tion.

Such are the few conclusions concerning the manners of the Chaldaeans
which alone we seem to have any right to form with our present means of
information.

CHAPTER VII.

RELIGION.

The religion of the Chaldaeans, from the very earliest times to which the
monuments carry us back, was, in its outward aspect, a polytheism of a
very elaborate character. It is quite possible that there may have been
esoteric explanations, known to the priests and the more learned, which,
resolving the personages of the Pantheon into the powers of nature,
reconciled the apparent multiplicity of gods with monotheism, or even
with atheism. So far, however, as outward appearances were concerned,
the worship was grossly polytheistic. Various deities, whom it was not
considered at all necessary to trace to a single stock, divided the
allegiance of the people, and even of the kings, who regarded with equal
respect, and glorified with equally exalted epithets, some fifteen or
sixteen personages. Next to these principal gods were a far more
numerous assemblage of inferior or secondary divinities, less often
mentioned, and regarded as less worthy of honor, but still recognized
generally through the country. Finally, the Pantheon contained a host of
mere local gods or genii, every town and almost every village in
Babylonia being under the protection of its own particular divinity.

It will be impossible to give a complete account of this vast and
complicated system. The subject is still but partially worked out by
cuneiform scholars; the difficulties in the way of understanding it are
great; and in many portions to which special attention has been paid it
is strangely perplexing and bewildering. All that will be attempted in
the present place is to convey an idea of the general character of the
Chaldaean religion, and to give some information with regard to the
principal deities.

In the first place, it must be noticed that the religion was to a certain
extent astral. The heaven itself, the sun, the moon, and the five
planets, have each their representative in the Chaldaean Pantheon among
the chief objects of worship. At the same time it is to be observed that
the astral element is not universal, but partial; and that, even where it
has place, it is but one aspect of the mythology, not by any means its
full and complete exposition. The Chaldaean religion even here is far
from being mere Sabaeanism--the simple worship of th