Istar of Babylon: A Phantasy

by Margaret Horton Potter

Here was Charmides at last at his journey's end, standing in the heart of the Great City, upon the Â-Ibur-Sabû, the ziggurat of Nebo on his right hand, the house of the high-priest of Bel opposite, the broad Euphrates winding through the sunshine far in front, and, somewhere to the north, moving towards him from her holy temple, Istar, the living goddess of the city of kings. It all seemed a dream to him now. The miles that lay between him and his home had put him into another life, still unreal, but always more and more tangible as he looked around and moved and breathed. The great multitude hardly caught his attention. He wished himself free to think under the spell of the new world. But now, far up the street, could be seen a whirling cloud of dust, in which low-moving forms were all but hidden. These presently resolved into three droves of animals—goats, bullocks, and sheep for the sacrifice, driven by eunuchs of the temple. The horns of the bullocks were gilded, and the necks of the smaller beasts were twined with wreaths of flowers—just as the hecatombs of Zeus were ornamented at home. Charmides watched the flocks pass with joy at his heart. The familiar sight made Babylon homelike to him. His fingers sought the strings of his lyre, and he hummed to himself a genial little tune, that ceased when there rose about him a murmur of exclamations, followed by a quick silence. Charmides turned his eyes to the north. There again was dust; this time gleaming with brass-work and glinting with trappings of horses. Into the silence came a distant sound of cymbals and wooden flutes. The great procession was moving—was coming. She was coming—Istar—the Lady of Babylon—the Divine One.

The crowd on either side of the street voluntarily pressed back to allow a wider space for the passage of the gods. No one was speaking now, and Charmides himself was breathless with expectation. The wavering dust-cloud advanced towards the square, and the blare of trumpets grew louder, yet the procession seemed barely to move. Distant shouts of praise and acclamation could be heard, and there was a short, silent struggle for place. That was all. Everything waited.

Presently a phalanx of men, marching in excellent order and at a rapid pace, resolved from the dust and passed the house of the high-priest. These wore the regulation priest's tunic of white muslin; but they had no goat-skins on the shoulder, and the knives in their girdles proclaimed them slayers of the sacrifice. They were, in fact, Zicarû, or under-priests, from the monastery below the temple of Nebo. Behind them came a chariot, in which stood one man, a tall, muscular fellow, dark and bearded, with the goat-skin over his left arm, a golden girdle about his waist, and a rosetted tiara on his head—Vul-Ramân of the great Bit-Yakin,[5] high-priest of Nebo, and, next to Amraphel of Bel, the most powerful official of the priesthood. Behind him, borne on the shoulders of six Enû, or elders, and surrounded by a group of sixteen anointers (Pasisû), and officials of the libation (Ramkû), was the great bronze statue of Bel-Marduk, the father-god of the city, before whose passage the people bent their heads and prayed. After this idol came his priest Amraphel, ruler of the Babylonish orders, in his dazzling chariot, wearing a leopard-skin over his cloudy tunic. Charmides looked into the face of this man, and in the one glance experienced a curious sensation—a sense of evil that he never quite forgot.

Now there came an apparently endless string of temple-servants, priests in chariots, and little gods carried by their worshippers. Also there were groups of prophets (Asipû), dream-interpreters (Makhatû), and the great seer Nâbu-bani-âkhi. Charmides watched them all go by without great interest, for his expectation was becoming keener. Each moment he thought to perceive, in the distance, her; and by the heart-throb that followed the thought he knew that he should recognize her presence from afar. As time passed, however, he began to grow fearful lest, after all, she was not; lest Kabir, first, and afterwards Hodo and the rest, had spoken falsely, had deceived him, had brought him to this great, lonely place, out of his world, with no hope of return, and no prospect in life. The thought brought a spasm of fear to his heart. Yet—yet—there, up the line, was a great burst of music from a band of musicians that surrounded a new, dazzling chariot, in which stood a solitary figure, clad—Charmides turned faint and shut his eyes. Then, hearing shouts of acclamation, he opened them again, fearfully, and looked up to behold—a man.

The first feeling was wholly of bewilderment. Then, as the rhapsode's eyes saw more, they forgot to fall. If Istar of Babylon was a man, at least he was one to look upon with wonder. Never before had Charmides beheld so imperial a face. Never had he imagined such features. The skin, as compared with his own, was very dark; yet it was whiter than that of any other Chaldee. Black hair, cut almost short, clustered about the head. The face was smooth-shaven, after the custom of the royal house; and, though Charmides could not see it from where he stood, the eyes were blue—the deep, purplish blue of a storm-cloud. The man wore the dress of the priesthood, yet it went incongruously with his bearing. Power and the habit of command stood out in every line of his figure, in the Zeus-like poise of the head, in the hand that controlled the two powerful black horses which drew the chariot along. If this were Istar—well, Charmides could hardly regret. So much he muttered aloud, in Phœnician. To his amazement, the words were answered from behind him:

"That is no Istar, fool! That is Belshazzar, the prince royal, the tyrant of Babylon."

"And Istar—the goddess!" cried the Greek, turning to the man that spoke.

"The creature Istar? She comes," was the frowning reply made by the hook-nosed, ill-kempt man at his shoulder.

Charmides said no more. His pulses were throbbing violently. At a little distance he perceived a new vehicle, a triumphal-car, at the approach of which the great masses of people to the right and left sank, as a man, to their knees, bowing to the dust. Charmides raised his eyes and beheld her sitting upon the broad platform of the car. And as he looked, as he knelt, even as his brow touched the ground, Charmides knew that he had not been deceived, that rumor had spoken truth, because more than truth could not here be spoken. Yet when she had passed, the Greek did not know her. He had not seen so much as a line of her figure. She swam in a glory of light that radiated from herself. Her head had been crowned, yet with what he did not know. His heart and head were afire, and he heeded nothing more of the procession. Most of all, he did not hear the words of the man behind him, who had knelt with the rest at the approach of the car, because fear of death is a great leveller; but had the words that he muttered been heard and understood by the populace, it is doubtful whether all his influence had saved his life from them.

"Asha confound this instrument of evil! Yahveh's wrath light upon her soul! God of Judea visit her with the fires of Sheol!" And then the former servant of Nebuchadrezzar the Great rose and turned away through the crowd. Charmides later sought vainly for his Phœnician-tongued informant, whom men to-day call Daniel the prophet.