The characters of the three personages who formed the supreme triad can be readily deduced from the nature of the elements which they represent. Anu is the heaven itself—“ana”—the immense vault which spreads itself above our heads, clear during the day when glorified by the sun, obscure and strewn with innumerable star clusters during the night. Afterwards it becomes the spirit which animates the firmament, or the god which rules it: he resides in the north towards the pole, and the ordinary route chosen by him when inspecting his domain is that marked out by our ecliptic. He occupies the high regions of the universe, sheltered from winds and tempests, in an atmosphere always serene, and a light always brilliant. The terrestrial gods and those of middle-space take refuge in this “heaven of Anu,” when they are threatened by any great danger, but they dare not penetrate its depths, and stop, shortly after passing its boundary, on the ledge which supports the vault, where they loll and howl like dogs. It is but rarely that it may be entered, and then only by the highly privileged—kings whose destiny marked them out for admittance, and heroes who have fallen valiantly on the field of battle. In his remote position on unapproachable summits Anu seems to participate in the calm and immobility of his dwelling. If he is quick in forming an opinion and coming to a conclusion, he himself never puts into execution the plans which he has matured or the judgments which he has pronounced: he relieves himself of the trouble of acting, by assigning the duty to Bel-Merodach, Ea, or Eamman, and he often employs inferior genii to execute his will. “They are seven, the messengers of Anu their king; it is they who from town to town raise the stormy wind; they are the south wind which drives mightily in the heavens; they are the destroying clouds which overturn the heavens; they are the rapid tempests which bring darkness in the midst of clear day, they roam here and there with the wicked wind and the ill-omened hurricane.” Anu sends forth all the gods as he pleases, recalls them again, and then, to make them his pliant instruments, enfeebles their personality, reducing it to nothing by absorbing it into his own. He blends himself with them, and their designations seem to be nothing more than doublets of his own: he is Anu the Lakhmu who appeared on the first days of creation; Ahu Urâsh or Ninib is the sun-warrior of Nipur; and Anu is also the eagle Alala whom Ishtar enfeebled by her caresses. Anu regarded in this light ceases to be the god par excellence: he becomes the only chief god, and the idea of authority is so closely attached to his name that the latter alone is sufficient in common speech to render the idea of God. Bel would have been entirely thrown into the shade by him, as the earth-gods generally are by the sky-gods, if it had not been that he was confounded with his namesake Bel-Merodach of Babylon: to this alliance he owed to the end the safety of his life, in presence of Anu. Ea was the most active and energetic member of the triad.* As he represented the bottomless abyss, the dark waters which had filled the universe until the day of the creation, there had been attributed to him a complete knowledge of the past, present, and future, whose germs had lain within him, as in a womb. The attribute of supreme wisdom was revered in Ea, the lord of spells and charms, to which gods and men were alike subject: no strength could prevail against his strength, no voice against his voice: when once he opened his mouth to give a decision, his will became law, and no one might gainsay it. If a peril should arise against which the other gods found themselves impotent, they resorted to him immediately for help, which was never refused. He had saved Shamashnapishtirn from the Deluge; every day he freed his votaries from sickness and the thousand demons which were the causes of it. He was a potter, and had modelled men out of the clay of the plains. From him smiths and workers in gold obtained the art of rendering malleable and of fashioning the metals. Weavers and stone-cutters, gardeners, husbandmen, and sailors hailed him as their teacher and patron. From his incomparable knowledge the scribes derived theirs, and physicians and wizards invoked spirits in his name alone by the virtue of prayers which he had condescended to teach them.

