Had there been then myth-makers in Babylonia, the myth would have been the converse of the Egyptian one. There were myth makers, and precisely such a myth! It is called the Myth of Marduk and Tiāmat.
The chief change had been in the sun-god. When the northern cult conquered, the exotic worship of the autumn and winter constellations was abolished, and they were pictured as destroyed under the form of Tiāmat, although the worship was once as prominent as that of Set in Egypt. We have the later developed northern spring-sun Marduk destroying the evil gods or spirits of winter; and chief among them, of course, the Goat-fish, which, from its central position, would represent the winter solstice.
The myth, then, has to do with the fact that the autumn-and winter-sun-worship of Eridu was conquered by the spring-sun-worship of the north.
If we accept this, we can compare the Egyptian and Babylonian myths from the astronomical point of view in the following manner; and a wonderful difference in the astronomical observations made, as well as in the form, though not in the basis, of astronomical mythology in Egypt and in Babylonia is before our eyes. Astronomically in both countries we are dealing with the dawn preceding sunrise on New Year's Day, and the accompanying extinction of the stars.
But which stars? In Egypt there is no question that the stars thus fading were thought of as being chiefly represented by the stars which never set—that is, the circumpolar ones, and among them the Hippopotamus chiefly. In Babylonia we have to do with the ecliptic constellations.
Now I believe that it is generally recognised that Marduk was relatively a late intruder into the Babylonian pantheon. If he were a god brought from the north by a conquering race (whether conquering by craft or kraft does not matter), and his worship replaced that of ['I]a, have we not, mutatis mutandis, the exact counterpart of the Egyptian myth of Horus? In the one case we have a southern star-worshipping race ousting north-star worshippers, in the other a northern equinoctial sun-worshipping race ousting the cult of the moon and solstitial sun. In the one case we have Horus, the rising sun of every day, slaying the Hippopotamus (that is, the modern Draco), the regent of night; in the other, Marduk, the spring-sun-god, slaying the animals of Tiāmat—that is apparently the origin of the Scorpion, Capricornus, and Pisces, the constellations of the winter months, which formed a belt across the sky from east to west at the vernal equinox.
The above suggested basis of the Babylonian mythology regarding the demons of Tiāmat, established when the sun was in Taurus at the spring equinox, enables us to understand clearly the much later (though similar) imagery employed when the sun at the equinox had passed from Taurus to Aries—when the Zend Avesta was written, and after the twelve zodiacal constellations had been established. We find them divided equally into the kingdoms of Ormazd and Ahriman. Here I quote Dupuis:—
"L'agneau est aux portes de l'empire du bien et de la lumière, et la balance à celles du mal et des ténèbres; l'un est le premier des signes supérieurs, et l'autre des signes inférieurs.
"Les six signes supérieurs comprennent les six mille de Dieu, et les six signes inférieurs les six mille du diable. Le bonheur de l'homme dure sous les premiers signes, et son malheur commence au septième, et dure sous les six signes affectés à Ahriman, ou au chef des ténèbres.
"Sous les six signes du règne du bien et la lumière, qui sont agneau, taureau gémeaux, cancer, lion et vierge ou épi, nous avons marqué les états variés de l'air et de la terre, qui sont le résultat de l'action du bon principe. Ainsi on lit sous l'agneau ou sous le premier mille ces mots, printemps, zephyr, verdure; sous le taureau, sève et fleur; sous les gémeaux, chaleurs et longs jours; sous le cancer, été, beaux temps; sous le lion, épis et moissons; et sous la vierge, vendanges.