 Section 11 of History of Egypt, Caldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume III, by Gaston Maspero, read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. CHAPTER I. ANCIENT CALDEA PART XI. THE LAST INDEPENDENT KING OF BABALON, NABONAYED, NABONIDOS, at length discovered the cylinders in which Naram-Sin, son of Sargon, had signified to posterity all that he had done towards the erection of a temple worthy of the deity to the God of Separa. For three thousand two hundred years not one of the kings had been able to find them. We have no means of judging what these edifices were like for which the Caldeans themselves showed such veneration. They have entirely disappeared, or if anything remains of them the excavations hitherto carried out have not revealed it. Many small objects, however, which have accidentally escaped destruction, give us a fair idea of the artists who lived in Babylon at this time, and of their skill in handling the graving tool and chisel. An alabaster vase with the name of Naram-Sin, and a mace-head of exquisitely veined marble dedicated by Sargoni-Shar Ali to the sun-god of Separa, are valued only on account of the beauty of the material and the rarity of the inscription. But a porphyry cylinder, which belonged to Ivna-Shar, scribe of the above name Sargoni, must be ranked among the masterpieces of Oriental engraving. It represents the hero Gilgamesh, kneeling and holding with both hands a spherically-shaped vase, from which flowed two copious jets forming a stream running through the country. An ox, armed with a pair of gigantic crescent-shaped horns, throws back its head to catch one of the jets as it falls. Everything in this little specimen is equally worthy of admiration. The purity of outline, the skillful and delicate cutting of the intaglio, the fidelity of the action, and the accuracy of form. A fragment of a ba relief of the reign of Naram-Sin shows that the sculptors were not a bit behind the engravers of gems. This consists now only of a single figure, a god, who is standing on the right, wearing a conical head-dress and clothed in a hairy garment, which leaves his right arm free. The legs are wanting, the left arm and hair are for the most part broken away, while the features have also suffered. Its distinguishing characteristic is a subtlety of workmanship which is lacking in the artistic products of a later age. The outline stands out from the background with a rare delicacy, the details of the muscles being in no sense exaggerated, were it not for the costume and pointed beard, one would fancy it a specimen of Egyptian work of the best Memphite period. Would Sargon and Naram-Sin live at so early a date, as that assigned to them by Nabonidos? The scribes who assisted the kings of the Second Babylonian Empire in their archaeological researches had perhaps insufficient reasons for placing the date of these kings so far back in the misty past. Should evidence of a serious character constrain us to attribute them to a later origin, we ought not to be surprised. In the meantime our best course is to accept the opinion of the Chaldeans, and to leave Sargon and Naram-Sin in the century assigned them by Nabonidos, although from this point they look down as from a high eminence upon all the rest of Chaldean antiquity. Excavations have brought to light several personages of a similar date, whether a little earlier or a little later. Bengali-Sharli, Manish-Turba, and especially Alu-Sharshid, who lived at Kishu and Nipur and gained victories over Elam. Under this glimpse of light on these shadowy kings, darkness once more closes in upon us, and conceals from us the majority of the sovereigns who ruled afterwards in Babylon. The facts and names which can be referred with certainty to the following centuries belong not to Babylon, but to the southern states, Lagash, Uruk, Uru, Nishin, and Larson. The national writers had neglected these principalities. We possess neither a resume of their chronicles nor a list of their dynasties, and the inscriptions which speak of their city gods and princes are still very rare. Lagash, as far as our evidence goes, was perhaps the most illustrious of all these cities. It occupied the heart of the country, and its site covered both sides of the Shad-Al-Ha'i. The Tigris separated it on the east from Anshan, the westernmost of the Elamite districts, with which it carried on a perpetual frontier war. All parts of the country were not equally fertile. The fruitful and well-cultivated district in the neighborhood of the Shad-Al-Ha'i gave place to impoverished lands, ending to the eastward, finally-and-swampy marshes, which with great difficulty furnished means of sustenance to a poor and thinly-scattered population of fisherfolk. The capital, built on the left bank of the river, stretched out to the northeast and southwest a distance of some five miles. It was not so much a city as an agglomeration of large villages, each grouped around a temple or palace, Uro'azaga, Gishgilla, Gersu, Nina, and Lagash, which latter imposed its name upon the whole. A branch of the river Shad-Al-Ha'i protected it on the south, and supplied the village of Nina with water. No trace of an enclosing wall has been found, and the temples and palaces seemed to have served as refuges in case of attack. It had, as its arms, or totem, a double-headed eagle standing on a lion passant, or on two demi-lions placed back to back. Its chief god was called Ningersu, that is, the Lord of Gersu, where his temple stood. His companion Ba'u and his associates Ninagal, Inanna, and Ninsia were the deities of the other divisions of the city. The princes were first called kings, but afterwards vice-regions, Patissi, when they came under the suzerainty of a more powerful king, the king of Uruk, or of Babylon. The earlier history of this remarkable town is made up of the scanty memoirs of its rulers, together with those of the princes of Gishpan, the land of the Ba'u, of which Inshin seems to have been the principal town. A very ancient document states that at the instigate of Inlil, the god of Nipur, the local deities, Ningersu and Kirsig, set up a boundary between the two cities. In the course of time, Meshalim, a king of Kishu, which before the rise of Agade was the chief town in those parts, extended his dominion over Lagash and erected his stele at its border. Ush, vice-regent of Gishpan, however, removed it, and had to suffer defeat before he would recognize the new order of things. After the lapse of some years, of which we possess no records, we find the mention of a certain Urukagina, who assumes the title of king. He restored or enlarged several temples, and dug the canal which supplied the town of Nina with water. A few generations later we find the ruling authority in the hands of a certain Urnina, whose father, Ninigaldun, and grandfather Gersher, received no titles, a fact which proves that they could not have been reigning sovereigns. Urnina appears to have been of a peaceful and devout disposition, as the inscriptions contained frequent references to the edifices he had erected in honour of the gods, the sacred objects he had dedicated to them, and the timber for building purposes which he had brought from Magan, but there is no mention in them of any war. His son, Urukagal, was also a builder of temples, but his grandson, Iddin Guranagin, who succeeded Urukagal, was a warlike and combative prince. It seems probable that, about that time, the kingdom of Gishpan had become a really powerful state. It had triumphed not only over Babylonia proper, but over Kish, Uru, Uruk, and Larson, while one of its sovereigns had actually established his rule in some parts of northern Syria. Iddin Guranagin vanquished the troops of Gishpan, and there is now in the Louvre a trophy which he dedicated in the temple of Nengirsu on his return from the campaign. The design and execution of these scenes are singularly rude. Men and beasts, indeed all the figures, have exaggerated proportions, uncouth forms, awkward positions, and an uncertain and heavy gate. The war ended in a treaty concluded with Enakali, vice-regent of Gishpan, by which Lagash obtained considerable advantages. Iddin Guranagin placed the stele of Mesilim overthrown by one of Enakali's predecessors and dug a ditch from the Euphrates to the provinces of Gildin to serve henceforth as a boundary. He further levied a tribute of corn for the benefit of the goddess Nina, and her consort Nengirsu, and applied the spoils of the campaign to the building of new sanctuaries for the patron gods of his city. His reign was, on the whole, a glorious and successful one. He conquered the mountain district of Elam, rescued Uruk and Uru, which had both fallen into the hands of the people of Gishpan, organized an expedition against the town of Az and killed its vice-regent, in addition to which he burnt Arsua and devastated the district of Mishimi. He next directed an attack against Zuran, king of Edban, and by vanquishing this prince on the field of battle he extended his dominion over nearly the whole of Babylonia. The prosperity of his dynasty was subjected to numerous and strange vicissitudes. Whether it was that its resources were too feeble to stand the exigencies and strain of war for any length of time, or that intestine strife had been the chief cause of its decline, we cannot say. Its kings married many wives and became surrounded with a numerous progeny, or Nina had at least four sons. They often entrusted to their children or their sons-in-law the government of the small towns, which together made up the city. These represented so many temporary fives, of which the holders were distinguished by the title of vice-regents. This dismemberment of the supreme authority in the interest of princes, who believed for the most part that they had stronger claims to the throne than its occupant, was attended with dangers to peace and to the permanence of the dynasty. The texts furnished us with evidence of the existence of at least half a dozen descendants of Ukrugal, Inanatuma I, Intimena, his grandson, Inanatuma II, all of which seemed to have been vigorous rulers who energetically maintained the supremacy over their city over the neighboring estates. Inanatuma I, however, proved no match in the end against Urlama, the vice-region of Gishban, and lost part at least of the territory acquired by Idin Guernadin. But his son, Intimena, defeated Urlama on the banks of the Lama-Sirta Canal, and having killed or deposed him, gave the vice-regency of Gishban to a certain he, priest of Ninab, who remained his loyal vassal to the end of his days. With his aid, Intimena restored the stelae and walls which had been destroyed during the war. He also cleared out the old canals and dug new ones, the most important of which was apparently an arm of the Chatelle High, and ran from the Euphrates to the Tigris, through the very center of the domains of Girsu. CHAPTER I. ANCIENT KALDIA PART XII. Other kings and vice-regents of doubtful sequence were followed lastly by Urbao and his son, Gudia. These were all piously devoted to Nin Girsu in general, and in particular to the patron of their choice from among the divinities of the country, Papsukul, Dinsirana, and Nineval. They restored and enriched the temples of these gods. They dedicated to them statues or oblation vases for the welfare of themselves and their families. It