ns to any of his
fellows, and his rule once acknowledged remains supreme, with, perhaps,
one short period excepted,[229] throughout all the vicissitudes that the
empire undergoes. As a consequence of this unique position, Ashur is so
completely identified with Assyria, that with the fall of the empire he,
too, disappears,--whereas the Marduk cult survives the loss of
Babylonian independence, and is undisturbed even by the final absorption
of Babylonia into the empire of Cyrus. The tendency towards
centralization of the cult is even more pronounced, therefore, in
Assyria than in Babylonia. Marduk is a leader who has many gods as
followers, but all of whom have their distinct functions. Ashur is a
host in himself. He needs no attendants. His aid suffices for all
things, and such is the attachment of his subjects to him that it would
almost appear like an insult to his dignity to attach a long array of
minor gods to him. For the Assyrian kings the same motives did not exist
as for the Babylonians to emphasize their control over all parts of
their empire by adding the chief gods of these districts to the
pantheon. Assyria was never split up into independent states like
Babylonia before the days of Hammurabi. The capital, it is true, changed
with considerable frequency, but there was always only one great center
of political power. So far as Assyrian control over Babylonia was
concerned, it was sufficient for the purposes of the Assyrian rulers to
claim Marduk as their patron and protector, and, as we shall see, they
always made a point of emphasizing this claim. Hence we have only 'great
gods,'[230] and no minor deities, in the train of Ashur. These 'great
gods' could not be expunged from the pantheon without a complete
severance of the ties that bound the Assyrians to their past. Kings of
great empires seldom favor religious revolutions. But by the side of
Ashur these great gods pale, and in the course of time the tendency
becomes more marked to regard them merely as formal members of a little
court with few functions of their own, beyond that of adding by their
presence to the majesty and glory of Ashur. One receives the impression
that in Assyria only a few of the gods invoked by the kings at the side
of Ashur exert any real influence on the lives of the people; and such
as do, gain favor through possessing in some measure the chief attribute
that distinguished Ashur,--prowess in war. They are little Ashurs, as it
were, b