Tiamat,
fixes limitations to the 'upper and lower waters,' and triumphantly
marches across the heavens from one end to the other, as general
overseer.

This nature myth was admirably adapted to serve as the point of
departure for the enlargement of the role of Marduk, rendered necessary
by the advancement of the god to the head of the pantheon. Everything
had to be ascribed to Marduk. Not merely humanity, but the gods also had
to acknowledge, and acknowledge freely, the supremacy of Marduk.

The solar deity thus becomes a power at whose command the laws of the
universe are established, the earth created and all that is on it. In
thus making Marduk the single creator, the theologians were as much
under the influence of Marduk's political supremacy, as they helped to
confirm that supremacy by their system. With this object in view, the
annual phenomenon was transformed into an account of what happened 'once
upon a time.'

What impressed the thinkers most in the universe was the regular working
of the laws of nature. Ascribing these laws to Marduk, they naturally
pictured the beginnings of things as a lawless period. Into the old and
popular Marduk-Tiamat nature myth, certain touches were thus introduced
that changed its entire character. This once done, it was a
comparatively simple matter to follow up the conflict of Marduk and
Tiamat by a series of acts on Marduk's part, completing the work of
general creation. The old nature myth ended with the conquest of the
rains and storm and the establishment of the sun's regular course,
precisely as the deluge story in Genesis, which contains echoes of the
Marduk-Tiamat myth, ends with the promulgation of the fixed laws of the
universe.[742]

What follows upon this episode in the Babylonian epic is the elaboration
of the central theme, worked out in the schools of Babylonian thought
and intended, on the one hand, to illustrate Marduk's position as
creator and, on the other, to formulate the details of the cosmological
system.

With the fifth tablet, therefore, we leave the domain of popular myth
completely and pass into the domain of cosmological speculation.
Fragmentary as the fifth tablet is, enough is preserved to show that it
assumes the perfection of the zodiacal system of the Babylonian schools
and the complete regulation[743] of the calendar. In this zodiacal
system, as has been intimated and as will be more fully set forth in a
special chapter, the planets and star