The History of Antiquity, Vol. 1 (of 6)

At the head of the five spirits of the planets stands the lord of Saturn (the Kaivanu of the Babylonians), the most distant and highest of all. This is the god Adar, i. e. "the sublime." His name was given to the last month in the Babylonian year. In the inscriptions the epithet Malik is often joined to Adar; Sakkut Adar also is a name given in the inscriptions to this god. The Hebrews tell us that the men of Sepharvaim worshipped Adrammelech; and this can hardly be any other deity than the Adar-Malik of the inscriptions. They also add that children were burned to Adrammelech,364 and hence we may conclude that the Adar of the Babylonians was a harsh and cruel deity, averse to generation, whose wrath had to be appeased by human sacrifice. When the prophet Amos announces to the Israelites that they would "carry Siccuth their king, and Kewan (Chiun) their star-god, their images which they had made,"365 Sichuth-Melech can be no other god than Sakkut-Malik, i. e. Adar, and by Kewan is meant the Kaivanu (Saturn) of the inscriptions.366 Nebo (Nabu), the god of Borsippa, was the lord of the planet Mercury. According to the inscriptions of Babylonia, he ruled over the hosts of heaven and earth. His image on the cylinder of Urukh has been mentioned above (p. 259). Statues of Nebo with long beard and hair, and a robe from the breast downwards, have been found in the ruins of Nineveh. Assyrian inscriptions entitle him the "prince of the gods." His name means the "revealer," and what we learn from western writers about a special school of Chaldaic priests at Borsippa agrees very well with this. The lord of Mars, Nergal, was worshipped at the city of Kutha. The inscriptions name him the "king of the battle," the "ruler of the storm," or simply the "lion-god."367 Hence the winged lions with a human head at the temples and palace gates of Susa and Nineveh (p. 253) were his images, and stood no doubt at Babylon and Kutha also, while the winged bulls must have been the images of Adar. In the narrative of the flood on Assyrian tablets, it is Adar who overthrows and Nergal who destroys (p. 243). After the restoration of the Babylonian kingdom, the kings are named after Nebo and Nergal. Yet the inscriptions of Nebuchadnezzar II. celebrate above all other deities the lord of Jupiter, Merodach, as Belrabu, i.e. the "great lord," the "highest god," the "lord of heaven and earth."368

To this circle of planet-gods belongs also the female deity, whom the Babylonians worshipped with much zeal – the goddess Bilit, i. e. "Lady," the Mylitta of Herodotus. Her star is Venus. The inscriptions name her "Queen of the Gods," "Mother of the Gods." As she is also called the "Lady of Offspring," it is clear that she was regarded by the Babylonians as the goddess of fertility and birth. They recognised the power of the goddess in the charm and beauty of vegetative nature. Within the wall of her temple at Babylon a grove afforded a cool shade, and a cistern reminded the worshippers of the mistress of the fertilizing water. The creatures sacred to her were fish, as the inhabitants of water, and remarkable for vigorous propagation, and the dove.369 According to the account of Herodotus the maidens of Babylonia had to worship the goddess by the sacrifice of their virginity; once in her life each was expected to sell her body in honour of the goddess, and thus to redeem herself. Hence on the festivals of Mylitta the maidens of Babylon sat in long rows in the grove of the goddess, with chaplets of cord upon their heads. Even the daughters of the wealthy came in covered cars with a numerous body of attendants. Here they had to remain till one of the pilgrims, who came to worship the goddess, cast a piece of gold into their laps, with the words, "In the name of Mylitta." Then the maiden was compelled to follow him, and comply with his wishes. The money thus earned she gave to the temple-treasury, and was henceforth freed from her obligation to the goddess. "The good-looking and graceful maidens," adds Herodotus, "quickly found a pilgrim, but the ugly ones could not satisfy the law, and often remained in the temple three or four years."370 The Hebrew scriptures confirm the statements of Herodotus. They tell us of the Babylonians, "that their women, with cords about them (they were bound to the goddess), sat by the wayside, and burnt bran for perfume, and she who was drawn away by the passer-by reproached her fellow that she had not been thought worthy of the honour, and that her cord was not broken."371 The goddess Nana, whose image, as we have seen, was carried away at an ancient period from Erech to Susa, and to whom it is Nebuchadnezzar's boast that he built temples at Babylon and Borsippa,372 was hardly distinguished from Bilit or Mylitta.