would seem, if we are to trust the accounts which they give of themselves, that their lives were passed in profound peace, without other care than that of fulfilling their duties to heaven and its ministers. Their actual condition, if we could examine it, would doubtless appear less agreeable and especially less equitable. Revolutions in the palace would not be wanting, nor struggles with the other peoples of Kaldia, with Susiana and even more distant nations. When Agade rose into power in northern Babylonia they fell under its rule, and one of them, Lughul Ushamgal, acknowledged himself a dependent of Sargon. On the decline of Agade, and when that city was superseded by Uru in the hegemony of Babylonia proper, the vice-regions of Lagash were transferred with the other great towns to the jurisdiction of Uru, and flourished under the supremacy of the new dynasty. Gudia, son of Urbao, who, if not the most powerful of its princes, is at least the sovereign of whom we possess the greatest number of monuments, captured the town of Anshan in Elam, and this is probably not the only campaign in which he took part, for he speaks of his success in an incidental manner as if he were in a hurry to pass to more interesting subjects. That which seemed to him important in his reign, and which especially called forth the recognition of posterity, was the number of his pious foundations, distinguished as they were by beauty and magnificence. The gods themselves had inspired him in his devout undertakings, and had even revealed to him the plans which he was to carry out. An old man of venerable aspect appeared to him in a vision, and commanded him to build a temple. As he did not know with whom he had to do, Nina, his mother, informed him that it was his brother, the god Ninguirsu. This having been made clear, a young woman, furnished with style and writing tablet, was presented to him. Nisaba, the sister of Nina, she made a drawing in his presence and put before him the complete model of a building. He set to work on it Kanamore, and sent for materials to the most distant countries, to Magan, Amanas, the Lebanon, and into the mountains which separate the valley of the upper Tigris from that of the Euphrates. The sanctuaries which he decorated, and of which he felt so proud, are today mere heaps of bricks, now returned to their original clay, but many of the objects which he placed in them, and especially the statues, have traversed the centuries without serious damage before finding a resting place in the Louvre. The sculptors of Lagash, after the time of Edin Goranagin, had been instructed in a good school, and had learned their business. Their bower-leaves are not so good as those of Nuramsen. The execution of them is not so refined, the drawing less delicate, and the modeling of the parts not so well thought out. A good illustration of their work is the fragment of a square stele which represents a scene of offering or sacrifice. We see in the lower part the picture of a female singer, who is accompanied by a musician, playing on a lear ornamented with the head of an ox, and a bull in the act of walking. In the upper part an individual advances, clad in a fringed mantle, and bearing in his right hand a kind of round poten, and in his left a short staff. An acolyte follows him, his arms brought up to his breast, while another individual marks, by clapping his hands, the rhythm of the ode which a singer like the one below is reciting. The fragment is much abraded, and its details, not being clearly exhibited, have rather to be guessed at, but the defaced aspect which time has produced is of some service to it, since it conceals in some respects the rudeness of its workmanship. The statues, on the other hand, bear evidence of a precision of chiseling and a skill beyond question. Not that there are no faults to be found in the work. They are squat, thick, and heavy in form, and seem oppressed by the weight of the woolen covering with which the Chaldeans envelop themselves. When viewed closely, they excite at once the wonder and repulsion of an eye accustomed to the delicate grace, and at times somewhat slender form, which usually characterize the good statues of the ancient and Middle Empire of Egypt. But when we have got over the effect of first impressions, we can but admire the audacity with which the artists attack their material. This is of hard dollarite, offering great resistance to the tool, harder perhaps than the diorite out of which the Memphite sculptor had to cut his caiffron. They succeeded in mastering it, and in handling it as freely as if it were a block of limestone or marble. The surface of the breast and back, the muscular development of the shoulders and arms, the details of the hands and feet, all the nude portions, are treated at once with a boldness and attention to minutiae rarely met with in similar works. The pose is lacking variety. The individual, whether male or female, is sometimes represented standing and sometimes sitting on a low seat. The legs brought together, the bust rising squarely from the hips. The hands crossed upon the breast in a posture of submission or respectful adoration. The mantle passes over the left shoulder, leaving the right free, and is fastened on the right breast, the drapery displaying awkward and inartistic folds. The latter widens in the form of a funnel from top to bottom, being bell-shaped around the lower part of the body and barely leaves the ankles exposed. All the large statues to be seen at the Louvre have lost their heads. Fortunately, we possess a few separate heads. Some are completely shaven, others wear a kind of turban affording shade to the forehead and eyes. Among them all we see the same qualities and defects which we find in the bodies, a hardness of expression, heaviness, absence of a vacity, and yet with all a vigor of reproduction and an accurate knowledge of human anatomy. These are instances of what could be accomplished in a city of secondary rank. Better things were doubtless produced in the great cities, such as Uru and Babylon. Caldean art, as we are able to catch a glimpse of it in the monuments of Lagash, had neither the lithness nor animation nor elegance of the Egyptian, but it was nevertheless not lacking in force, breadth, and originality. Man in Gersu succeeded his father Gudiya to be followed rapidly by several successive vice-regions, ending it would appear in Galalama. Their inscriptions are short and insignificant, and show that they did not enjoy the same resources or the same favor which enabled Gudiya to reign gloriously. The prosperity of Lagash decreased steadily under their administration, and they were all the humble vassals of the king of Uru, Dungi, son of Urba, a fact which tends to make us regard Urba as having been the susran upon whom Gudiya himself was dependent. Uru, the only city among those of lower Caldea which stands on the right bank of the Euphrates, was a small but strong place, and favorably situated for becoming one of the commercial and industrial centers in these distant ages. The Wadi-Umin, not far distant, brought to it the riches of central and southern Arabia, gold, precious stones, gums, and no-diferous resins for the exigencies of worship. Another route, marked out by wells, traversed the desert to the land of the semi-fabulous Mashu, and from thence perhaps penetrated as far as southern Syria and the Sionetic Peninsula, Magan and Milokha on the shores of the Red Sea. This was not the easiest, but it was the most direct route for those bound for Africa, and products of Egypt were no doubt carried along it in order to reach, in the shortest time, the markets of Uru. The Euphrates now runs nearly five miles to the north of the town, but from the regions bordering the Black Sea. In ancient times it was not so distant, but passed almost by its gates. The cedars, cypresses, and pines of Amasas and the Lebanon, the limestones, marbles, and hard stones of Upper Syria, were brought down to it by boat, and probably also metals, iron, copper, and lead. The Shot El Hai, moreover, poured its waters into the Euphrates almost opposite the city, and opened up to it commercial relations with the upper and middle Tigris. And this was not all, whilst some of its boatmen used canals and rivers as highways, another section made their way to the waters of the Persian Gulf, and traded with the ports on its coast. Iridu, the only city which could have barred their access to the sea, was a town given up to religion, and existed only for its temples and its gods. It was not long before it fell under the influence of its powerful neighbor, becoming the first port of call for vessels proceeding up to Euphrates. END OF PART XII. In the time of the Greeks and Romans the Chaldeans were accustomed to navigate the Tigris, either in round, flat-bottom boats, of little draught, kufas, in fact, or in rafts placed upon inflated skins, exactly similar in appearance and construction to the Kellex of our own day. These Kellex were as much at home on the sea as upon the river, and they may still be found in the Persian Gulf engaged in the coasting trade. Doubtless many of these were included among the vessels of Uru mentioned in the texts, but there were also among the latter those long, large rowing boats with curved stem and stern, Egyptian in their appearance, which are to be found roughly incised on some ancient cylinders. These primitive fleets were not disposed to risk the navigation of the open sea. They preferred to proceed slowly along the shore, hugging it in all cases, except when it was necessary to reach some group of neighboring islands. Many days of navigation were thus required to make a passage which one of our smallest sailboats would affect in a few hours, and at the end of their longest voyages they were not very distant from their point of departure. It would be a great mistake to suppose them capable of sailing around Arabia and afetching blocks of stone by sea from the Cyanidic Peninsula. Such an expedition, which would have been dangerous even for Greek or Roman galleys, would have been simply impossible for them. If they ever crossed the Strait of Ormuz it was an exceptional thing, their ordinary voyages being confined within the limits of the Gulf. The merchants of Uru were accustomed to visit regularly the island of Dilmun, the land of Magan, the countries of Milokha and Gubin. From these places they brought cargoes of diorite for their sculptors, building timber for their architects, perfumes and metals transported from Yemen by land, and possibly pearls from the Bahrain Islands. They encountered serious rivalry from the sailors of Dilmun and Magan, whose maritime tribes were then, as now, accustomed to scour the seas. The risk was great for those who set out on such expeditions, perhaps never to return, but the profit was considerable. Uru, enriched by its commerce, was soon in a position to subjugate the petty neighboring states, Uruk, Lharsam, Lagash and Nipur. Its territory formed a fairly extended sovereignty, whose lords entitled themselves Kings of Shumur and Akkad, and ruled over all southern Kaldia for many centuries. Several of these kings, the Lugol Qigub Nidudu and the Lugol Qisalsi, of whom some monuments have been preserved to us, seem to have extended their influence beyond these limits prior to the time of Sargon the Elder, and we can date the earliest of them