armed against them than were the gods, was ever meeting
with them. "Up there, they are howling, here they lie in wait,--they are
great worms let loose by heaven--powerful ones whose clamour rises above
the city--who pour water in torrents from heaven, sons who have come
out of the bosom of the earth.--They twine around the high rafters,
the great rafters, like a crown;--they take their way from house to
house,--for the door cannot stop them, nor bar the way, nor repulse
them,--for they creep like a serpent under the door--they insinuate
themselves like the air between the folding doors,--they separate the
bride from the embraces of the bridegroom,--they snatch the child from
between the knees of the man,--they entice the unwary from out of his
fruitful house,--they are the threatening voice which pursues him from
behind." Their malice extended even to animals: "They force the raven
to fly away on the wing,--and they make the swallow to escape from its
nest;--they cause the bull to flee, they cause the lamb to flee--they,
the bad demons who lay snares."

The most audacious among them did not fear at times to attack the gods
of light; on one occasion, in the infancy of the world, they had sought
to dispossess them and reign in their stead. Without any warning they
had climbed the heavens, and fallen upon Sin, the moon-god; they had
repulsed Shamash, the Sun, and Eamman, both of whom had come to the
rescue; they had driven Ishtar and Anu from their thrones: the whole
firmament would have become a prey to them, had not Bel and Nusku, Ea
and Merodach, intervened at the eleventh hour, and succeeded in hurling
them down to the earth, after a terrible battle. They never completely
recovered from this reverse, and the gods raised up as rivals to them a
class of friendly genii--the "Igigi," who were governed by five heavenly
Anunnas.

[Illustration: 141.jpg SIN DELIVERED BY MERODACH FROM THE ASSAULT OF THE
SEVEN EVIL SPIRITS.]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from an Assyrian intaglio published
by Layard.

The earthly Anunnas, the Anunnaki, had as their chiefs seven sons
of Bel, with bodies of lions, tigers, and serpents: "the sixth was a
tempestuous wind which obeyed neither god nor king,--the seventh, a
whirlwind, a desolating storm which destroys everything,"--"Seven,
seven,--in the depth of the abyss of waters they are seven,--and
destroyers of heaven they are seven.--They have grown up in the depths
of the abyss, in