Opposed to the goddess of fertility, procreation, and birth, stood Istar, the goddess of war, of ruin, and destruction. She is often mentioned in inscriptions as "the Queen of Babylon;" according to Assyrian inscriptions she carries a bow, and western writers tell us of the worship of Artemis by the Babylonians. That this goddess united with Bilit, and sent alternately blessing and fruit, death and ruin, is placed beyond doubt, by the analogous worship of Baltis, Ashera, and Astarte by the Syrians, and more especially by the Phœnicians and Carthaginians. Moreover the planet Venus belonged to this goddess in both her forms. In the tablets of the flood, Istar boasts that men owed their existence to her (p. 243), and an Assyrian syllabarium tells us that "the star of Venus (Dilbat, the Delephat of the Greeks), at sunrise, is Istar among the gods; the same star at sunset is Bilit among the gods."373 On Assyrian tablets is found a narrative of the journey of Istar to the under-world. She determines to go down to the house of the departed, to the abode of the god Irkalla, to the house which has no exit, to the road which leads not back, to the place where the entrance is without light, where dust is their nourishment and mould their food, where light is not seen, where they dwell in darkness, where the arches are filled with spirits like birds; over the gate and the panels dust is strewed. "Watchman of the waters," said Istar, "open thy gate, that I may enter. If thou openest not, I will break thy gate, and burst asunder the bars; I will shatter the threshold and destroy the doors." The watchman opened the gate, and as she passed through he took the great crown from her head; and when she passed through the second gate he took the rings from her ears; and when she passed through the third gate he took the necklace from her neck; and when she passed through the fourth gate he took the ornaments from her breast; and when she passed through the fifth gate he took the girdle of her robe; and when she passed through the sixth gate he took the rings from her arms and legs; and when she passed through the seventh gate he took the mantle from her neck and said, "Thus does Ninkigal to those who come to her." Arrived in the under-world, Istar was grievously afflicted in the eyes, on the hips, feet, heart, head, and whole body. But the world above could not bear the loss of Istar, "the bull sought not the cow, nor the male ass the female," and the god Hea sent a message to Ninkigal, the Lady of the under-world, to set her free. Ninkigal caused the water of life to pour out over Istar. Then the seven doors of the under-world were again opened for her, and before each she received back what had been taken from her at her entrance.374

In the fragments of Berosus the last of the fish-men is called Odakon (p. 239). Inscriptions of Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar II. of Babylon mention a god Dakan, or Dagani; and we also meet the name of this god in the name of the king Ismidagon, whom we found it necessary to place before the year 2000 B.C. Assurbanipal of Assyria boasts of the favour of Anu and Dagon. These two gods appear in the same connection in other inscriptions. Sargon, king of Assyria, calls himself "the apple of the eye of Anu and Dagon."375 Male figures, with a horned cap on the head, and ending in a fish, and priests with fishskins hung above them, are often found on the monuments of Nineveh. As the word Dag means "fish," we may with confidence find in the god Dakan the fish-god of the Babylonians; the god who out of moisture gives plenty, fertility, and increase. That the Canaanites also worshipped Dagon is proved by the names Beth-Dagon and Kaphar-Dagon, which occur near Joppa and Sichem. The Philistines also on the coast of the Mediterranean invoked the same god. His image in the temple at Ashdod had the face and hands of a man, the body of a fish, and the feet of a man (see below). The seven fish-men who rose out of the Persian Gulf were therefore seven manifestations, or revelations, of the gods Oan and Dagon, Anu and Dakan.

The chief seats of the religious worship of the Babylonians were Babylon itself, when it had become the metropolis of the land, Borsippa and Kutha. The kings of Assyria, who succeeded in entering Babylonia, or in subjugating it, remark more than once that they have sacrificed at Babylon, Borsippa, and Kutha, to Bel, Nebo, and Nergal, and Assurbanipal tells us that his rebellious brother, the viceroy of Babylon, had purchased the help of the Elamites with the treasures of the temple of Bel at Babylon, of Nebo at Borsippa, and Nergal at Kutha.376 Hence these temples must have been the most considerable, and the treasures in them the largest. Beside these temples, as has been remarked, Erech was of importance, as the seat of the worship of Nana, Ur contained the temple of the moon-god, and Sepharvaim was the abode of Anu and Samas, and the city of the sacred scriptures.