with tolerable probability. Erbaugh reigned sometime around 2900 B.C. He was an energetic builder, and material traces of his activity are to be found everywhere throughout the country. The Temple of the Sun at Lharsam, the Temple of Nina in Uruk, and the Temples of Inlala and Ninlala in Nipur, were indebted to him for their origin or restoration. He decorated or repaired all structures which were not of his own erection. In Uru itself the Sanctuary of the Moon God owes its foundation to him, and the fortifications of the city were his work. Dungi, his son, was an indefatagable bricklayer, like his father. He completed the Sanctuary of the Moon God, and constructed buildings in Uruk, Lagash, and Kutha. There is no indication in the inscriptions of his having been engaged in any civil struggle or in war with a foreign nation. We should make a serious mistake, however, if we concluded from this silence that peace was not disturbed in his time. The tie which bound together the petty states of which Uru was composed was of the slightest. The sovereign could barely claim as his own more than the capital and the district surrounding it. The other cities recognized his authority, paid him tribute, did homage to him in religious matters, and doubtless rendered him military service also, but each one of them nevertheless maintained its particular constitution and obeyed its hereditary lords. These lords, it is true, lost their title of king, which now belonged exclusively to their suzerain, and each one had to be content in his district with the simple designation of vice-gerent. But having once fulfilled their feudal obligations, they had absolute power over their ancient domains, and were able to transmit to their progeny the inheritance they had received from their fathers. Gudiya probably, and most certainly his successors, ruled in this way over Lagash, as a fife depending on the crown of Uru. After the manner of the Egyptian barons, the vassals of the kings of Caldeus submitted to the control of their suzerain without resenting his authority, as long as they felt the curbing influence of a strong hand, but on the least sign of feebleness in their master they reasserted themselves, and endeavored to recover their independence. A reign of any length was sure to be disturbed by rebellions sometimes difficult to repress. If we are ignorant of any such, it is owing to the fact that inscriptions hitherto discovered are found upon subjects upon which an account of battle would hardly find a fitting place, such as bricks from a temple, votive cones or cylinders of terracotta, amulets or private seals. We are still in ignorance as to Dungi's successors, and the number of years during which this first dynasty was able to prolong its existence. We can but guess that its empire broke up by disintegration after a period of no long duration. Its cities for the most part became emancipated, and their rulers proclaimed themselves kings once more. We see that the kingdom of Amnannu, for instance, was established on the left bank of the Euphrates, with Uruk as its capital, and that three successive sovereigns at least, of whom Sengashid seems to have been the most active, were able to hold their own there. Uru had still, however, sufficient prestige and wealth to make it the actual metropolis of the entire country. No one could become the legitimate lord of Shumeir and Akkad before he had been solemnly enthroned in the temple at Uru. For many centuries every ambitious kinglet in turn contended for its possession, and made it his residence. The first of these, about 2,500 B.C., were the lords of Nishin, Libet Tanunit, Gamaladur, Ineddin, Bursin I, and Ismidagin. Afterwards, about 2,400 B.C., Gangunum of Nipur made himself master of it. The descendants of Gangunum, amongst others Bursin II, Nelson, Inesin, reigned gloriously for a few years. Their records show that they conquered not only a part of Elam, but part of Syria. They were dispossessed in their turn by a family belonging to Lharsam, whose two chief representatives, as far as we know, were Nur Amman and his son Sinidinim, about 2,300 B.C. Naturally enough Sinidinim was a builder or repairer of temples, but he added to such work the clearing of the Shat-Al-Hai and the excavation of a new canal, giving more direct communication between the Shat and the Tigris, and in thus controlling the water system of the country, became worthy of being considered one of the benefactors of Kaldiyah. We have here the mere dust of history, rather than history itself. Here an isolated individual makes his appearance in the record of his name, to vanish when we attempt to lay hold of him. There the stem of a dynasty which breaks abruptly off, as preambles, devout formulas, dedications of objects or buildings. Here and there the account of some battle, or the indication of some foreign country with which relations of friendship or commerce were maintained. These are the scanty materials out of which to construct a collected narrative. Egypt has not much more to offer us in regard to many of her pharaohs, but we have, in her case at least, the ascertained framework of her dynasties, in which each fact and each new name falls eventually, and after some uncertainty into its proper place. The main outlines of the picture are drawn with sufficient exactitude to require no readjustment. The groups are, for the most part, in their fitting positions. The blank spaces or positions not properly occupied are gradually restricted, and filled in from day to day. The expected moment is in sight when, the arrangement of the whole being accomplished, it will be necessary only to fill in the details. In the case of Chaldea the framework itself is wanting, and expedience must be resorted to in order to classify the elements entering into its composition. Naram-Sin is in his proper place, or nearly so. But as for Gudea, what interval separates him from Naram-Sin, and at what distance from Gudea are we to place the kings of Uru? The beginnings of Chaldea have merely a provisional history. The facts in it are certain, but the connection of the facts with one another is too often a matter of speculation. The arrangement which is put forward at present can be regarded only as probable, but it would be difficult to propose a better until the excavations have furnished us with fresh material. It must be accepted merely as an attempt, without pledging to it our confidence on the one hand, or regarding it with skepticism on the other. End of Part XIII. Read by Professor Heather Mby. The cities of the Euphrates attract no attention, like those of the Nile, by the magnificence of their ruins, which are witnesses, even after centuries of neglect, to the activity of a powerful and industrious people. On the contrary, they are merely heaps of rubbish in which no architectural outline can be distinguished, mounds of stiff and grayish clay cracked by the sun, washed into deep crevasses by the rain, and bearing no apparent traces of the handiwork of man. In the estimation of the Chaldean architects, stone was a material of secondary consideration, as it was necessary to bring it from a great distance and at considerable expense, they used it very sparingly, and then merely for lentils, uprights, thresholds, for hinges on which to hang their doors, for dressings in some of their state apartments, in cornices or sculptured freezes on the external walls of their buildings, and even then its employment suggested rather that of a band of embroidery carefully disposed on some garment, to relieve the plainness of the material. Big brick, burnt brick, enameled brick, but always and everywhere brick, was the principal element in their construction. The soil of the marshes or of the plains, separated from the pebbles and foreign substances which it contained, mixed with grass or chopped straw, moistened with water, and assiduously trodden underfoot, furnished the ancient builders with materials of incredible tenacity. This was molded into thin square bricks, eight inches to a foot across, and three to four inches thick, but rarely larger. They were stamped on the flat side by means of an insized wooden block, with the name of the reigning sovereign, and were then dried in the sun. A layer of fine mortar or bitumen was sometimes spread between the courses, or handfuls of reeds would be strone in intervals between the brickwork to increase the cohesion. More frequently the crude bricks were piled one upon another, and their natural softness and moisture brought about their rapid agglutination. As the building proceeded, the weight of the courses served to increase still further the adherence of the layers. The walls soon became consolidated into a compact mass, in which the horizontal strata were distinguishable only by the varied tins of the clay used to make the different relays of bricks. Monuments constructed of such a plastic material required constant attention and frequent repairs to keep them in good condition. After a few years of neglect they became quite disfigured. The houses suffered a partial dissolution in every storm. The streets were covered with a coating of fine mud, and the general outline of the buildings and habitations grew blurred and defaced. Whilst in Egypt the main features of the towns are still traceable above ground, and are so well preserved in places that, while excavating them, we are carried away from the present into the world of the past. The Chaldean cities, on the contrary, are so overthrown and seem to have returned so thoroughly to the dust from which their founders raised them, that the most patient research and the most enlightened imagination can only imperfectly reconstitute their arrangement. The towns were not enclosed within those square or rectangular enclosures with which the engineers of the pharaohs fortified their strongholds. The ground plan of Uru was an oval, that of Larson formed almost a circle upon the soil, while Uruk and Iridu resembled in shape a sort of irregular trapezeum. The curtain of the citadel looked down on the plain from a great height, so that the defenders were almost out of reach of the arrows or slings of the besiegers. The remains of the ramparts at Uruk at the present day are still forty to fifty feet high, and twenty or more feet in thickness at the top. Narrow turrets projected at intervals of every fifty feet along the face of the wall. The excavations have not been sufficiently pursued to permit of our seeing what system of defence was applied to the entrances. The area described by these cities was often very large, but the population in them was distributed very unequally. The temples in the different quarters formed centres, around which reclustered the dwellings of the inhabitants, sometimes densely packed, and elsewhere thinly scattered. The largest and richest of these temples was usually reserved for the principal deity, whose edifices were being continually decorated by the ruling princes, and the extent of whose ruin still attracts the traveller. The walls, constructed and repaired with bricks stamped with the names of lords of the locality, contain in themselves alone an almost complete history. Did Urbao, we may ask, found the ziggurat of Nannar and Uru? We meet with his bricks at the base of the most ancient portions of the building, and we moreover learn, from cylinders unearthed not far from it, that for Nannar