Gilgamesh and tyranny

Danielle Allen in the Washington Post:

The world’s oldest surviving text is about how to deal with a problem like Donald Trump. In the “Epic Gilgamesh,” which dates to 2100 B.C., the people of the city of Uruk in Mesopotamia lift their voices to the gods in complaint about their king, Gilgamesh. In David Ferry’s marvelous translation, the people of Uruk lament: “Neither the father’s son nor the wife of the noble is safe in Uruk; neither the mother’s daughter nor the warrior’s bride is safe.”

The people first try to protect themselves by seeking a double for Gilgamesh, someone who is in some important sense like him, who can contend with him and who can keep him in check. . . . In the epic, the double’s name is Enkidu, and it is Enkidu who finally blocks Gilgamesh from entering a bridal chamber ahead of the bridegroom. . . . In the epic “Gilgamesh,” the tyrant becomes a good king only when he comes to recognize that in his own mortality he is no greater than the lowliest peasant. Reflecting on death, he says, “And then I saw a worm fall out of his nose. Must I die too?” Assimilating this lesson, Gilgamesh is at last able to rein in his passions, develop virtues and become a beneficent king.