Gilgamesh, the Babylonian Hercules, who links with Etana, Nimrod, and Sandan, is associated with the eagle, which in India, as has been shown, was identified with the gods of fertility, fire, and death.  According to a legend related by Aelian,[204] “the guards of the citadel of Babylon threw down to the ground a child who had been conceived and brought forth in secret, and who afterwards became known as Gilgamos”.  This appears to be another version of the Sargon-Tammuz myth, and may also refer to the sacrifice of children to Melkarth and Moloch, who were burned or slain “in the valleys under the clefts of the rocks"[205] to ensure fertility and feed the corn god.  Gilgamesh, however, did not perish.  “A keen-eyed eagle saw the child falling, and before it touched the ground the bird flew under it and received it on its back, and carried it away to a garden and laid it down gently.”  Here we have, it would appear, Tammuz among the flowers, and Sargon, the gardener, in the “Garden of Adonis”.  Mimic Adonis gardens were cultivated by women.  Corn, &c., was forced in pots and baskets, and thrown, with an image of the god, into streams.  “Ignorant people”, writes Professor Frazer, “suppose that by mimicking the effect which they desire to produce they actually help to produce it:  thus by sprinkling water they make rain, by lighting a fire they make sunshine, and so on."[206] Evidently Gilgamesh was a heroic form of the god Tammuz, the slayer of the demons of winter and storm, who passed one part of the year in the world and another in Hades (Chapter VI).

Like Hercules, Gilgamesh figured chiefly in legendary narrative as a mighty hero.  He was apparently of great antiquity, so that it is impossible to identify him with any forerunner of Sargon of Akkad, or Alexander the Great.  His exploits were depicted on cylinder seals of the Sumerian period, and he is shown wrestling with a lion as Hercules wrestled with the monstrous lion in the valley of Nemea.  The story of his adventures was narrated on twelve clay tablets, which were preserved in the library of Ashur-banipal, the Assyrian emperor.  In the first tablet, which is badly mutilated, Gilgamesh is referred to as the man who beheld the world, and had great wisdom because he peered into the mysteries.  He travelled to distant places, and was informed regarding the flood and the primitive race which the gods destroyed; he also obtained the plant of life, which his enemy, the earth-lion, in the form of a serpent or well demon, afterwards carried away.

Gilgamesh was associated with Erech, where he reigned as “the lord”.  There Ishtar had a great temple, but her worldly wealth had decreased.  The fortifications of the city were crumbling, and for three years the Elamites besieged it.  The gods had turned to flies and the winged bulls had become like mice.  Men wailed like wild beasts and maidens moaned like doves.  Ultimately the people prayed to the goddess Aruru to create a liberator.  Bel, Shamash, and Ishtar also came to their aid.