the powerful bull of Anu, the son of Bel, his king, Urbao, the brave hero, king of Uru, had built E. Tamala, his favourite temple. The bricks of his son Dungy are found mixed with his own, while here and there other bricks belong to subsequent kings, with cylinders, cones, and minor objects, strewn between the courses, mark restorations at various later periods. What is true of one Kaldian city is equally true of all of them, and the dynasties of Uruk and of Lagash, like those of Uru, can be reconstructed from the revelations of their brickwork. The lords of heaven promise to the lords of the earth, as a reward of their piety, both glory and wealth in this life, and an eternal flame after death. They have indeed kept their word. The majority of the earliest Kaldian heroes would be unknown to us, were it not for the witness of the ruined sanctuaries which they built, and that which they did in the service of their heavenly patrons alone preserved their names from oblivion. Their most extravagant devotion, however, cost them less money and effort than that of the pharaohs their contemporaries. While the latter had to bring from a distance, even from the remotest parts of the desert, the different kinds of stone which they considered worthy to form part of the decoration of the houses of their gods, the Kaldian kings gathered up outside their very doors the principal material for their buildings. Where they require any other accessories, they could obtain, at the worst, hard stone for their statues and thresholds in Magan and Milakha, and beams of cedar and cypress in the forest of the Amanus and the upper Tigris. Under these conditions a temple was soon erected, and its construction did not demand centuries of continuous labour, like the great limestone and granite sanctuaries of Egypt. The same ruler who laid the first brick almost always placed the final one, and succeeding generations had only to keep the building in ordinary repair without altering its original plan. The work of construction was in almost every case carried out all at one time, designed and finished from the drawings of one architect, and bears traces but rarely of those deviations from the earlier plans which sometimes make the comprehension of the Theban temples so difficult a matter. If the state of decay of certain parts, or more often inadequate excavation, frequently prevent us from appreciating their details, we can at least reinstate their general outline with tolerable accuracy. While the Egyptian temple was spread superficially over a large area, the Chaldean temple strove to attain as high an elevation as possible. The ziggurats, whose angular profile is a special characteristic of the landscapes of the Euphrates, were composed of several immense cubes, piled up on one another, and diminishing in size up to the small shrine by which they were crowned, and wherein the God himself was supposed to dwell. There are two principal types of these ziggurats. In the first, for which the builders of Lower Chaldea showed a marked preference, the vertical axis, common to all the superimposed stories, did not pass through the center of the rectangle which served as the base of the whole building. It was carried back and placed near to one of the narrow ends of the base, so that the back elevation of the temple rose abruptly in steep, narrow edges above the plain, while the terraces of the front broadened out into wide platforms. The stories are composed of solid blocks of crude brick. Up to the present, at least, no traces of internal chambers have been found. The chapel on the summit could not contain more than one apartment, and altar stood before the door, and access to it was obtained by a straight external staircase, interrupted at each terrace by a more or less spacious landing. The second type of temple frequently found in Northern Chaldea was represented by a building on a square base with seven stories, all of equal height, connected by one or two lateral staircases, having on the summit the Pavilion of the God. This is the terrace tower which excited the admiration of the Greeks at Babylon, and of which the temple of Bell was the most remarkable example. The ruins of it still exist, but it has been so frequently and so completely restored in the course of ages that it is impossible to say how much now remains of the original construction. We know of several examples, however, of the other type of ziggurat, one at Uru, another at Bredu, a third at Uruk, without mentioning those which have not as yet been methodically explored. None of them rises directly from the surface of the ground, but they are all built on a raised platform, which consequently places the foundations of the temple nearly on a level with the roofs of the surrounding houses. The raised platform of the temple of Nanur at Uru still measures twenty feet in height, and its four angles are oriented exactly to the four cardinal points. Its façade was approached by an inclined plane, or by a flight of low steps, and the summit, which was surrounded by a low value-strade, was paved with enormous burnt bricks. On this terrace, processions at solemn festivals would have ample space to perform their evolutions. The lower story of the temple occupies a parallelogram of one hundred and ninety-eight feet in length by one hundred and seventy-three feet in width, and rises about twenty-seven feet in height. The central mass of crude brick has preserved its casing of red tiles, cemented with bitumen, almost intact up to the top. It is strengthened by buttresses, nine on the longer and six on the shorter sides, projecting about a foot which could relieve its rather bare surface. The second story rises to the height of only twenty feet above the first, and when intact could not have been more than twenty-six to thirty feet high. Many bricks bearing the stamp of Dungi are found among the materials used in the latest restoration, which took place about the sixth century before our era. They have a smooth surface, are broken here and there by air-holes, and their very simplicity seems to bear witness to the fact that Nabonitos confined himself to the task of merely restoring things to the state in which the earlier kings of Uru had left them. Till within the last century traces of a third story to this temple might have been distinguished. Unlike the lower ones it was not of solid brickwork, but contained at least one chamber. This was the Holy of Holies, the Sanctuary of Nhanar. The external walls were covered with pale blue enamel tiles having a polished surface. The interior was paneled with cedar or cypress. Air-woods procured as articles of commerce from the peoples of the North and West. This woodwork was inlaid in parts with thin leaves of gold, alternating with panels of mosaics composed of small pieces of white marble, alabaster, onyx, and agate, cut and polished. CHAPTER II Here stood the statue of Nhanar, one of those stiff and conventionalized figures in the traditional pose, handed down from generation to generation, which lingered even in the Chaldean statues of Greek times. The spirit of the god dwelt within it in the same way as the devil resided in the Egyptian idols, and from thence he watched over the restless movements of the people below, the noise of whose turmoil scarcely reached him at that elevation. The gods of the Euphrates, like those of the Nile, constituted a countless multitude of visible and invisible beings distributed into tribes and empires throughout all the regions of the universe. A particular function or occupation formed, so to speak, the principality of each one, in which he worked with an indefatagable zeal, under the orders of his respective prince or king, but whereas in Egypt they were on the whole friendly to man, or at the best indifferent in regard to him, in Chaldea they for the most part pursued him with an implacable hatred, and only seemed to exist in order to destroy him. These monsters of alarming aspect, armed with knives and lances, whom the theologians of Heliopolis and Thebes confined within the caverns of Hades in the depths of eternal darkness, were believed by the Chaldeans to be let loose in broad daylight over the earth. Such were the Galu and the Moschem, the Aalu and the Utuku, besides a score of other demoniacal tribes bearing curious and mysterious names. Some floated in the air and presided over the unhealthy winds. The south-west wind, the most cruel of them all, stalked over the solitudes of Arabia, whence he suddenly issued during the most oppressive months of the year. He collected round him as he passed the malarial vapours given off by the marshes under the heat of the sun, and he spread them over the country, striking down in his violence not only man and beast, but destroying harvests, pastures, and even trees. The genie of fevers and madness crept in silently everywhere, insidious and traitorous as they were. The plague alternately slumbered or made furious onslaughts among crowded populations. Imps haunted the houses, goblins wondered about the water's edge, ghouls lay in wait for travelers in nonfrequent places, and the dead quitting their tombs in the night stole stealthily among the living to satiate themselves with their blood. The material shapes attributed to these murderous beings were supposed to convey to the eye their perverse and ferocious characters. They were represented as composite creatures in whom the body of a man would be joined grotesquely to the limbs of animals in the most unexpected combinations. They worked in as best as they could, birds' claws, vicious scales, a bull's tail, several pairs of wings, the head of a lion, vulture, hyena, or wolf. When they left the creature a human head, they made it as hideous and distorted as possible. The southwest wind was distinguished from all the rest by the multiplicity of the incongruous elements of which his person was composed. His dog-like body was supported upon two legs terminating an eagle's claws. In addition to his arms, which were furnished with sharp talons, he had four outspread wings, two of which fell behind him, while the other two rose up and surrounded his head. He had a scorpion's tail, a human face with large goggle-eyes, bushy eyebrows, fleshless cheeks, and retreating lips, showing a formidable row of threatening teeth, while from his flattened skull protruded the horns of a goat. The entire combination was so hideous that it even alarmed the god and put him to flight when he was unexpectedly confronted with his own portrait. There was no lack of good genie to combat this deformed and vicious band. They too were represented as monsters, but monsters of a fine and noble bearing, griffons, winged lions, lion-headed men, and more especially those splendid human-headed bulls, those lamassi crowned with mitres, whose gigantic statues kept watch before the palace and temple gates. Between these two races hostility was constantly displayed. Restrained at one point, it broke out afresh at another, and the evil genie, invariably beaten, as invariably refused to accept their defeat. One less securely armed against them than were the gods, was ever meeting with them. Up there they are howling, here they lie in wait. They are great worms let loose by heaven, powerful ones whose clamour rises above the city, who pour water in torrents from heaven, sons who have come out of the bosom of the earth. They