ERGAL.

Among the Minor gods, Nergal is one whom the Assyrians seem to have
regarded with extraordinary reverence. He was the divine ancestor from
whom the monarchs loved to boast that they derived their descent--the
line being traceable, according to Sargon, through three hundred and
fifty generations. They symbolized him by the winged lion with a human
head, or possibly sometimes by the mere natural lion; and it was to mark
their confident dependence on his protection that they made his emblems
so conspicuous in their palaces. Nin and Nergal--the gods of war and
hunting, the occupations in which the Assyrian monarchs passed their
lives--were tutelary divinities of the race, the life, and the homes of
the kings, who associate the two equally in their inscriptions and their
sculptures.

Nergal, though thus honored by the frequent mention of his name and
erection of his emblem, did not (so far as appears) often receive the
tribute of a temple. Sennacherib dedicated one to him at Tarbisi (now
Sherif-khan), near Khorsabad; and he may have had another at Calah
(Nimrud), of which he is said to have been one of the "resident gods."
But generally it would seem that the Assyrians were content to pay him
honor in other ways without constructing special buildings devoted
exclusively to his worship.

ISHTAR.

Ishtar was very generally worshipped by the Assyrian monarchs, who
called her "their lady," and sometimes in their invocations coupled her
with the supreme god Asshur. She had a very ancient temple at Asshur,
the primeval capital, which Tiglath-Pileser I., repaired and beautified.
Asshur-izir-pal built her a second temple at Nineveh, and she had a
third at Arbela, which Asshur-bani-pal states that he restored. Sargon
placed under her protection, conjointly with Anu, the western gate of
his city; and his son, Sennacherib, seems to have viewed Asshur and
Ishtar as the special guardians of his progeny. Asshur-bani-pal, the
great hunting king was a devotee of the goddess, whom he regarded as
presiding over his special diversion, the chase.

What is most remarkable in the Assyrian worship of Ishtar is the local
character assigned to her. The Ishtar of Nineveh is distinguished from
the Ishtar of Arbela, and both from the Ishtar of Babylon, separate
addresses being made to them in one and the same invocation. It would
appear that in this case there was, more decidedly than in any other, an
identification of the divinity with