The relation of the deities to the luminaries of the sky occupied a very prominent place in the minds of the Babylonians. The powerful operation of the sun was due to the god Samas; the moon, as we have seen, belonged to Sin, Saturn to Adar, Jupiter to Merodach, Mercury to Nebo, Mars to the war-god Nergal, Venus to Istar-Bilit. From the inscriptions of Nebuchadnezzar II. we learn that there existed at Borsippa, the seat of the worship of Nebo, an ancient temple to "the seven lamps of the earth." The horizon of the Babylonian plain was very extensive; the more uniform and boundless the expanse of earth, the more did the eye turn upwards towards the changes, movements, and life of the sky. In the clear atmosphere the eye followed the regular paths of the planets, and discovered each morning new stars, while others disappeared every evening. With the higher or lower position of the sun, or of this or that star, a new season commenced, or changes took place in the natural world; the inundation rose, and vegetation began to awaken or decay. On the rising and setting of the sun, the moon, and the stars, the life of mankind, their waking and sleeping, their vigour and weariness, depended; the seasons of budding and ripening fruit, of favourable or unfavourable navigation, commenced with the appearance of certain stars and ended with their disappearance. It was natural, amid such conceptions, to believe that the whole life of nature and man depended on the luminaries of the sky, and that the earth and mankind received their laws from above, from the gleaming paths of the constellations. The good or evil effect which these stars were thought to exercise upon the life of nature, applied also to their influence on the life of man.

Within the circle of such conceptions the planets naturally occupied a prominent place. The Greeks inform us that the Chaldæans called these stars "interpreters," as proclaiming the will of the gods.377 Among them Jupiter and Venus (Merodach and Istar-Bilit) passed with the later astrologers as luck-bringing powers. Jupiter was supposed to bring the beneficent and genial warmth of the atmosphere, while Venus, the star of evening (Bilit), poured forth the cool fructifying dew. Saturn (Adar) was an unlucky star, the Great Evil; and this confirms the conclusion already drawn that Adar was thought to be a god averse to generation, and hostile. Mars (Nergal) was also a pernicious planet: his fiery glow brought scorching heat, and he is the Lesser Evil of astrologers. Mercury, the moon, and the sun, i. e. Nebo, Sin, and Samas, stood midway between the good and evil stars; they were of an intermediate undefined character.378

But according to the Chaldæans the planets also assumed the influence and character of the constellations in which they passed over the earth. They divided the path of the sun into twelve stations or houses, according to the constellations which it passes through in its course. The sun's proper house was its highest position in the sign of Leo. The paths of the planets were divided in a similar way; and to the Chaldæan these "houses of the planets" became divine powers, because they altered and defined the character and operation of the planets. Hence they even call them "lords of the gods."379 On the other hand thirty other fixed stars are "counselling gods," because they were thought to exercise only a secondary influence on the planets; and lastly, twelve fixed stars in the northern sky, and twelve in the southern were called the "judges." Of these twenty-four stars, those which were visible decided on the fortunes of the living, and those which were invisible on the fortunes of the dead.380 The inscriptions also distinguish two classes of twelve stars each; of which one is named "the stars of Accad," the other "the stars of the West."381 Each month of the year belonged to a god; the first to the god Anu: the seven days of the week belonged to the sun, moon, and five planets; after the moon came Mars, then Mercury, then Jupiter, then Venus, and last of all Saturn. The day belonged to the planet to which the first hour after midnight was allotted; in the next hour the planet ruled which came next in proximity to the sun; and in the same way followed the remaining planets, first in a solar, then in a lunar series.