Subordinate to these limitless and vague beings, the theologians placed their second triad, made up of gods of restricted power and invariable form. They recognized in the unswerving regularity with which the moon waxed and waned, or with which the sun rose and set every day, a proof of their subjection to the control of a superior will, and they signalized this dependence by making them sons of one or other of the three great gods. Sin was the offspring of Bel, Shamash of Sin, Kamman of Anu. Sin was indebted for this primacy among the subordinate divinities to the preponderating influence which Uru exercised over Southern Chaldæa. Mar, where Ramman was the chief deity, never emerged from its obscurity, and Larsam acquired supremacy only many centuries after its neighbour, and did not succeed in maintaining it for any length of time. The god of the suzerain city necessarily took precedence of those of the vassal towns, and when once his superiority was admitted by the people, he was able to maintain his place in spite of all political revolutions. Sin was called in Uru, “Uruki,” or “Nannar the glorious,” and his priests sometimes succeeded in identifying him with Anu. “Lord, prince of the gods, who alone in heaven and earth is exalted,—father Nannar, lord of the hosts of heaven, prince of the gods,—father Nannar, lord, great Anu, prince of the gods,—father Nannar, lord, moon-god, prince of the gods,—father Nannar, lord of Uni, prince of the gods....—Lord, thy deity fills the far-off heavens, like the vast sea, with reverential fear! Master of the earth, thou who fixest there the boundaries [of the towns] and assignest to them their names,—father, begetter of gods and men, who establishest for them dwellings and institutest for them that which is good, who proclaimest royalty and bestowest the exalted sceptre on those whose destiny was determined from distant times,—chief, mighty, whose heart is great, god whom no one can name, whose limbs are steadfast, whose knees never bend, who preparest the paths of thy brothers the gods....—In heaven, who is supreme? As for thee, it is thou alone who art supreme! As for thee, thy decree is made known in heaven, and the Igigi bow their faces!—As for thee, thy decree is made known upon earth, and the spirits of the abyss kiss the dust!—As for thee, thy decree blows above like the wind, and stall and pasture become fertile!—As for thee, thy decree is accomplished upon earth below, and the grass and green things grow!—As for thee, thy degree is seen in the cattle-folds and in the lairs of the wild beasts, and it multiplies living things!—As for thee, thy decree has called into being equity and justice, and the peoples have promulgated thy law!—As for thee, thy decree, neither in the far-off heaven, nor in the hidden depths of the earth, can any one recognize it!—As for thee, thy decree, who can learn it, who can try conclusions with it?—O Lord, mighty in heaven, sovereign upon earth, among the gods thy brothers, thou hast no rival.” Outside Uru and Harran, Sin did not obtain this rank of creator and ruler of things; he was simply the moon-god, and was represented in human form, usually accompanied by a thin crescent, upon which he sometimes stands upright, sometimes appears with the bust only rising out of it, in royal costume and pose.

His mitre is so closely associated with him that it takes his place on the astrological tablets; the name he bears—“agu”—often indicates the moon regarded simply as a celestial body and without connotation of deity. Babbar-Shamash, “the light of the gods, his fathers,” “the illustrious scion of Sin,” passed the night in the depths of the north, behind the polished metal walls which shut in the part of the firmament visible to human eyes.

As soon as the dawn had opened the gates for him, he rose in the east all aflame, his club in his hand, and he set forth on his headlong course over the chain of mountains which surrounds the world;* six hours later he had attained the limit of his journey towards the south, he then continued his journey to the west, gradually lessening his heat, and at length re-entered his accustomed resting-place by the western gate, there to remain until the succeeding morning. He accomplished his journey round the earth in a chariot conducted by two charioteers, and drawn by two vigorous onagers, “whose legs never grew weary;” the flaming disk which was seen from earth was one of the wheels of his chariot.**

As soon as he appeared he was hailed with the chanting of hymns: “O Sun, thou appearest on the foundation of the heavens,—thou drawest back the bolts which bar the scintillating heavens, thou openest the gate of the heavens! O Sun, thou raisest thy head above the earth,—Sun, thou extendest over the earth the brilliant vaults of the heavens.” The powers of darkness fly at his approach or take refuge in their mysterious caverns, for “he destroys the wicked, he scatters them, the omens and gloomy portents, dreams, and wicked ghouls—he converts evil to good, and he drives to their destruction the countries and men—who devote themselves to black magic.” In addition to natural light, he sheds upon the earth truth and justice abundantly; he is the “high judge” before whom everything makes obeisance, his laws never waver, his decrees are never set at naught. “O Sun, when thou goest to rest in the middle of the heavens—may the bars of the bright heaven salute thee in peace, and may the gate of heaven bless thee!—May Misharu, thy well-beloved servant, guide aright thy progress, so that on Rbarra, the seat of thy rule, thy greatness may rise, and that A, thy cherished spouse, may receive thee joyfully! May thy glad heart find in her thy rest!—May the food of thy divinity be brought to thee by her,—warrior, hero, sun, and may she increase thy vigour;—lord of Ebarra, when thou ap-proachest, mayest thou direct thy course aright!—-0 Sun, urge rightly thy way along the fixed road determined for thee,—O Sun, thou who art the judge of the land, and the arbiter of its laws!”