twine around the high rafters, the great rafters like a crown. They take their way from house to house, for the door cannot stop them, nor bar the way, nor repulse them, for they creep like a serpent under the door. They insinuate themselves like the air between the folding doors. They separate the bride from the embraces of the bridegroom. They snatch the child from between the knees of the man. They entice the unwary from out of his fruitful house. They are the threatening voice which pursues him from behind. Their malice extended even to animals. They force the raven to fly away on the wing, and they make the swallow to escape from its nest. They cause the bolt of flee, they cause the lamb to flee. They the bad demons who lay snares. The most audacious among them did not fear at times to attack the gods of light. On one occasion, in the infancy of the world, they had sought to dispossess them and reign in their stead. Without any warning they had climbed the heavens and fallen upon sin the moon god. They had repulsed Shamash, the sun, and Amon, both of whom had come to the rescue. They had driven Ishtar and Anu from their thrones. The whole firmament would have become a prey to them had not Bell and Nasku, Ia and Merodoc, intervened at the eleventh hour, and succeeded in hurling them down to the earth after a terrible battle. They never completely recovered from this reverse, and the gods raised up as rivals to them a class of friendly genie, the Ijiji, who were governed by five heavenly Anunas. The earthly Anunas, the Anunnaki, had as their chief seven sons of Bell, with bodies of lions, tigers, and serpents. The sixth was a tempestuous wind which obeyed neither god nor king. The seventh a whirlwind, a desolating storm which destroys everything. Seven, seven, in the depth of the abyss of waters they are seven. And destroyers of heaven they are seven. They have grown up in the depths of the abyss in the palace. Males they are not, females they are not. They are storms which pass quickly. They take no wife, they give birth to no child. They know neither compassion nor kindness. They listen to no prayer nor supplication. As wild horses they are born in the mountains. They are the enemies of Ba. They are the agents of the gods. They are evil, they are evil, and they are seven. They are seven. They are twice seven. Man, if reduced to his own resources, could have no chance of success in struggling against beings who had almost reduced the gods to submission. He invoked in his defense the help of the whole universe, the spirits of heaven and earth, the spirit of bell and of bell-eat, that of ninib and of nebo, those of sin, of ishtar, and of baman, but gibber or gibbel, the Lord of Fire, was the most powerful auxiliary in this incessant warfare. The offspring of night and of dark waters, the Anunnaki had no greater enemy than fire, they are kindled on the household hearth or upon the altars. Its appearance put them to flight and dispelled their power. Gibbel, renowned hero in the land, valiant, son of the abyss, exalted in the land. Gibbel, thy clear flame breaking forth, when it lightens up the darkness, assigns to all that bears a name its own destiny. The copper and tin, it is thou who does mix them, gold and silver, it is thou who meltest them, thou art the companion of the goddess Ninkasi, thou art he who exposes his breast to the nightly enemy. Cause then the limbs of man, son of his god, to shine. Make him to be bright like the sky. May he shine like the earth. May he be bright like the interior of the heavens. May the evil word be kept far from him. And with it the malignant spirits. The very insistence with which help is claimed against the Anunnaki shows how much their power was dreaded. The Kaldian felt them everywhere about him and could not move without incurring the danger of coming into contact with them. He did not fear them so much during the day, as the presence of the luminary deities in the heavens reassured him. But the night belonged to them, and he was open to their attacks. If he lingered in the country at dusk they were there, under the hedges, behind walls, and trunks of trees, ready to rush out upon him at every turn. If he ventured after sunset into the streets of his village or town he again met with them, quarreling with dogs over the awful on a rubbish heap, crouched in the shelter of a doorway, lying hidden in corners where the shadows were darkest. Even when barricaded within his house, under the immediate protection of his domestic idols, these genies still threatened him and left him not a moment's repose. The number of them was so great that he was unable to protect himself adequately from all of them. When he had disarmed the greater portion of them, there were always several remaining against whom he had forgotten to take necessary precautions. What must have been the total of the subordinate genie when, towards the ninth century before our era, the official census of the invisible beings stated the number of the great gods in heaven and earth to be sixty-five thousand? CHAPTER II. We are often much puzzled to say what these various divinities, whose names we decipher on the evidence, could possibly have represented. The Sovereigns of Lagash addressed their prayers to Ningirsu, the valiant champion of Enlil, to Ninursag, the Lady of the Terrestrial Mountain, to Ninsia, the Lord of Fate, to the King Ninagal, to Enzu, of whose real name no one has an idea, to Inana, the Queen of Battles, to Pasag, to Galalam, to Dunshagana, to Ninmar, to Ninh-Gizh-Zida. Gudea raised temples to them in all the cities over which his authority extended, and he devoted to these pious foundations a yearly income out of his domain land or from the spoils of his wars. Gudea, the vice-gerent of Lagash, after having built the temple in Enu for Ningirsu, constructed a treasury, a house decorated with sculptures, such as no vice-gerent had ever before constructed for Ningirsu. He constructed it for him, he wrote his name in it, he made in it all that was needful, and he executed faithfully all the words from the mouth of Ningirsu. The dedication of these edifices was accompanied with solemn festivals, in which the whole population took an active part. During seven years no grain was ground, and the maid-servant was the equal of her mistress. The slave walked beside his master, and in my town the weak rested by the side of the strong. Henceforward Gudea watched scrupulously lest anything impure should enter and mar the sanctity of the place. Those we have enumerated were the ancient Sumerian divinities, but the characteristics of most of them would have been lost to us, had we not learned, by means of other documents, to what gods the Semites assimilated them, gods who are better known and who are represented under a less barbarous aspect. Ningirsu, the lord of the division of Lagash which was called Girsu, was identified with Ninnib, Inlil is Bel, Ninnursag is Beltis, Enzu is Sin, Inanna is Ishtar, and so on with the rest. The cultists of each, too, was not a local cultist, confined to some obscure corner of the country. They were all rulers over the whole of Kaldia, in the north as in the south, at Uruk, at Urn, at Lharsam, at Nipur, even in Babylon itself. Inlil was the ruler of the earth and of Hades, Babar was the sun, Enzu the moon, Inanna Antmeet, the morning and evening star and the goddess of love, at a time when two distinct religious and two rival groups of gods existed side by side on the banks of the Euphrates. The Sumerian language is for us, at the present day, but a collection of strange names, of whose meaning and pronunciation we are often ignorant. We may well ask what beings and beliefs were originally hidden under these barbaric combinations of syllables which are constantly recurring in the inscriptions of the oldest dynasties, such as Pasag, Dunshagana, Demusi, Zuaba, and a score of others. The priests of subsequent times claimed to define exactly the attributes of each of them, and probably their statements are, in the main, correct. But it is impossible for us to gauge the motives which determined the assimilation of some of these divinities, the fashion in which it was carried out, the mutual concessions which Semide and Sumerian must have made before they could arrive at an understanding, and before the primitive characteristics of each deity were softened down or entirely effaced in the process. Many of these divine personages, such as Ea, Muradak, Ishtar, are so completely transformed that we may well ask to which of the two peoples they owed their origin. The Semites finally gained the ascendancy over their rivals, and the Sumerian gods from thence forward preserved an independent existence only in connection with magic, divination, and the science of foretelling events, and also in the formulas of exorcists and physicians, to which the harshness of their names lent a greater weight. Elsewhere it was Bel and Sin, Shamash and Iaman, who were universally worshipped, but a Bel, a Sin, a Shamash, who still betrayed traces of their former connection with the Sumerian Inlil and Inzu, with Babar and Murmer. In whatever language, however, they were addressed, by whatever name they were called upon, they did not fail to hear and grant a favourable reply to the appeals of the faithful. Whether Sumerian or Semitic, the gods, like those of Egypt, were not abstract personages, guiding in a metaphysical fashion the forces of nature, each of them contained in himself one of the principal elements of which our universe is composed—earth, water, sky, sun, moon, and the stars which moved around the terrestrial mountain. The succession of natural phenomenon with them was not the result of unalterable laws. It was due entirely to a series of voluntary acts, accomplished by beings of different grades of intelligence and power. Every part of the great whole is represented by a God, a God who is a man, a Chaldean, who, although of a finer and more lasting nature than other Chaldeans, possesses nevertheless the same instincts and is swayed by the same passions. He is, as a rule, wanting in that somewhat lithe grace of form, and in that rather easygoing, good nature, which were the primary characteristics of the Egyptian gods. The Chaldean divinity has the broad shoulders, the thick-set figure in projecting muscles of the people over whom he rules. He has their hasty and violent temperament, their coarse sensuality, their cruel and warlike propensities, their boldness in conceiving undertakings, and their obstinate tenacity in carrying them out. Their goddesses are modeled on the Tyra of the Chaldean women, or more properly speaking, on that of their queens. The majority of them do not quit the harem, and having no other ambition than to become speedily the mother of a numerous offspring. Those who openly reject the rigid constraints of such a life, and who seek to share the rank of the gods, seem to lose all self-restraint when they put off the veil. Like Ishtar, they exchange a life of severe chastity for the lowest debauchery, and they subject their followers to the same irregular life which they themselves have led. Every woman born in the country must enter once during her lifetime the enclosure of the temple of Aphrodite, must there sit down and unite herself to a stranger. Many who are wealthy are too proud to mix with the rest, and repair their enclosed