regnant in one locality, as were Ninib and Bel at Nipur, or Ea
and Ishtar in Uruk; not that they raised any opposition on principle
to the presence of a stranger divinity in their dominions, but they
welcomed them only under the titles of allies or subjects. Each,
moreover, had fair play, and Nebo or Shamash, after having filled
the _role_ of sovereign at Borsippa or at Larsam, did not consider it
derogatory to his dignity to accept a lower rank in Babylon or at Uru.
Hence all the feudal gods played a double part, and had, as it were,
a double civil portion--that of suzerain in one or two localities, and
that of vassals everywhere else--and this dual condition was the surest
guarantee not only of their prosperity, but of their existence. Sin
would have run great risk of sinking into oblivion if his resources had
been confined to the subventions from his domain temples of Harran and
Uru. Their impoverishment would in such case have brought about his
complete failure: after having enjoyed an existence amid riches and
splendour in the beginning of history, he would have ended his life in a
condition of misery and obscurity. But the sanctuaries erected to him in
the majority of the other cities, the honours which these bestowed upon
him, and the offerings which they made to him, compensated him for the
poverty and neglect which he experienced in his own domains; and he was
thus able to maintain his divine dignity on a suitable footing. All
the gods were, therefore, worshipped by the Chaldeans, and the only
difference among them in this respect arose from the fact that some
exalted one special deity above the others. The gods of the richest and
most ancient principalities naturally enjoyed the greatest popularity.
The greatness of Uru had been the source of Sin's prestige, and Merodach
owed his prosperity to the supremacy which Babylon had acquired over the
districts of the north. Merodach was regarded as the son of Ba, as the
star which had risen from the abyss to illuminate the world, and to
confer upon mankind the decrees of eternal wisdom. He was proclaimed as
lord--"bilu"--_par excellence_, in comparison with whom all other lords
sank into insignificance, and this title soon procured for him a second,
which was no less widely recognized than the first: he was spoken of
everywhere as the Bel of Babylon, Bel-Merodach--before whom Bel of Nipur
was gradually thrown into the shade. The relations between these feudal
deities we