It would appear that the triad had begun by having in the third place a goddess, Ishtar of Dilbat. Ishtar is the evening star which precedes the appearance of the moon, and the morning star which heralds the approach of the sun: the brilliance of its light justifies the choice which made it an associate of the greater heavenly bodies. “In the days of the past.... Ea charged Sin, Shamash, and Ishtar with the ruling of the firmament of heaven; he distributed among them, with Anu, the command of the army of heaven, and among these three gods, his children, he apportioned the day and the night, and compelled them to work ceaselessly.”

Ishtar was separated from her two companions, when the group of the planets was definitely organized and claimed the adoration of the devout; the theologians then put in her place an individual of a less original aspect, Ramman. Ramman embraced within him the elements of many very ancient genii, all of whom had been set over the atmosphere, and the phenomena which are daily displayed in it—wind, rain, and thunder. These genii occupied an important place in the popular religion which had been cleverly formulated by the theologians of Uruk, and there have come down to us many legends in which their incarnations play a part. They are usually represented as enormous birds flocking on their swift wings from below the horizon, and breathing flame or torrents of water upon the countries over which they hovered. The most terrible of them was Zu, who presided over tempests: he gathered the clouds together, causing them to burst in torrents of rain or hail; he let loose the winds and lightnings, and nothing remained standing where he had passed. He had a numerous family: among them cross-breeds of extraordinary species which would puzzle a modern naturalist, but were matters of course to the ancient priests. His mother Siris, lady of the rain and clouds, was a bird like himself; but Zu had as son a vigorous bull, which, pasturing in the meadows, scattered abundance and fertility around him. The caprices of these strange beings, their malice, and their crafty attacks, often brought upon them vexatious misfortunes. Shutu, the south wind, one day beheld Adapa, one of the numerous offspring of Ea, fishing in order to provide food for his family. In spite of his exalted origin, Adapa was no god; he did not possess the gift of immortality, and he was not at liberty to appear in the presence of Anu in heaven. He enjoyed, nevertheless, certain privileges, thanks to his familiar intercourse with his father Ea, and owing to his birth he was strong enough to repel the assaults of more than one deity. When, therefore, Shutu, falling upon him unexpectedly, had overthrown him, his anger knew no bounds: “‘Shutu, thou hast overwhelmed me with thy hatred, great as it is,—I will break thy wings! ‘Having thus spoken with his mouth unto Shutu, Adapa broke his wings. For seven days,—Shutu breathed no longer upon the earth.” Anu, being disturbed at this quiet, which seemed to him not very consonant with the meddling temperament of the wind, made inquiries as to its cause through his messenger Ilabrât. “His messenger Ilabrât answered him: ‘My master,—Adapa, the son of Ea, has broken Shutu’s wings.’—Anu, when he heard these words, cried out: ‘Help!’” and he sent to Ea Barku, the genius of the lightning, with an order to bring the guilty one before him. Adapa was not quite at his ease, although he had right on his side; but Ea, the cleverest of the immortals, prescribed a line of conduct for him. He was to put on at once a garment of mourning, and to show himself along with the messenger at the gates of heaven. Having arrived there, he would not fail to meet the two divinities who guarded them,—Dumuzi and Gishzida: “‘In whose honour this garb, in whose honour, Adapa, this garment of mourning?’ ‘On our earth two gods have disappeared—it is on this account I am as I am.’ Dumuzi and Gishzida will look at each other,* they will begin to lament, they will say a friendly word—to the god Anu for thee, they will render clear the countenance of Anu,—in thy favour. When thou shalt appear before the face of Anu, the food of death, it shall be offered to thee, do not eat it. The drink of death, it shall be offered to thee, drink it not. A garment, it shall be offered to the, put it on. Oil, it shall be offered to thee, anoint thyself with it. The command I have given thee observe it well.’”

