In a word, the second triad formed a more homogeneous whole when Ishtar still belonged to it, and it is entirely owing to the presence of this goddess in it that we are able to understand its plan and purpose; it was essentially astrological, and it was intended that none should be enrolled in it but the manifest leaders of the constellations. Ramman, on the contrary, had nothing to commend him for a position alongside the moon and sun; he was not a celestial body, he had no definitely shaped form, but resembled an aggregation of gods rather than a single deity. By the addition of Ramman to the triad, the void occasioned by the removal of Ishtar was filled up in a blundering way. We must, however, admit that the theologians must have found it difficult to find any one better fitted for the purpose: when Venus was once set along with the rest of the planets, there was nothing left in the heavens which was sufficiently brilliant to replace her worthily. The priests were compelled to take the most powerful deity they knew after the other five—the lord of the atmosphere and the thunder.*
The gods of the triads were married, but their goddesses for the most part had neither the liberty nor the important functions of the Egyptian goddesses.** They were content, in their modesty, to be eclipsed behind the personages of their husbands, and to spend their lives in the shade, as the women of Asiatic countries still do. It would appear, moreover, that there was no trouble taken about them until it was too late—when it was desired, for instance, to explain the affiliation of the immortals. Anu and Bel were bachelors to start with. When it was determined to assign to them female companions, recourse was had to the procedure adopted by the Egyptians in a similar case: there was added to their names the distinctive suffix of the feminine gender, and in this manner two grammatical goddesses were formed, Anat and Belit, whose dispositions give some indications of this accidental birth. There was always a vague uncertainty about the parts they had to play, and their existence itself was hardly more than a seeming one. Anat sometimes represented a feminine heaven, and differed from Anu only in her sex. At times she was regarded as the antithesis of Anu, i.e. as the earth in contradistinction to the heaven. Belit, as far as we can distinguish her from other persons to whom the title “lady” was attributed, shared with Bel the rule over the earth and the regions of darkness where the dead were confined. The wife of Ea was distinguished by a name which was not derived from that of her husband, but she was not animated by a more intense vitality than Anat or Belit: she was called Damkina, the lady of the soil, and she personified in an almost passive manner the earth united to the water which fertilized it. The goddesses of the second triad were perhaps rather less artificial in their functions. Ningal, doubtless, who ruled along with Sin at Uru, was little more than an incarnate epithet. Her name means “the great lady,” “the queen,” and her person is the double of that of her husband; as he is the man-moon, she is the woman-moon, his beloved, and the mother of his children Shamash and Ishtar. But A or Sirrida enjoyed an indisputable authority alongside Shamash: she never lost sight of the fact that she had been a sun like Shamash, a disk-god before she was transformed into a goddess. Shamash, moreover, was surrounded by an actual harem, of which Sirridà was the acknowledged queen, as he himself was its king, and among its members Gula, the great, and Anunit, the daughter of Sin, the morning star, found a place. Shala, the compassionate, was also included among them; she was subsequently bestowed upon Ramman. They were all goddesses of ancient lineage, and each had been previously worshipped on her own account when the Sumerian people held sway in Chaldæa: as soon as the Semites gained the upper hand, the powers of these female deities became enfeebled, and they were distributed among the gods. There was but one of them, Nana, the doublet of Ishtar, who had succeeded in preserving her liberty: when her companions had been reduced to comparative insignificance, she was still acknowledged as queen and mistress in her city of Eridu. The others, notwithstanding the enervating influence to which they were usually subject in the harem, experienced at times inclinations to break into rebellion, and more than one of them, shaking off the yoke of her lord, had proclaimed her independence: Anunit, for instance, tearing herself away from the arms of Shamash, had vindicated, as his sister and his equal, her claim to the half of his dominion. Sippara was a double city, or rather there were two neighbouring Sipparàs, one distinguished as the city of the Sun, “Sippara sha Shamash,” while the other gave lustre to Anunit in assuming the designation of “Sippara sha Anunitum.” Rightly interpreted, these family arrangements of the gods had but one reason for their existence—the necessity of explaining without coarseness those parental connections which the theological classification found it needful to establish between the deities constituting the two triads. In Chaldæa as in Egypt there was no inclination to represent the divine families as propagating their species otherwise than by the procedure observed in human families: the union of the goddesses with the gods thus legitimated their offspring.
* Their embarrassment is shown in the way in which they have
classed this god. In the original triad, Ishtar, being the
smallest of the three heavenly bodies, naturally took the
third place. Ramman, on the contrary, had natural affinities
with the elemental group, and belonged to Anu, Bel, Ea,
rather than to Sin and Shamash. So we find him sometimes in
the third place, sometimes in the first of the second triad,
and this post of eminence is so natural to him, that
Assyriologists have preserved it from the beginning, and
describe the triad as composed, not of Sin, Shamash, and
Ramman, but of Ramman, Sin, and Shamash, or even of Sin,
Ramman, and Shamash.
1. Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Loftus. The
original, a small stele of terra-cotta, is in the British
Museum. The date of this representation is uncertain. Ramman
stands upon the mountain which supports the heaven.
** The passive and almost impersonal character of the
majority of the Babylonian and Assyrian goddesses is well
known. The majority must have been independent at the
outset, in the Sumerian period, and were married later on,
under the influence of Semitic ideas.
The triads were, therefore, nothing more than theological fictions. Each of them was really composed of six members, and it was thus really a council of twelve divinities which the priests of Uruk had instituted to attend to the affairs of the universe; with this qualification, that the feminine half of the assembly rarely asserted itself, and contributed but an insignificant part to the common work. When once the great divisions had been arranged, and the principal functionaries designated, it was still necessary to work out the details, and to select v agents to preserve an order among them. Nothing happens by chance in this world, and the most insignificant events are determined by previsional arrangements, and decisions arrived at a long time previously. The gods assembled every morning in a hall, situated near the gates of the sun in the east, and there deliberated on the events of the day. The sagacious Ea submitted to them the fates which are about to be fulfilled, and caused a record of them to be made in the chamber of destiny on tablets which Shamash or Merodach carried with them to scatter everywhere on his way; but he who should be lucky enough to snatch these tablets from him would make himself master of the world for that day. This misfortune had arisen only once, at the beginning of the ages. Zu, the storm-bird, who lives with his wife and children on Mount Sabu under the protection of Bel, and who from this elevation pounces down upon the country to ravage it, once took it into his head to make himself equal to the supreme gods. He forced his way at an early hour into the chamber of destiny before the sun had risen: he perceived within it the royal insignia of Bel, “the mitre of his power, the garment of his divinity,—the fatal tablets of his divinity, Zu perceived them. He perceived the father of the gods, the god who is the tie between heaven and earth,—and the desire of ruling took possession of his heart;—yea, Zu perceived the father of the gods, the god who is the tie between heaven and earth,—and the desire of ruling took possession of his heart,—‘I will take the fatal tablets of the gods, I myself,—and the oracles of all the gods, it is I who will give them forth;—I will install myself on the throne, I will send forth decrees,—I will manage the whole of the Igigi.’—And his heart plotted warfare;—lying in wait on the threshold of the hall, he watched for the dawn.—When Bel had poured out the shining waters,—had installed himself on the throne, and donned the crown, Zu took away the fatal tablets from his hand,—he seized power, and the authority to give forth decrees,—the god Zu, he flew away and concealed himself in the mountains.” Bel immediately cried out, he was inflamed with anger, and ravaged the world with the fire of his wrath. “Anu opened his mouth, he spake,—he said to the gods his offspring:—‘Who will conquer the god Zu?—He will make his name great in every land.’—Bamman, the supreme, the son of Anu, was called, and Anu himself gave to him his orders;—yea, Bamman, the supreme, the son of Anu, was called, and Anu himself gave to him his orders.—‘Go, my son Kamman, the valiant, since nothing resists thy attack;—conquer Zu by thine arm, and thy name shall be great among the great gods,—among the gods, thy brothers, thou shalt have no equal: sanctuaries shall be built to thee, and if thou buildest for thyself thy cities in the “four houses of the world,” * —thy cities shall extend over all the terrestrial mountain! ‘Be valiant, then, in the sight of the gods, and may thy name be strong.’ Bamman answers, he addresses this bpeech to Anu his father:—‘Father, who will go to the inaccessible mountains? Who is the equal of Zu among the gods, thy offspring? He has carried off in his hand the fatal tablets,—he has seized power and authority to give forth decrees,—Zu thereupon flew away and hid himself in his mountain.—Now, the word of his mouth is like that of the god who unites heaven and earth;—-my power is no more than clay,—and all the gods must bow before him.’” Anu sent for the god Bara, the son of Ishtar, to help him, and exhorted him in the same language he had addressed to Ramman: Bara refused to attempt the enterprise. Shamash, called in his turn, at length consented to set out for Mount Sabu: he triumphed over the storm-bird, tore the fatal tablets from him, and brought him before Ea as a prisoner.
* Literally, “Construct thy cities in the four regions of
the world (cf. pp. 12, 13 of the present work), and thy
cities will extend to the mountain of the earth.” Anu would
appear to have promised to Ramman a monopoly; if he wished
to build cities which would recognize him as their patron,
these cities will cover the entire earth.
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layard.