greek and Roman pantheons are virtually the same - the Romans, after coming into contact with the Greeks syncretized with their religion, changing their gods to imitate the Greek pantheon until their gods became their counterparts. The names of these gods have  been changed - Zeus became Jupiter, Poseidon became Neptune Hades became Pluto and so on. In this story I will be using the Greek versions, as they are their original names.

              In the story, the god Zeus, and the titan Prometheus, were at war. Prometheus, who was the creator of mankind had evoked Zeus’s wrath when the thunder god saw that human beings were leading sinful lives, and so sent a great flood to wipe humanity out. Prometheus, knowing of Zeus’s plans warned his son, Deucalion of Zeus’s intent and ordered him to construct an arc. He took shelter within it with his wife Pyrrha. Heavy rain flooded the world for nine days and nine nights, and when Deucalion and his wife emerged, they saw the world covered with water, and knew that everyone had drowned. Feeling desolate and lonely without human company, they prayed to the titan Themis for a way to restore the human race. Taking pity, Themis ordered them to cast the bones of their mothers behind them. Interpreting this, they threw stones over their heads and the stones thrown by Deucalion became men and the stones thrown by Pyrrha became women.
               Seeing how this myth originally stemmed from the story of Utnapishtim in the legend of Gilgamesh, there are many similarities between the two stories. Both have previous knowledge of the flood, and both build boats to survive. However, there are far more differences than similarities. The cause of the flood, in the legend of Gilgamesh is because the Gods complained humans were growing far too noisy, instead of sin like in the Greek version. During the flood, In the epic of Gilgamesh it rains for 6 days and 6 nights while it rains for 9 in the Greek version. Both have different symbolism as well – in Utnapishtim he releases a raven, while in the Greek tale they throw "stones over their heads, meant to represent "the bones of their mothers." Utnapishtim is also granted immortality while Deucalion and Pyyrha are not.