nge enough, while terming Nineveh the
favorite city of Ishtar, he seems to give the preference to Ishtar of
Arbela. It is to the latter[250] that when hard pressed by the Elamites
he addresses his prayer, calling her 'the lady of Arbela'; and it is
this Ishtar who appears to the royal troops in a dream. The month of
Ab--the fifth month of the Babylonian calendar--is sacred to Ishtar.
Ashurbanabal proceeds to Arbela for the purpose of worshipping her
during this sacred period. Something must have occurred during his
reign, to bring the goddess of Arbela into such remarkable prominence,
but even Ashurbanabal does not go so far as to place Ishtar of Arbela
before Ishtar of Nineveh, when enumerating the gods of the pantheon. One
point still remains to be mentioned before passing on. Ashurbanabal
calls Ishtar--he is speaking of Ishtar of Nineveh--the wife of Bel.[251]
Now Ishtar never appears in this capacity in the Babylonian
inscriptions. If there is one goddess with whom she has nothing in
common, it is Belit of Nippur. To account for this curious statement on
the part of the Assyrian scribes, it is only necessary to bear in mind
that the name Belit signifies 'lady,' and Ishtar is constantly spoken of
as the Belit or lady of battle. Much the same train of thought that led
to regarding Bel in the sense of 'lord,' merely as a title of Marduk,
gave rise to the use of 'Belit,' as the title of the great 'lady' of the
Assyrian pantheon.[252] From this it is but a small--but of course
erroneous--step, to speak of Belit-Ishtar as the consort of Bel. Whether
the error is due only to the scribe, or whether it actually made its way
into the Assyrian system of theology, it is difficult to say. Probably
the former; for the distinguishing feature of both the Babylonian and
the Assyrian Ishtar is her independent position. Though at times brought
into close association with Ashur, she is not regarded as the mere
consort of any god--no mere reflection of a male deity, but ruling in
her own right on a perfect par with the great gods of the pantheon. She
is coequal in rank and dignity with Ashur. Her name becomes synonymous
with goddess, as Marduk becomes the synonym for god. The female deities
both native and foreign come to be regarded as so many forms of Ishtar.
In a certain sense Ishtar is the only _real_ goddess of the later
Assyrian pantheon, the only one taking an active part in the religious
and political life of the people. At the sa