Istar of Babylon: A Phantasy

by Margaret Horton Potter

About ten days after his leaving the temple, Charmides had cause of rather a curious nature for regretting that he was no longer in a situation to know the inner aspects of certain things. A proclamation had gone through the city striking astonishment to every heart, and to none more than those of the priesthood. It was to the effect that, on the first day of the month of Duzu, twenty new gods would take up their residence in the Great City.

Poor Nabu-Nahid, reading aright the threatening signs of his own and his son's unpopularity, believed that the time had come for his great act. As a priest of the highest order he was empowered to command the high-priest of every temple, with the exception of Amraphel alone, that he, together with two Enû, two Asipû, and two Barû, should form part of the great procession of strange gods when these entered the city. Moreover, each temple was to be especially purified and prepared for the reception of a new statue, and henceforth double services must take place in each temple, that both the old god and the new one might be properly honored. The date for the procession was set for the last of Sivân. A document explanatory of the whole matter, and signed and sealed by the house of Shamash, was sent to each of the priests, and to every monastery of Zicarû; and these were also read aloud in the temples by eunuchs, till all Babylon was informed of the king's act, and all Babylon prepared for the holy day.

That morning dawned like every other morning of the season, in a flush of fierce crimson, gradually melting into the living gold that flooded the sky with a furnace heat and poured a shower of burning light upon the river with its clinging city, and over the yellow desert far beyond. Holiday had been proclaimed, and at an early hour every street leading to a temple was packed on either side with gayly dressed men and women and their children. Charmides went alone. Ramûa could not walk, and Beltani had preferred remaining with her to standing for hours in the glare of the sun, waiting for the procession. Both women, however, had begged Charmides to go and see it, that he might describe it to them on his return. Therefore the Greek took up his position on the edge of the square of Istar, into the deserted temple of which the old and sacred statue of the goddess of Erech was to be carried first of all.

The crowd here was especially thick. Only by vigorous pushing and squeezing, and some very rapid talking, could Charmides find a place for himself. Having reached a vantage-point, however, he proceeded to fall into a reverie—a reverie of a year ago, when he had stood waiting for a pageant, an utter stranger to the city, hungry, friendless, and homesick. He could recall every trivial incident of the day with ease, from Baba and the goat's milk she gave him, to the long afternoon with Ramûa, now for nine months his wife. He had got to a philosophical stage in his dreams when a light hand was laid on his arm, and he looked up to find Baba at his elbow. He was glad to see her, glad of a companion to talk to; and so they two watched the procession together, bent to the dust before the little black images dotting the line in twenty places, and borne each on its golden platform on the shoulders of six eunuchs.

Nabu-Nahid, in white, drove first of all. Behind him, frowning and stiff, and in anything but a pleasant frame of mind, was Vul-Ramân in his car. Belshazzar came farther along the line, standing unconcernedly in his place, his white muslin robe falling to his feet, the goat-skin fastened over his left shoulder. Everywhere he was greeted with murmurs of disapproval; but though he could hardly have failed to hear some of them, his face gave no sign of it. Quiet, immovable, slightly scornful in his expression, he endured the mental and physical discomforts of the day with a nonchalance that would have deceived Amraphel himself.

The procession left the little temple by the river-bank at ten o'clock in the morning and broke ranks in the square of the temple of Marduk just at sunset, with the last ceremony concluded—Nabonidus' last card played. Twenty new gods would watch over the city that night, and twenty extra sacrifices would take place in their honor on the morrow. Perhaps it was as well that Nabonidus, in his pathetic faith, should not have heard the comments of the tired temple-servants as they worked through the night, preparing for the next day's services. Twenty new gods asleep in Babylon—twice twenty demons at work in the minds of men. Could the outcome of the fast-approaching struggle still look doubtful to any reasonable thinker whose heart was on neither side?

Belshazzar and his father drove home together from the square of Marduk. Weary as he was, Nabu-Nahid was in a joyous frame of mind. He talked incessantly about the success of his great experiment. Secure in the favor of Heaven, he could easily cast aside all fears of earthly disfavor, and his whole person so radiated delight that Belshazzar's mood passed unnoticed, his expression of unhappiness was transfigured by the sunset glare into one as rapt and as joyous as his father's own.

When at last they two dismounted together before the palace gates, Belshazzar's heart gave a great throb of relief. He had that day felt against him all the hostility of that Great City, and though they were his own, and he should be called upon some day perhaps to die for them, yet he felt a sensation akin to hatred for all the people whose superstitious and pitifully cringing hearts could be moved by the priesthood to moods and beliefs inimical in every particular to the hopes and plans of their temporal lords.