chariots, followed by a considerable train of slaves. The greater number seat themselves on the sacred pavement with a cord twisted about their heads, and there is always a great crowd there coming and going. The women being divided by ropes into long lanes, down which strangers pass to make their choice. A woman who has once taken her place here cannot return home until a stranger has thrown into her lap a silver coin, and has led her away with him beyond the limits of the sacred enclosure. As he throws the money he pronounces these words, may the goddess Milita make thee happy. Now among the Assyrians Aphrodite is called Milita. The silver coin may be of any value, but none may refuse it. That is forbidden by the law, for once thrown it is sacred. The woman follows the first man who throws her the money and repels no one. When once she has accompanied him, and has thus satisfied the goddess, she returns to her home, and from thenceforth, however large some offered to her, she will yield to no one. The women who are tall or beautiful soon return to their homes, but those who are ugly remain a long time before they are able to comply with the law. Some of them are obliged to wait three or four years within the enclosure. This custom still existed in the fifth century before our era, and the Greeks who visited Babylon about that time found it still in full force. The gods, who had begun by being the actual material of the element which was their attribute, became successively the spirit of it, then its ruler. They continued at first to reside in it, but in the course of time they were separated from it, and each was allowed to enter the domain of another, dwell in it and even command it, as they could have done in their own, till finally the greater number of them were identified with the firmament. Bell, the Lord of the earth, and Ea, the ruler of the waters, passed into the heavens, which did not belong to them, and took their places beside Ami. The pathways were pointed out which they had made for themselves across the celestial vault, in order to inspect their kingdoms from the exalted heights to which they had been raised. That of Bell was in the Tropic of Cancer, that of Ea in the Tropic of Capricorn. They gathered around them all the divinities who could easily be abstracted from the function or object to which they were united, and thus constituted a kind of divine aristocracy, comprising all the most powerful beings who guided the fortunes of the world. The number of them was considerable, for they reckoned seven supreme and magnificent gods, fifty great gods of heaven and earth, three hundred celestial spirits, and six hundred terrestrial spirits. Each of them deputed representatives here below, who received the homage of mankind for him, and signified to them his good will. The God revealed himself in dreams to his seers, and imparted to them the course of coming events, or in some cases inspired them suddenly and spoke by their mouth. Their utterances, taken down and commented on by their assistance, were regarded as infallible oracles. But the number of mortal men possessing adequate powers, and gifted with sufficiently acute senses to bear without danger the near presence of a God, was necessarily limited. Communications were, therefore, more often established by means of various objects, whose grosser substance lessened for human intelligence and flesh and blood the dangers of direct contact with an immortal. The statues hidden in the recesses of the temples, or erected on the summits of the ziggurats, became imbued by virtue of their consecration with the actual body of the God whom they represented, and whose name was written either on the base or garment of the statue. The sovereign who dedicated them summoned them to speak in the days to come, and from thenceforth they spoke. When they were interrogated, according to the right instituted specially for each one, that part of the celestial soul, which by means of the prayers had been attracted to and held captive by the statue, could not refuse to reply. Were therefore this purpose special images, as in Egypt, which were clearly contrived so as to emit sounds by the pulling of a string by the hidden prophet? Voices resounded at night in the darkness of the sanctuaries, and particularly when a king came there to prostrate himself for the purpose of learning the future. His rank alone, which raised him half way to heaven, prepared him to receive the word from on high by the mouth of the image. End of Part 16 CHAPTER II More frequently a priest, accustomed from childhood to the office, expressed the privilege of asking the desired questions and of interpreting to the faithful the various signs by means of which the divine will was made known. The spirit of the God inspired, moreover, whatever seemed good to him, and frequently entered into objects where we should least have expected to find it. It animated stones, particularly such as fell from heaven, also trees, as for example the Tree of Iridu, which pronounced oracles, and besides the Battle Mace, with a granite head fixed on a wooden handle, the Acts of Raman, lances made on the model of Gilgamesh's fairy javelin, which came and went at its master's orders without needing to be touched. Such objects, when it was once ascertained that they were imbued with the divine spirit, were placed upon the altar and worshipped with as much veneration as were the statues themselves. Animals never became objects of habitual worship as in Egypt. Some of them, however, such as the Bull and Lion, were closely allied to the gods, and birds unconsciously betrayed by their flight or cries the secrets of futurity. In addition to all these, each family possessed its household gods, to whom its members recited prayers and poured libations night and morning, and whose statues, set up over the domestic hearth, defended it from the snares of the evil ones. The state religion, which all the inhabitants of the same city, from the king down to the lowest slave, were solemnly bound to observe, really represented to the Chaldeans but a tithe of their religious life. It included some dozen gods, no doubt the most important, but it more or less left out of account all the others, whose anger, if aroused by neglect, might become dangerous. The private devotion of individuals supplemented the state religion by furnishing worshippers for most of the neglected divinities, and thus compensated for what was lacking in the official public worship of the community. If the idea of uniting all these divine beings into a single supreme one, who would combine within himself all their elements and the whole of their powers, ever for a moment crossed the mind of some Chaldean theologian, it never spread to the people as a whole. Among all the thousands of tablets, or inscribed stones, on which we find recorded prayers and magical formulas, we have as yet discovered no document treating of the existence of a supreme God, or even containing the faintest illusion to a divine unity. We meet indeed with many passages in which this or that divinity boasts of his power, eloquently depreciating that of his rivals, and ending his discourse with the injunction to worship him alone. Man who shall come after, trust in Nebo, trust in no other God. The very expressions which are used, commanding future races to abandon the rest of the immortals in favor of Nebo, prove that even those who prided themselves on being worshipers of one God realized how far they were from believing in the unity of God. They strenuously asserted that the idol of their choice was far superior to many others, but it never occurred to them to proclaim that he had absorbed them all into himself, and that he remained alone in his glory, contemplating the world his creature. Side by side with those who expressed this belief in Nebo, an inhabitant of Babylon would say as much and more of Merodoc, the patron of his birthplace, without, however, ceasing to believe in the actual independence and royalty of Nebo. When thy power manifests itself, who can withdraw himself from it? Thy word is a powerful net, which thou spreadest in heaven and over the earth. It falls upon the sea, and the sea retires. It falls upon the plain, and the fields make great mourning. It falls upon the upper waters of the Euphrates, and the word of Merodoc stirs up the flood in them. O Lord, thou art sovereign, who can resist thee? Merodoc, among the gods who bear name, thou art sovereign. Merodoc is for his worshippers the king of the gods. He is not the sole God. Each of the chief divinities received in a similar manner the assurance of his omnipotence, but for all that his most zealous followers never regarded him as the only God, besides whom there was none other, and whose existence and rule precluded those of any other. The simultaneous elevation of certain divinities to the supreme rank had a reactionary influence on the ideas held with regard to the nature of each. Anu, Bel, and Ea, not to mention others, had enjoyed at the outset but a limited and incomplete personality, confined to a single concept, and were regarded as possessing only such attributes as were indispensable to the exercise of their power within a prescribed sphere, whether in heaven or in the earth, or in the waters, as each in his turn gained the ascendancy over his rivals, he became invested with the qualities which were exercised by the others in their own domain. His personality became enlarged, and instead of remaining merely a God of heaven or earth or of the waters, he became God of all three simultaneously. Anu reigned in the province of Bel or of Ea as he ruled in his own. Bel joined to his own authority that of Anu and Ea. Ea treated Anu and Bel with the same absence of ceremony which they had shown to him, and added their supremacies to his own. The personality of each God was thenceforward composed of many diverse elements. Each preserved a nucleus of his original being, but super-added to this were the peculiar characteristics of all the gods above whom he had been successively raised. Anu took to himself somewhat of the temperaments of Bel and of Ea, and the latter in exchange borrowed from him many personal traits. The same work of leveling, which altered the characteristics of the Egyptian divinities, and transformed them little by little into local variants of Osiris and the sun, went on as vigorously among the Chaldean gods. Those who were incarnations of the earth, the waters, the stars, or the heavens, became thenceforth so nearly allied to each other that we are tempted to consider them as being doubles of a single God, worshipped under different names in different localities. Their primitive forms can only be clearly distinguished when they are stripped of the uniform in which they are all clothed. The sky-gods and the earth-gods had been more numerous at the outset than they were subsequently. We recognize as such Anu, the immovable firmament, and the ancient Bel, the lord of men and of the soil on which they live, and into whose bosom they return after death. But there were others, who in historic times had partially or entirely lost their primitive character, such as Nurgul, Ninabh, Nimuzi, or among the goddesses, Damkina, Eshara, and even Ishtar herself, who at the beginning of their existence had represented only the earth, or one of its most striking aspects. For