Thus the Chaldæans worshipped "the sun, and the moon, and the zodiac;" thus they offered incense, as the Hebrews say, to the "houses of the planets, and the whole host of heaven."382 This lore was the work of the priests, who accordingly understood how to read the will of the gods in the constellations of the sky, and to foretell the fate of life from the hour of birth, and from the ever-changing position of the stars to fix the suitable moment for commencing any task or undertaking. How the stars passed through the sky, how they approached each other, or diverged, imparted or withdrew their operation, were found in equipoise or opposition – on this depended the prosperity or misfortune of the kingdom, the king, the year, the day, the hour. Moreover it was of importance at what season of the year, and in what quarter of the sky the stars rose, or disappeared, and what colours they displayed.383 To the east belonged withering heat, to the south warmth, to the west fertilising moisture, and to the north cold; and the planets exercised greater or less power as they stood higher or lower.384 Tablets discovered at Nineveh allow us a closer insight into the system of these constellations. On some of these we find written as follows: – "If Jupiter is seen in the month of Tammuz, there will be corpses." "If Venus comes opposite the star of the fish, there will be devastation." "If the star of the great lion is gloomy, the heart of the people will not rejoice." "If the moon is seen on the first day of the month, Accad will prosper." One tablet supplies information for all the periods of the day and night in the 360 days of the year, telling us what day and what period is favourable or unfavourable for commencing a campaign, or a siege, for storming the enemy's walls, or for defence.385

Such was the faith and doctrine of the Babylonians. In the original conception of El as lord of the sky, and Adar as the highest of the star gods, there may have been nobler and simpler traits, yet even these early views were not without their harshness and cruelty, as we are forced to conclude from the Hebrew accounts of the sacrifices offered to Adar. Such traits are also more than outweighed by the licentious worship of Mylitta, in which the sensual elements of the Semitic character are seen in all their coarseness. With the growth of the kingdom, and the consequent effeminacy and luxury of life in Babylonia, this side of their religion must have become predominant, while, on the other hand, the great conception of a world ruled and governed by the movements of the stars tended in time to degenerate into mere astrological computations and fortune-telling.

Our knowledge of the life and position of the priests of Babylon is scanty. The Greeks tell us that they took the same place as in Egypt. Their rank was hereditary; the son was instructed by the father from an early age. Some occupied themselves with the offerings and purifications; others strove to avert existing or threatening evils by expiations and charms; others explained any miraculous phenomena of nature, interpreted dreams, and prophesied from the flight of birds. The Hebrew scriptures speak of interpreters of stars and signs, magicians and prophets.386 According to the accounts of Western writers, the priests at Babylon inhabited a special quarter of the city, and there were schools of priests at Sippara.387 The fragments of Berosus pointed out Babylon, Sippara, and Larancha (p. 239) as centres of priestly wisdom even before the flood, inasmuch as they attribute to these places special revelations of the gods Anu and Dakan. They speak of the sacred books saved in Sippara from the flood. These books they divide into ancient, mediæval, and modern. By the "ancient" books we must understand the announcements which the god Anu caused to be made to the two earliest kings, Alorus and Alaparus, of Babylon. Under the "mediæval" are comprised the revelations received by Ammenon and Daonus of Sippara, and lastly, under the "modern" the mysteries disclosed by Dagon to Edorankhus of Sippara (p. 239). Hence we may assume that the priests of Babylon arrived at an early age at a code which included their creed and ritual, as it would seem, in seven books (p. 245). How high the cosmogonies go, of which the most essential traits were found in the fragments of Berosus (p. 238), we cannot decide. In the conception which lies at the base of them the forces of nature are seen pouring forth in wild confusion. The name of the woman who rules these forces, or of this chaos inhabited by monsters, Omorka, has been explained as "Homer-Kai," i. e., "material of the egg," the world-egg, but more recently by "Um Uruk," i. e. "the mother," the "great goddess of Erech." In the cosmogony of Berosus we can see, though in a very rude and contradictory shape, the opposition of a material and intellectual, a natural and supernatural principle, and later accounts maintain that the Babylonians regarded the world as arising out of fire and water, that Chaos and Love were the parents of Life and Contention, and of Life and Contention Bel was the son.388

