Scaliger derives the name of Beel-zebub, the false god, from Baalim-Zebabim, which signifies lord of sacrifices. This deity was worshipped during the time of our Saviour, who is accused by the Pharisees of casting out devils by Beel-zebub, the prince of the devils. So Holman Hunt, in his picture of the finding of the Saviour in the Temple, with fine perception, places a fly-whisk in the hand of a child.[19] A child is here propounding to his elders a purer and loftier system of ethics than had heretofore been dreamed of; a child, likewise, banishes the servants of Belial.
With the Jewish writers of the Middle Ages the worship of Baal frequently signified the practising of the rites of the Christian religion; thus Rabbi Joseph Ben Meir in his Chronicles states that Clovis forsook his God and worshipped Baal, and that a high place was built at Paris for Baal Dionysius, i.e. the Cathedral of St. Denis.[20]
The Assyrians employed the tall standard and sceptral fans in a precisely similar way to the Egyptians. In the restoration of the palace of Sargon (Khorsabad), compiled by Felix Thomas, given by Perrot and Chipiez, History of Art in Chaldæa and Assyria, vol. ii. p. 24, two enormous frond standards are placed at the entrance to the Harem Court, these being circular, formed of palm fronds in bronze gilt. ‘In India, as in Japan,’ to quote again Sir George Birdwood, ‘the standard is often blazoned with some totemistic, symbolical, or heraldic device, and it was probably so blazoned in Assyria, for from Assyria the practice spread to Greece and Rome of using such devices on both standards and shields. Later this ritual was revived by the Saracens, and was spread over mediæval Europe by the Crusaders returning from the Holy Land.’
The Assyrian disc-standards were probably of brass or other metal, fixed to the inside of the chariot. Two devices appear on the monuments—the Divine Archer standing on a bull, and two bulls running in opposite directions. These were enclosed in a circle at the end of a long staff ornamented with streamers and tassels.[21]
The Assyrians employed the primitive plaited fan, used in Egypt, both crescent-shaped, square, and triangular. On a relief from Nimroud, in the British Museum, in a circular arrangement divided into four compartments, representing the interior of a castle with towers and battlements, a eunuch is waving in his right hand, over a stand on which are vases and bowls, a square, flag-shaped fan, certainly of the plaited variety; in the left hand is what appears to be a fly-whisk.
On a silver dish in the Strogonoff collection illustrated in Orientalische Teppiche, Alois Riegl, a Sassanian monarch is seated, cross-legged, holding a tazza, and attended by two servitors, one of whom waves a plaited flag-fan of oblong shape. The dish, which bears strong traces of Indian influence, is probably of the period of Varannes II., A.D. 273-277.
The swinging-fan, suspended from the ceiling, and operated by pulling a cord, is an ancient device for cooling the air of rooms. The testimony of an Assyrian bas-relief from Nineveh indicates its use at the period to which these sculptures belong—seventh to tenth century B.C. Wicquefort, in his translation of the embassy of Garcias de Figueron, gives the name of fan to a kind of chimney or ventiduct, in use among the Persians, to furnish air and wind into their houses, without which the heat would be insupportable.[22]
A variant of this device for ventilating rooms is recorded in Chinese annals. Under the Han dynasty, B.C. 205-A.D. 25, a skilful workman at Ch’ang—and named Ting Huan—made a fan of seven large wheels 10 feet in diameter, the whole turned by a single man.
The luxurious Guez de Balzac, in the twentieth letter, written from Rome in 1621, to the Cardinal de la Villette, with his customary extravagant hyperbole, describes his method of guarding against the heat during the broiling month of July—‘Four servants constantly fan my apartments; they raise wind enough to make a tempestuous sea.’