instance, Nurgul and Ninabh were the patrons of agriculture and protectors of the soil. Dumuzi was the ground in spring whose garment withered at the first approach of summer. Damkina was the leafy mold in union with fertilizing moisture. Eshara was the field when spring the crops. Ishtar was the clod which again grew green after the heat of the dog days and the winter frosts. All these beings had been forced to submit in a greater or less degree to the fate which among most primitive races awaits these older earth-gods, whose manifestations are usually too vague and shadowy to admit of their being grasped or represented by any precise imagery without limiting and curtailing their spheres. New deities had arisen of a more definite and tangible kind, and hence more easily understood, and having a real or supposed province which could be more easily realized, such as the sun, the moon, and the fixed or wandering stars. The moon is the measure of time. It determines the months, leads the course of the years, and the entire life of mankind and of great cities depends upon the regularity of its movements. The Kaldians, therefore, made it, or rather the spirit which animated it, the father and king of the gods. But its suzerainty was everywhere a conventional rather than an actual superiority, and the sun, which in theory was its vassal, attracted more worshippers than the pale and frigid luminary. Some adored the sun under its ordinary title of Shamash, corresponding to the Egyptian Ra. Others designated it as Merodoc, Ninib, Nergal, Dumuzi, not to mention other less usual appellations. Nergal in the beginning had nothing in common with Ninib, and Merodoc differed alike from Shamash, Ninib, Nergal, and Dumuzi. But the same movement which instigated the fusion of so many Egyptian divinities of diverse nature led the gods of the Kaldians to divest themselves little by little of their individuality and to lose themselves in the sun. Each one at first became a complete sun, and united in himself all the innate virtues of the sun, its brilliancy and its dominion over the world, its gentle and beneficent heat, its fertilizing warmth, its goodness and justice, its emblematic character of truth and peace, besides the incontestable vices which darken certain phases of its being, the fierceness of its rays at midday and in summer, the inexorable strength of its will, its combative temperament, its irresistible harshness and cruelty. By degrees they lost this uniform character and distributed the various attributes among themselves. If Shamash continued to be the sun in general, Ninib restricted himself, after the example of the Egyptian Harmakas, to being merely the rising and setting sun, the sun on the two horizons. Nergal became the feverish and destructive summer sun, Merodoc was transformed into the youthful sun of spring and early morning. Dumuzi, like Merodoc, became the sun before the summer. Their moral qualities naturally were affected by the process of restriction which had been applied to their physical being, and the external aspect now assigned to each in accordance with their several functions differed considerably from that formerly attributed to the unique type from which they had sprung. Ninib was represented as valiant, bold, and combative. He was a soldier who dreamed but of battle and great feats of arms. Nergal united a crafty fierceness to his bravery. Not content with being lord of battles, he became the pestilence which breaks out unexpectedly in a country, the death which comes like a thief, and carries off his prey before there is time to take up arms against him. Merodoc united wisdom with courage and strength. He attacked the wicked, protected the good, and used his power in the cause of order and justice. A very ancient legend which was subsequently fully developed among the Canaanites related the story of the unhappy passion of Ishtar for Dumuzi. The goddess broke out yearly into a fresh frenzy, but the tragic death of the hero finally moderated the ardor of her devotion. She wept distractedly for him, went to beg the lords of the infernal regions for his return, and brought him back triumphantly to the earth. Every year there was a repetition of the same passionate infatuation, suddenly interrupted by the same morning. The earth was united to the young sun with every recurring spring, and under the influence of his caresses became covered with verdure, then followed autumn and winter, and the sun, grown old, sank into the tomb, from whence his mistress had to call him up, in order to plunge afresh with him by a common impulse into the joys and sorrows of another year. CHAPTER II. The Temples and the Gods of Caldea Part V. The differences between the gods were all the more accentuated, for the reason that many who had a common origin were often separated from one another, by, relatively speaking, considerable distances. Having divided the earth's surface between them, they formed as in Egypt a complete feudal system, whose chiefs severally took up their residence in a particular city. Anu was worshiped in Uruk, and Lil Bell reigned in Nipper. Iridu belonged to Ia, the Lord of the Waters. The moon god, Sin, alone governed two large fives, Uru in the extreme south, and Haran towards the extreme northwest. Shamash had Larsham and one of the Siparas for his dominion, and the other sun gods were not less well provided for, Nurgle possessing Kutha, Zamama having Kish, Ninib side by side with Bell reigning in Nipper, while Meridoc ruled at Babylon. Each was absolute master in his own territory, and it is quite exceptional to find two of them co-regnant in one locality, as were Ninib and Bell at Nipper, or Ia and Ishtar at Uruk. Not that they raised any opposition on principle to the presence of a stranger divinity in their dominions, but they welcomed them only under the titles of allies or subjects. Each, moreover, had fair play, and Nebo or Shamash, after having filled the role of Sabra in Epor Sipa or at Larsham, did not consider it derogatory to his dignity to accept a lower rank in Babylon or at Uruk. Hence all the feudal gods played a double part, and had, as it were, a double civil portion. That of Suzerain in one or two localities, and that of vassals everywhere else. And this dual condition was the surest guarantee not only of their prosperity, but of their existence. Sin would have run great risk of sinking into oblivion if his resources had been confined to the subventions from his domain temples of Haran and Uruk. Their impoverishment would, in such case, have brought about his complete failure. After having enjoyed an existence amid riches and splendor in the beginning of history, he would have ended his life in a condition of misery and obscurity. But the sanctuaries erected to him in the majority of the other cities, the honors which these bestowed upon him, and the offerings which they made to him, compensated him for the poverty and neglect which he experienced in his own domains, and he was thus able to maintain his divine dignity on a suitable footing. All the gods were therefore worshipped by the Kaldians, and the only difference among them in this respect arose from the fact that some exalted one special deity above the others. The gods of the richest and most ancient principalities naturally enjoyed the greatest popularity. The greatness of Uruk had been the source of sin's prestige, and Merodog owed his prosperity to the supremacy which Babylon had acquired over the districts of the North. Merodog was regarded as the son of Ba, as the star which had risen from the Abyss to illuminate the world, and to confer upon mankind the decrees of eternal wisdom. He was proclaimed as Lord, Bilu, Par Exalans, in comparison with whom all other Lords sank into insignificance, and his title soon procured for him a second, which was no less widely recognized than the first. He was spoken of everywhere as the Bell of Babylon, Bell Merodog, before whom Bell of Nippur was gradually thrown into the shade. The relations between these feudal deities were not always pacific. Jealousies arose among them like those which disturbed the cities over which they ruled. They conspired against each other, and on occasions broke out into open warfare. Instead of forming a coalition against the evil genie who threatened their rule, and as a consequence tended to bring everything into jeopardy, they sometimes made alliances with these maligned powers and mutually betrayed each other. Their history, if we could recover it in its entirety, would be marked by as violent deeds as those which distinguished the princes and kings who worshipped them. Attempts were made, however, and that too from an early date, to establish among them a hierarchy like that which existed among the great ones of the earth. The faithful, who instead of praying to each one separately, preferred to address them all, invoked them always in the same order. They began with Anu, the Heaven, and followed with Bell, Ia, Sin, Shamash, and Baman. They divided these six into two groups of three, one trio consisting of Anu, Bell, and Ia, the other of Sin, Shamash, and Baman. All these deities were associated with southern Kaldia, and the system which grouped them must have taken its rise in this region, probably at Uruk, whose patron Anu occupied the first rank among them. The theologians who classified them in this manner seemed to have never dreamt of explaining, like the authors of the Heliopolitan and Iid, the successive steps in their creation. These triads were not, moreover, copies of the human family, consisting of a father and mother whose marriage brings into the world a new being. Others had already given an account of the origin of things, and of merodoc struggles with chaos. These theologians accepted the universe as it was, already made, and contented themselves with summing up its elements by enumerating the gods which actuated them. They assigned the first place to those elements which make the most forcible impression upon man, beginning with Anu, for the Heaven was the God of their city. Following with Bell of Nipper, the earth from which all antiquity has been associated with the Heaven, and concluding with Ea of Iridu, the terrestrial waters and primordial ocean whence Anu and Bell, together with all living creatures, had sprung. Ea being a God whom, had they not been guided by local vanity, they would have made sovereign Lord of all. Anu owed his supremacy to an historical accident rather than a religious conception. He held his high position, not by his own merits, but because the prevailing theology of an early period had been the work of his priesthood. 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 over our heads, clear during the day when glorified by the sun, obscured 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 eclipse. 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 lull 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 Bell Meridoc, Ia, or Amun, and he often employs inferior genie 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 omen 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 destinations seem to be nothing more than doubless of his own. He is Anu, the Lakmu, who appeared on the first days of creation. Ahu Urash, or Ninib, is the son-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 salons. 