More important and far more valuable than these abstractions, to which the Babylonians obviously attained only at a late period, and in all probability under the influence of Greek ideas, are the results which their knowledge and acuteness gained in other fields. The cuneiform writing, according to the conclusions we have already been compelled to draw, was borrowed by the Elamites and Babylonians from the earlier inhabitants of the lower districts. It was originally a picture-writing, which, like the Egyptian, passed from real pictures to indicatory and symbolic pictures or picture-signs. The necessity of abbreviating and compressing the picture-signs was here far more keenly felt than in Egypt, quite irrespective of the fact that the strong pictorial tendency of the Egyptians was probably wanting on the Lower Tigris. The stones and slabs on which the Egyptians engraved their hieroglyphics were not to be found in the plains of the two rivers, and the slabs of mud, clay, and brick on which they were compelled to write (the pictures and symbols were written on the soft slabs with the style, and these were then burnt), were ill-adapted for sketches. Such obstinate material made the abbreviation of the symbols an imperative necessity; and it was by sharp and straight strokes that the signs could be most easily traced upon slabs of mud and clay. The oldest bricks in the ruins of Mugheir, Warka, and Senkereh display pictures in outline; then beside bricks with inscriptions of this kind we find others repeating the same inscription in cuneiform signs, which now form a completely ideographic system of writing. The immediate comprehension of picture signs by the senses died away owing to abbreviations of the kind mentioned, and the picture-writing became symbolic writing. This writing, which consisted of groups of cuneiform symbols, attained a higher stage of development when a phonetic value was attributed to a part of the cuneiform groups, whether used to signify nouns or verbs and adjectives, or new groups were formed for this purpose. By cuneiform groups both simple and compound syllables are expressed. For simple syllables, i. e. for those consisting of a single consonant with a vowel before or after it in order to give the consonant a sound, the cuneiform writing of Babylon and Assyria possesses about one hundred groups, and several hundred groups for compound syllables, i. e. for those which have more than one consonant. Side by side with this syllabic writing the old abbreviated picture-writing was retained. Certain words of frequent occurrence, as king, battle, month, were always represented by picture signs, or ideograms, and so also were the names of deities and most proper names. The greater number of the cuneiform groups were then used in a phonetic as well as an ideographic sense, and without any correlation between the phonetic and actual meaning. Thus the symbol for the word "father" had the phonetic value of the syllable at, but "father" in the Babylonian language is abu. In Babylon this system of writing became even more complicated by the fact that different meanings and different phonetic values were ascribed to the same cuneiform groups. There are symbols which have four different phonetic values and four different meanings.389 In order to lessen to some degree the great difficulty in understanding the meaning which was caused by the varying use of the same symbol as an ideogram and a sound, and the multiplicity of meanings and sounds attached to certain signs – key-symbols were placed before the names of gods, lands, cities, and persons, and occasionally one or more syllables were attached to ideograms of more than one meaning, which formed the termination of the word intended to be expressed by the ideogram in the particular instance.

Complicated and difficult as this writing was, it was applied on a considerable scale in Assyria and Babylonia, and it remained in use even after the fall of the Babylonian empire, as is shown by bricks and tablets of the time of Cyrus, Cambyses, Artaxerxes I., and the Seleucidæ.390 These are principally records of business or legal matters, of which, in this way, a selection has come down to us extending from the times of Hammurabi (p. 261) to the first century B.C. The Armenians adopted this system from the Babylonians and Assyrians; and they also made it shorter and simpler. In the same way the Medes and Persians borrowed it. But in the Persian inscriptions of the Achæmenids it has already become a mere phonetic mode of writing but little removed from an ordinary alphabet. Beyond doubt the Babylonian system was known to the Western Semitic tribes; it even passed over from Syria to Cyprus, where we find it assuming a peculiar form, and displaying throughout the character of a syllabic mode of writing. At the same time among the Syrians and Phenicians a cursive method was developed, just as in Egypt the hieratic writing grew up beside the hieroglyphic. This cursive writing of the Western Semitic nations has not, however, arisen out of the cuneiform symbols, but out of the hieratic writing of the Egyptians. The Phenicians must claim the merit of having abbreviated still further, for their own use, the cursive writing of the Egyptians. But the picture-symbols of the hieratic writing were not merely contracted and simplified; the mixture of pictorial, syllabic, and alphabetic symbols – beyond which the Egyptians did not rise – was abandoned, and then for the first time an alphabet was discovered. This Phenician alphabet was in use in Syria as early as the year 1000 B.C.391 In Babylonia also this alphabetic writing was in use beside the cuneiform. We find it in Babylon side by side with the corresponding cuneiform on a weight, of which the inscription tells us: "Thirty minæ of standard weight: the palace of Irba Merodach (Marduk) king of Babylon." The exact date of this king cannot be ascertained: we only know that he must have belonged to the old kingdom. Assyrian weights with inscriptions in the Phenician alphabet, beside the cuneiform inscriptions, are found of the eighth century B.C., the time of King Tiglath Pilesar II., Shalmanesar IV., and Sennacherib.392