Everything takes place as Ea had foreseen. Dumuzi and Gishzida welcome the poor wretch, speak in his favour, and present him: “as he approached, Anu perceived him, and said to him: ‘Come, Adapa, why didst thou break the wings of Shutu?’ Adapa answered Anu: ‘My lord,—for the household of my lord Ea, in the middle of the sea,—-I was fishing, and the sea was all smooth.—Shutu breathed, he, he overthrew me, and I plunged into the abode of fish. Hence the anger of my heart,—that he might not begin again his acts of ill will,—I broke his wings.’” Whilst he pleaded his cause the furious heart of Anu became calm. The presence of a mortal in the halls of heaven was a kind of sacrilege, to be severely punished unless the god should determine its expiation by giving the philtre of immortality to the intruder. Anu decided on the latter course, and addressed Adapa: “‘Why, then, did Ea allow an unclean mortal to see—the interior of heaven and earth?’ He handed him a cup, he himself reassured him.—‘We, what shall we give him? The food of life—take some to him that he may eat.’ The food of life, some was taken to him, but he did not eat of it. The water of life, some was taken to him, but he drank not of it. A garment, it was taken to him, and he put it on. Oil, some was taken to him, and he anointed himself with it.” Anu looked upon him; he lamented over him: “‘Well, Adapa, why hast thou not eaten—why hast thou not drunk? Thou shalt not now have eternal life.’ Ea, my lord, has commanded me: thou shalt not eat, thou shalt not drink.” Adapa thus lost, by remembering too well the commands of his father, the opportunity which was offered to him of rising to the rank of the immortals; Anu sent him back to his home just as he had come, and Shutu had to put up with his broken wings.

Bamman absorbed one after the other all these genii of tempest and contention, and out of their combined characters his own personality of a hundred diverse aspects was built up.

He was endowed with the capricious and changing disposition of the element incarnate in him, and passed from tears to laughter, from anger to calm, with a promptitude which made him one of the most disconcerting deities. The tempest was his favourite rôle. Sometimes he would burst suddenly on the heavens at the head of a troop of savage subordinates, whose chiefs were known as Matu, the squall, and Barku, the lightning; sometimes these were only the various manifestations of his own nature, and it was he himself who was called Matu and Barku. He collected the clouds, sent forth the thunder-bolt, shook the mountains, and “before his rage and violence, his bellowings, his thunder, the gods of heaven arose to the firmament—the gods of the earth sank into the earth” in their terror. The monuments represent him as armed for battle with club, axe, or the two-bladed flaming sword which was usually employed to signify the thunderbolt. As he destroyed everything in his blind rage, the kings of Chaldæa were accustomed to invoke him against their enemies, and to implore him to “hurl the hurricane upon the rebel peoples and the insubordinate nations.” When his wrath was appeased, and he had returned to more gentle ways, his kindness knew no limits. From having been the waterspout which overthrew the forests, he became the gentle breeze which caresses and refreshes them: with his warm showers he fertilizes the fields: he lightens the air and tempers the summer heat.

He causes the rivers to swell and overflow their banks; he pours out the waters over the fields, he makes channels for them, he directs them to every place where the need of water is felt.

But his fiery temperament is stirred up by the slightest provocation, and then “his flaming sword scatters pestilence over the land: he destroys the harvest, brings the ingathering to nothing, tears up trees, and beats down and roots up the corn.”

