e general resemblance of their theory
of the universe to the Egyptian theory leads me to believe
that they, no less than the Egyptians (cf. vol. i. pp. 24,
25, of the present work), for along time believed that the
sun and moon revolved round the earth in a horizontal plane.

*** This obscure phrase seems to be explained, if we
remember that the Chaldaean, like the Egyptian day, dated
from the rising of one moon to the rising of the following
moon; for instance, from six o'clock one evening to about
six o'clock the next evening. The moon, the star of night,
thus marks the appearance of each day and "indicates the
days."

**** The word here translated by "disk" is literally the
royal cap, decorated with horns, "Agu," which Sin, the moon-
god, wears on his head.

The heavens having been put in order,* he set about peopling the earth,
and the gods, who had so far passively and perhaps powerlessly watched
him at his work, at length made up their minds to assist him. They
covered the soil with verdure, and all collectively "made living beings
of many kinds. The cattle of the fields, the wild beasts of the fields,
the reptiles of the fields, they fashioned them and made of them
creatures of life."** According to one legend, these first animals
had hardly left the hands of their creators, when, not being able to
withstand the glare of the light, they fell dead one after the other.
Then Merodach, seeing that the earth was again becoming desolate, and
that its fertility was of no use to any one, begged his father Ea to cut
off his head and mix clay with the blood which welled from the trunk,
then from this clay to fashion new beasts and men, to whom the virtues
of this divine blood would give the necessary strength to enable them
to resist the air and light. At first they led a somewhat wretched
existence, and "lived without rule after the manner of beasts. But,
in the first year, appeared a monster endowed with human reason named
Oannes, who rose from out of the Erythraean sea, at the point where it
borders Babylonia. He had the whole body of a fish, but above his fish's
head he had another head which was that of a man, and human feet emerged
from beneath his fish's tail; he had a human voice, and his image is
preserved to this day. He passed the day in the midst of men without
taking any food; he taught them the use of letters, sciences and arts of
all k