ideal king in Mesopotamian tradition by idealizing the deeds of Sargon. It is the heroic actions of Sargon, not his genealogy, that account for his rise to power. The tale is, to use a phrase from B. S. Childs, a “rags-to-riches” story.14 The continued prominence of the tale from its likely eighth-century B.C.E. composition is evident in its central role in Herodotus’s account of the birth and rescue of Cyrus, the Persian king.15 The parallels between the Legend of Sargon and Moses’ birth story include