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 Meridak of Babylon. To this alliance he owed to the end the safety of his life, in the presence of Anu. Ia 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 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 Ia, 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 apparel should arise against which the other gods found themselves impotent, they resorted to him immediately for help, which was never refused. He had saved Shamashna Pishtim from the deluge. Every day he freed his baudaries from sickness and the thousand demons which were the causes of it. He was a potter, and had modeled 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 stonecutters, gardeners, husbandmen, and sailors hailed them 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. CHAPTER II THE TEMPOLS AND THE GODS OF KALDIA PART VI 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 another of the three great gods. Sin was the offspring of Bel, Shamash of Sin, Kaman of Anu. Sin was indebted for his primacy among the subordinate divinities to the preponderating influence which Uru exercised over southern Kaldia. Mar, where Raman was the chief deity, never emerged from its obscurity, and Larsam acquired supremacy only many centuries after its neighbor, and did not succeed in maintaining it for any length of time. The god of the Suzharan 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 an Uru, Uruqi, 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 fixes there the boundaries of the towns and assigns to them their names. Father, begetter of gods and men, who establishes for them dwellings and institutists for them that which is good, who proclaimest royalty and bestowest the exalted scepter 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 prepare us 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 EGG 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 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 decree is seen among the kettlefolds and in the layers of the wild beast, 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 anyone 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 Haran, 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 meter 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. Babar 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-entering 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 disc 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 son, thou appearest on the foundation of the heavens, thou drawest back the bolts which bar the scintillating heavens, thou openness the gate of the heavens, O son, thou razes thy head above the earth, son, thou extendest over the earth the brilliant bolts 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 said it not. O son, 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 Rabbara, the seat of thy rule, thy greatness may rise, and that thy cherished spouse may receive thee joyfully. May thy glad heart find her in thy rest. May the food of thy divinity be brought to thee by her, warrior, hero, son, and may she increase thy vigor. Lord of Ibarra, when thou approachest, mayest thou direct thy course aright. O son, urge rightly thy way along the fixed road determined for thee. O son, thou who art the judge of the land and the arbiter of its laws. End of Part 19 It would appear that the triad had begun by having in the third place a goddess, Ish-Tar of Dilbat. Ish-Tar 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, Ia charged sin, shamash, and Ish-Tar 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. Ish-Tar was separated from her two companions, when the group of the planets was definitely organized and claimed the adoration of the debout. The theologians then put in her place an individual of a less original aspect, Raman. Raman embraced within him the elements of many very ancient genie, all of whom had been set over the atmosphere, and the phenomena which are daily displayed in it, wind, rain, and thunder. The genie 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 crossbreeds of extraordinary species which would puzzle a modern naturalist, but were matters of course to the ancient priests. His mother Cirrus, lady of the reigning clouds, was a bird like himself. But Zu had as a 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 day beheld Adapa, one of the numerous offsprings of Ia, 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 a mortality, and he was not at liberty to appear in the presence of Ia in heaven. He enjoyed, nevertheless, certain privileges, thanks to his familiar intercourse with his father Ia, 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 Ilabrot. His messenger Ilabrot answered him, My master, Adapa, the son of Ia, has broken Shutu's wings. Anu, when he heard these words, cried out help, and he sent to Ia Barcu, 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 the right on his side. But Ia, the cleverest of the immortals, prescribed the 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 honor this garb, in whose honor, 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 favor. 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 thee. 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 favor, 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. To breathed, 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 given the filter 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. Raman also absorbed one after the other all these genie of tempests and contention, and out of their combined characters his own personality of a hundred diverse aspects was built up. He was endowed with the compretious 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 favorite role. 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. 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 Thunderbolt, 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 Caldea 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 pestulence over the land. He destroys the harvest, brings the in-gathering to nothing, tears up trees, and beats down and roots up the corn. In a word, the second triad formed a more homogenous 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. Raman, on the contrary, had nothing to commend him for a position alongside the moon and 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 Raman 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 anyone 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. Chapter 2 The Temples and the Gods of Caldea. Part 8 The gods of the triad 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 country 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 performed, 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 contra-distinction 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 Ia 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 Urru, 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 Ah, or Sarita, enjoyed an indisputable authority alongside Shamash. She never lost sight of the fact that she had been a son like Shamash, a disc god before she was transformed into a goddess. Shamash, more over, was surrounded by an actual harem, of which Sarita 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 Raman. They were all goddesses of ancient lineage, and each had been previously worshipped on her own account when the Sumerian people held sway in Kaldia. 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 a comparative insignificance, she was still acknowledged as queen and mistress in her city of Iridu. The others not withstanding, the innervating 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. Sipara was a double city, or rather there were two neighboring Siparas, one distinguished as the city of the sun, Sipara-sha-sha-mash, while the other gave luster to Anunit in assuming the designation of Sipara-sha-Anunitam. 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 Kaldia 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 freely 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 agents to preserve an order among them. Nothing happens by chance in this world, and the most insignificant events are determined by provisional 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 Meridot 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. Zhu, the storm-bird who lives with his wife and children on Mount Sabu under the protection of Bell, 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 Bell, the miter of his power, the garment of his divinity, the fatal tablets of his divinity. Zhu 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. Ye, Zhu 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 Eijiji. And his heart plotted warfare. Lying in wait on the threshold of the hall he watched for the dawn. When Bell had poured out the shining waters, had installed himself on the throne, and donned the crown, Zhu took away the fatal tablets from his hand. He seized power and the authority to give forth decrees. The God Zhu, he flew away and concealed himself in the mountains. Bell 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 Zhu? He will make his name great in every land. Raman the Supreme, the son of Anu, was called, and Anu himself had to give him his orders. Yea, Raman the Supreme, the son of Anu, was called, and Anu himself gave to him his orders. Go, my son Raman, the valiant, since nothing resists thy attack. Conquer Zhu by thine arm, and thy name shall be great among the great gods. Among the gods thy brothers thou shalt have no equal. Sanctuary shall be built to thee, and if thou buildest for thyself the cities in the four houses of the world, thy cities shall extend over all the terrestrial mountain. Be valiant, then, in the side of the gods, and may thy name be strong. Raman answers, he addresses this speech to Anu his father. Father, who will go to the inaccessible mountains? He who is the equal of Zhu 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. Zhu 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 Raman. Bara refused to attempt the enterprise. Shamash, called in his turn, at length consented to set out for Mount Sabu. He triumphed over the stormbird, tore the fatal tablets from him, and brought him before Ia as a prisoner. The son of the complete day, the son 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 a mortal decrees to mortals was never taken out of the hands of the gods of light. Destiny's 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 space exercised from above an act of control on everything they touched. Their influence 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 ascendant at the instant of his birth became his star and ruled his destiny. The Chaldeans, like the Egyptians, fancy they discerned in the points of light which illuminate the night 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 reminiscent of the wars by which Bael Merodoc, the divine bull, the God of Babylon, had succeeded in bringing order out of chaos. He had not only killed Tiamat, but he had overthrown and subjugated the monsters which led the army 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 of 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 themselves alone to furnish men 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 ruled 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, Merodoc, Ishtar, Ninib, Nurgle, and Nebo. The planets seem 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.