In a word, the second triad formed a more homogeneous whole when Ishtar still belonged to it, and it is entirely owing to the presence of this goddess in it that we are able to understand its plan and purpose; it was essentially astrological, and it was intended that none should be enrolled in it but the manifest leaders of the constellations. Ramman, on the contrary, had nothing to commend him for a position alongside the moon and sun; he was not a celestial body, he had no definitely shaped form, but resembled an aggregation of gods rather than a single deity. By the addition of Ramman to the triad, the void occasioned by the removal of Ishtar was filled up in a blundering way. We must, however, admit that the theologians must have found it difficult to find any one better fitted for the purpose: when Venus was once set along with the rest of the planets, there was nothing left in the heavens which was sufficiently brilliant to replace her worthily. The priests were compelled to take the most powerful deity they knew after the other five—the lord of the atmosphere and the thunder.*

The gods of the triads were married, but their goddesses for the most part had neither the liberty nor the important functions of the Egyptian goddesses.** They were content, in their modesty, to be eclipsed behind the personages of their husbands, and to spend their lives in the shade, as the women of Asiatic countries still do. It would appear, moreover, that there was no trouble taken about them until it was too late—when it was desired, for instance, to explain the affiliation of the immortals. Anu and Bel were bachelors to start with. When it was determined to assign to them female companions, recourse was had to the procedure adopted by the Egyptians in a similar case: there was added to their names the distinctive suffix of the feminine gender, and in this manner two grammatical goddesses were formed, Anat and Belit, whose dispositions give some indications of this accidental birth. There was always a vague uncertainty about the parts they had to play, and their existence itself was hardly more than a seeming one. Anat sometimes represented a feminine heaven, and differed from Anu only in her sex. At times she was regarded as the antithesis of Anu, i.e. as the earth in contradistinction to the heaven. Belit, as far as we can distinguish her from other persons to whom the title “lady” was attributed, shared with Bel the rule over the earth and the regions of darkness where the dead were confined. The wife of Ea was distinguished by a name which was not derived from that of her husband, but she was not animated by a more intense vitality than Anat or Belit: she was called Damkina, the lady of the soil, and she personified in an almost passive manner the earth united to the water which fertilized it. The goddesses of the second triad were perhaps rather less artificial in their functions. Ningal, doubtless, who ruled along with Sin at Uru, was little more than an incarnate epithet. Her name means “the great lady,” “the queen,” and her person is the double of that of her husband; as he is the man-moon, she is the woman-moon, his beloved, and the mother of his children Shamash and Ishtar. But A or Sirrida enjoyed an indisputable authority alongside Shamash: she never lost sight of the fact that she had been a sun like Shamash, a disk-god before she was transformed into a goddess. Shamash, moreover, was surrounded by an actual harem, of which Sirridà was the acknowledged queen, as he himself was its king, and among its members Gula, the great, and Anunit, the daughter of Sin, the morning star, found a place. Shala, the compassionate, was also included among them; she was subsequently bestowed upon Ramman. They were all goddesses of ancient lineage, and each had been previously worshipped on her own account when the Sumerian people held sway in Chaldæa: as soon as the Semites gained the upper hand, the powers of these female deities became enfeebled, and they were distributed among the gods. There was but one of them, Nana, the doublet of Ishtar, who had succeeded in preserving her liberty: when her companions had been reduced to comparative insignificance, she was still acknowledged as queen and mistress in her city of Eridu. The others, notwithstanding the enervating influence to which they were usually subject in the harem, experienced at times inclinations to break into rebellion, and more than one of them, shaking off the yoke of her lord, had proclaimed her independence: Anunit, for instance, tearing herself away from the arms of Shamash, had vindicated, as his sister and his equal, her claim to the half of his dominion. Sippara was a double city, or rather there were two neighbouring Sipparàs, one distinguished as the city of the Sun, “Sippara sha Shamash,” while the other gave lustre to Anunit in assuming the designation of “Sippara sha Anunitum.” Rightly interpreted, these family arrangements of the gods had but one reason for their existence—the necessity of explaining without coarseness those parental connections which the theological classification found it needful to establish between the deities constituting the two triads. In Chaldæa as in Egypt there was no inclination to represent the divine families as propagating their species otherwise than by the procedure observed in human families: the union of the goddesses with the gods thus legitimated their offspring.

