s: those who were incarnations of
the earth, the waters, the stars, or the heavens, became thenceforth
so nearly allied to each other that we are tempted to consider them
as being doubles of a single god, worshipped under different names
in different localities. Their primitive forms can only be clearly
distinguished when they are stripped of the uniform in which they are
all clothed.

The sky-gods and the earth-gods had been more numerous at the outset
than they were subsequently. We recognize as such Anu, the immovable
firmament, and the ancient Bel, the lord of men and of the soil on which
they live, and into whose bosom they return after, death; but there
were others, who in historic times had partially or entirely lost their
primitive character,--such as Nergal, Ninib, Dumuzi; or, among the
goddesses, Damkina, Esharra, and even Ishtar herself, who, at the
beginning of their existence, had represented only the earth, or one
of its most striking aspects. For instance, Nergal and Ninib were the
patrons of agriculture and protectors of the soil, Dumuzi was the
ground in spring whose garment withered at the first approach of summer,
Damkina was the leafy mould in union with fertilizing moisture, Esharra
was the field whence sprang the crops, Ishtar was the clod which again
grew green after the heat of the dog days and the winter frosts. All
these beings had been forced to submit in a greater or less degree to
the fate which among most primitive races awaits those older earth-gods,
whose manifestations are usually too vague and shadowy to admit of their
being grasped or represented by any precise imagery without limiting and
curtailing their spheres. New deities had arisen of a more definite and
tangible kind, and hence more easily understood, and having a real or
supposed province which could be more easily realized, such as the sun,
the moon, and the fixed or wandering stars. The moon is the measure of
time; it determines the months, leads the course of the years, and the
entire life of mankind and of great cities depends upon the regularity
of its movements: the Chaldaeans, therefore, made it, or rather the
spirit which animated it, the father and king of the gods; but
its suzerainty was everywhere a conventional rather than an actual
superiority, and the sun, which in theory was its vassal, attracted more
worshippers than the pale and frigid luminary. Some adored the sun under
its ordinary title of Shamash, correspon