as
assassinated. [PLATE CXLII., Fig. 5.] The various readings of the
Septuagint version make it extremely uncertain what was the name
actually written in the original Hebrew text. Nisroch, which is utterly
unlike any divine name hitherto found in the Assyrian records, is most
probable a corruption. At any rate there are no sufficient grounds for
identifying the god mentioned, whatever the true reading of his name may
be, with the hawk-headed figure, which has the appearance of an
attendant genius rather than that of a god, and which was certainly not
included among the main deities of Assyria.

[Illustration: PLATE 143]

Representations of evil genii are comparatively infrequent; but we can
scarcely be mistaken in regarding as either an evil genius, or a
representation of the evil principle, the monster--half lion, half
eagle--which in the Nimrud sculptures retreats from the attacks of a
god, probably Vul, who assails him with thunderbolts. [PLATE CXLIII.,
Fig. I.] Again, in the case of certain grotesque statuettes found at
Khorsabad, one of which has already been represented, where a human
figure has the head of a lion with the ears of an ass, the most natural
explanation seems to be that an evil genius is intended. In another
instance, where we see two monsters with heads like the statuette just
mentioned, placed on human bodies, the legs of which terminate in
eagles' claws--both of them armed with daggers and maces, and engaged in
a struggle with one another--we seem to have a symbolical representation
of the tendency of evil to turn upon itself, and reduce itself to
feebleness by internal quarrel and disorder. A considerable number of
instances occur in which a human figure, with the head of a hawk or
eagle, threatens a winged human-headed lion--the emblem of Nergal--with
a strap or mace. In these we may have a spirit of evil assailing a god,
or possibly one god opposing another--the hawk-headed god or genius
driving Nergal (i.e., War) beyond the Assyrian borders.

If we pass from the objects to the mode of worship in Assyria, we must
notice at the outset the strongly idolatrous character of the religion.
Not only were images of the gods worshipped set up, as a matter of
course, in every temple dedicated to their honor, but the gods were
sometimes so identified with their images as to be multiplied in popular
estimation when they had several famous temples, in each of which was a
famous image. Thus we hear of the