The triads were, therefore, nothing more than theological fictions. Each of them was really composed of six members, and it was thus really a council of twelve divinities which the priests of Uruk had instituted to attend to the affairs of the universe; with this qualification, that the feminine half of the assembly rarely asserted itself, and contributed but an insignificant part to the common work. When once the great divisions had been arranged, and the principal functionaries designated, it was still necessary to work out the details, and to select v agents to preserve an order among them. Nothing happens by chance in this world, and the most insignificant events are determined by previsional arrangements, and decisions arrived at a long time previously. The gods assembled every morning in a hall, situated near the gates of the sun in the east, and there deliberated on the events of the day. The sagacious Ea submitted to them the fates which are about to be fulfilled, and caused a record of them to be made in the chamber of destiny on tablets which Shamash or Merodach carried with them to scatter everywhere on his way; but he who should be lucky enough to snatch these tablets from him would make himself master of the world for that day. This misfortune had arisen only once, at the beginning of the ages. Zu, the storm-bird, who lives with his wife and children on Mount Sabu under the protection of Bel, and who from this elevation pounces down upon the country to ravage it, once took it into his head to make himself equal to the supreme gods. He forced his way at an early hour into the chamber of destiny before the sun had risen: he perceived within it the royal insignia of Bel, “the mitre of his power, the garment of his divinity,—the fatal tablets of his divinity, Zu perceived them. He perceived the father of the gods, the god who is the tie between heaven and earth,—and the desire of ruling took possession of his heart;—yea, Zu perceived the father of the gods, the god who is the tie between heaven and earth,—and the desire of ruling took possession of his heart,—‘I will take the fatal tablets of the gods, I myself,—and the oracles of all the gods, it is I who will give them forth;—I will install myself on the throne, I will send forth decrees,—I will manage the whole of the Igigi.’—And his heart plotted warfare;—lying in wait on the threshold of the hall, he watched for the dawn.—When Bel had poured out the shining waters,—had installed himself on the throne, and donned the crown, Zu took away the fatal tablets from his hand,—he seized power, and the authority to give forth decrees,—the god Zu, he flew away and concealed himself in the mountains.” Bel immediately cried out, he was inflamed with anger, and ravaged the world with the fire of his wrath. “Anu opened his mouth, he spake,—he said to the gods his offspring:—‘Who will conquer the god Zu?—He will make his name great in every land.’—Bamman, the supreme, the son of Anu, was called, and Anu himself gave to him his orders;—yea, Bamman, the supreme, the son of Anu, was called, and Anu himself gave to him his orders.—‘Go, my son Kamman, the valiant, since nothing resists thy attack;—conquer Zu by thine arm, and thy name shall be great among the great gods,—among the gods, thy brothers, thou shalt have no equal: sanctuaries shall be built to thee, and if thou buildest for thyself thy cities in the “four houses of the world,” * —thy cities shall extend over all the terrestrial mountain! ‘Be valiant, then, in the sight of the gods, and may thy name be strong.’ Bamman answers, he addresses this bpeech to Anu his father:—‘Father, who will go to the inaccessible mountains? Who is the equal of Zu among the gods, thy offspring? He has carried off in his hand the fatal tablets,—he has seized power and authority to give forth decrees,—Zu thereupon flew away and hid himself in his mountain.—Now, the word of his mouth is like that of the god who unites heaven and earth;—-my power is no more than clay,—and all the gods must bow before him.’” Anu sent for the god Bara, the son of Ishtar, to help him, and exhorted him in the same language he had addressed to Ramman: Bara refused to attempt the enterprise. Shamash, called in his turn, at length consented to set out for Mount Sabu: he triumphed over the storm-bird, tore the fatal tablets from him, and brought him before Ea as a prisoner.

The sun of the complete day, the sun in the full possession of his strength, could alone win back the attributes of power which the morning sun had allowed himself to be despoiled of. From that time forth the privilege of delivering immortal decrees to mortals was never taken out of the hands of the gods of light.

