No special
attributes are ascribed to this goddess, who merely accompanies her
husband in most of the places where he is mentioned by name.

Such, then, seem to have been the chief gods worshipped by the early
Chaldaeans. It would be an endless as well as an unprofitable task to
give an account of the inferior deities. Their name is "Legion;" and
they are, for the most part, too vague and shadowy for effective
description. A vast number are merely local; and it may be suspected
that where this is the case the great gods of the Pantheon come before us
repeatedly, disguised under rustic titles. We have, moreover, no clue at
present to this labyrinth, on which, even with greater knowledge, it
would perhaps be best for us to forbear to enter; since there is no
reason to expect that we should obtain any really valuable results from
its exploration.

A few words, however, may be added upon the subject of the Chaldaean
cosmogony. Although the only knowledge that we possess on this point is
derived from Berosus, and therefore we cannot be sure that we have really
the belief of the ancient people, yet, judging from internal evidence of
character, we may safely pronounce Berosus' account not only archaic, but
in its groundwork and essence a primeval tradition, more ancient probably
than most of the gods whom we have been considering.

"In the beginning," says this ancient legend, "all was darkness and
water, and therein were generated monstrous animals of strange and
peculiar forms. There were men with two wings, and some even with four,
and with two faces; and others with two heads, a man's and a woman's on
one body; and there were men with the heads and horns of goats, and men
with hoofs like horses, and some with the upper parts of a man joined to
the lower parts of a horse, like centaurs; and there were bulls with
human heads, dogs with four bodies and with fishes' tails, men and horses
with dogs' heads, creatures with the heads and bodies of horses, but with
the tails of fish, and other animals mixing the forms of various beasts.
Moreover there were monstrous fish and reptiles and serpents, and divers
other creatures, which had borrowed something from each other's shapes;
of all which the likenesses are still preserved in the temple of Belus.
A woman ruleth them all, by name Omorka, which is in Chaldee Thalatth,
and in Greek Thalassa (or "the sea"). Then Belus appeared, and split the
woman in twain; and of the o