[Illustration: 190.jpg ISHTAR AS A WARRIOR-GODDESS]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a heliogravure in Ménant's _Recherches sur la Glyptique orientale_.
In Southern Chaldæa she was worshipped under the name of Nanâ, the supreme mistress.* The identity of this lady of the gods, "Bêlit-ilânit," the Evening Star, with Anunit, the Morning Star, was at first ignored, and hence two distinct goddesses were formed from the twofold manifestation of a single deity: having at length discovered their error, the Chaldæans merged these two beings in one, and their names became merely two different designations for the same star under a twofold aspect. The double character, however, which had been attributed to them continued to be attached to the single personality.
* With regard to Nana, consult, with reserve, Fk. Lenormant, Essai de Commentaire de Bérose, pp. 100-103, 378, 379, where the identity of Ishtar and Nana is still unrecognized.
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from an Assyrian statue in alabaster in the British Museum.
The Evening Star had symbolized the goddess of love, who attracted the sexes towards one another, and bound them together by the chain of desire; the Morning Star, on the other hand, was regarded as the cold-blooded and cruel warrior who despised the pleasures of love and rejoiced in warfare: Ishtar thus combined in her person chastity and lasciviousness, kindness and ferocity, and a peaceful and warlike disposition, but this incongruity in her characteristics did not seem to disconcert the devotion of her worshippers. The three other planets would have had a wretched part to play in comparison with Nebo and Ishtar, if they had not been placed under new patronage. The secondary solar gods, Merodach, Ninib, and Nergal, led, if we examine their rôle carefully, but an incomplete existence: they were merely portions of the sun, while Shamash represented the entire orb. What became of them apart from the moment in the day and year in which they were actively engaged in their career? Where did they spend their nights, the hours during which Shamash had retired into the firmament, and lay hidden behind the mountains of the north? As in Egypt the Horuses identified at first with the sun became at length the rulers of the planets, so in Chaldæa the three suns of Ninib, Merodach, and Nergal became respectively assimilated to Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars;* and this identification was all the more easy in the case of Saturn, as he had been considered from the beginning as a bull belonging to Shamash. Henceforward, therefore, there was a group of five powerful gods--distributed among the stars of heaven, and having abodes also in the cities of the earth--whose function it was to announce the destinies of the universe. Some, deceived by the size and brilliancy of Jupiter, gave the chief command to Merodach, and this opinion naturally found a welcome reception at Babylon, of which he was the feudal deity. Others, taking into account only the preponderating influence exercised by the planets over the fortunes of men, accorded the primacy to Ninib, placing Merodach next, followed respectively by Ishtar, Nergal, and Nebo. The five planets, like the six triads, were not long before they took to themselves consorts, if indeed they had not already been married before they were brought together in a collective whole. Ninib chose for wife, in the first place, Bau, the daughter of Anu, the mistress of Uru, highly venerated from the most remote times; afterwards Gula, the queen of physicians, whose wisdom alleviated the ills of humanity, and who was one of the goddesses sometimes placed in the harem of Shamash himself. Merodach associated with him Zirbanit, the fruitful, who secures from generation to generation the permanence and increase of living beings. Nergal distributed his favours sometimes to Laz, and sometimes to Esharra, who was, like himself, warlike and always victorious in battle. Nebo provided himself with a mate in Tashmit, the great bride, or even in Ishtar herself. But Ishtar could not be content with a single husband: after she had lost Dumuzi-Tammuz, the spouse of her youth, she gave herself freely to the impulses of her passions, distributing her favours to men as well as gods, and was sometimes subject to be repelled with contempt by the heroes upon whom she was inclined to bestow her love. The five planets came thus to be actually ten, and advantage was taken of these alliances to weave fresh schemes of affiliation: Nebo was proclaimed to be the son of Merodach and Zirbanit, Merodach the son of Ba, and Ninib the offspring of Bel and Esharra.