[1624] The largest planet was brought into connection with the chief god of Babylon, Marduk; the bright star of morning and evening with Ishtar; the red planet with Nergal, god of war, and the others with Ninib and Nebo respectively. The Romans changed these names into those of their corresponding deities, Jupiter, Venus, Mars, Saturn, and Mercury.
[1625] Cumont, Les religions orientales dans le paganisme romain, chap. vii, and Eng. tr., The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism; id., Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and Romans; Bouché-Leclercq, L'astrologie grecque and Histoire de la divination dans l'antiquité.
[1626] Medieval belief in astral power is embodied in the English word 'influence,' properly the inflow from the stars (so in Milton's L'Allegro, 121 f., "ladies whose bright eyes rain influence"). An astrologer was often attached to a royal court or to the household of some great person, his duty being to keep his patron informed as to the future.
[1627] Odyssey, xvii, 541 ff. The fear of a sneeze (which must be followed by some form of 'God bless you!') belongs in a different category; the danger is that a hurtful spirit may enter the sneezer's body, or that his soul may depart.
[1628] Muir, The Caliphate, p. 112.
[1629] Hastings, Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, ii, 362; Ellis, Tshi, p. 202; id., Yoruba, p. 97; cf. Hollis, The Masai, p. 324.
[1630] 1 Sam. xxiii, 2.
[1631] 1 Sam. xiv, 38-42 (see the Septuagint text).
[1632] Ezek. xxi, 21 [26].
[1633] Moallakat of Imru'l-Kais, ver. 22.