Destinies once fixed on the earth became a law—“mamit”—a good or bad fate, from which no one could escape, but of which any one might learn the disposition beforehand if he were capable of interpreting the formulas of it inscribed on the book of the sky. The stars, even those which were most distant from the earth, were not unconcerned in the events which took place upon it. They were so many living beings endowed with various characteristics, and their rays as they passed across the celestial spaces exercised from above an active control on everything they touched. Their influences became modified, increased or weakened according to the intensity with which they shed them, according to the respective places they occupied in the firmament, and according to the hour of the night and the month of the year in which they rose or set. Each division of time, each portion of space, each category of existences—and in each category each individual—was placed under their rule and was subject to their implacable tyranny. The infant was born their slave, and continued in this condition of slavery until his life’s end: the star which was in the ascendent at the instant of his birth became his star, and ruled his destiny. The Chaldæans, like the Egyptians, fancied they discerned in the points of light which illuminate the nightly sky, the outline of a great number of various figures—men, animals, monsters, real and imaginary objects, a lance, a bow, a fish, a scorpion, ears of wheat, a bull, and a lion. The majority of these were spread out above their heads on the surface of the celestial vault; but twelve of these figures, distinguishable by their brilliancy, were arranged along the celestial horizon in the pathway of the sun, and watched over his daily course along the walls of the world. These divided this part of the sky into as many domains or “houses,” in which they exercised absolute authority, and across which the god could not go without having previously obtained their consent, or having brought them into subjection beforehand. This arrangement is a reminiscence of the wars by which Bel-Merodach, the divine bull, the god of Babylon, had succeeded in bringing order out of chaos: he had not only killed Tiâmat, but he had overthrown and subjugated the monsters which led the armies of darkness. He meets afresh, every year and every day, on the confines of heaven and earth, the scorpion-men of his ancient enemy, the fish with heads of men or goats, and many more. The twelve constellations were combined into a zodiac, whose twelve signs, transmitted to the Greeks and modified by them, may still be read on our astronomical charts. The constellations, immovable, or actuated by a slow motion, in longitude only, contain the problems of the future, but they are not sufficient of themselves alone to furnish man with the solution of these problems. The heavenly bodies capable of explaining them, the real interpreters of destiny, were at first the two divinities who rule the empires of night and day—the moon and the sun; afterwards there took part in this work of explanation the five planets which we call Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Mars, and Mercury, or rather the five gods who actuate them, and who have controlled their course from the moment of creation—Merodach, Ishtar, Ninib, Nergal, and Nebo. The planets seemed to traverse the heavens in every direction, to cross their own and each other’s paths, and to approach the fixed stars or recede from them; and the species of rhythmical dance in which they are carried unceasingly across the celestial spaces revealed to men, if they examined it attentively, the irresistible march of their own destinies, as surely as if they had made themselves master of the fatal tablets of Shamash, and could spell them out line by line.

The Chaldæns were disposed to regard the planets as perverse sheep who had escaped from the fold of the stars to wander wilfully in search of pasture.* At first they were considered to be so many sovereign deities, without other function than that of running through the heavens and furnishing there predictions of the future; afterwards two of them descended to the earth, and received upon it the homage of men* —Ishtar from the inhabitants of the city of Dilbat, and Nebo* from those of Borsippa. Nebo assumed the rôle of a soothsayer and a prophet. He knew and foresaw everything, and was ready to give his advice upon any subject: he was the inventor of the method of making clay tablets, and of writing upon them. Ishtar was a combination of contradictory characteristics.****

In Southern Chaldæa she was worshipped under the name of Nanâ, the supreme mistress.* The identity of this lady of the gods, “Bêlit-ilânit,” the Evening Star, with Anunit, the Morning Star, was at first ignored, and hence two distinct goddesses were formed from the twofold manifestation of a single deity: having at length discovered their error, the Chaldæans merged these two beings in one, and their names became merely two different designations for the same star under a twofold aspect. The double character, however, which had been attributed to them continued to be attached to the single personality.