jgo8.] FOR PLANET IN BABYLONIAN. 149 



of the liver of an animal for the purpose of securing an " omen " 

 was also designated as an aiispiciuinr^ Similiarly, in Greek the 

 word t->>:9, " bird," is used for any kind of an omen and my colleague, 

 Professor Lamberton, has kindly called my attention to the inter- 

 esting passage in the Birds of Aristophanes in which this usage finds 

 a striking illustration. In the " Parabasis," after indicating all the 

 blessings that accrue to men from the birds, the chorus turns to 

 divination and continues as follows :-- 



" You consider all things a bird, whatever gives a decision 

 through divination. With you a word is a ' bird,' and you call a 

 sneeze a ' bird,' a sound a ' bird,' a sudden meeting a ' bird,' and an 

 ass a ' bird.' Are we not clearly a prophetic Apollo to you ? " 



The sheep, being the animal of divination par excellence in 

 Babylonia, would in the same way become the Babylonian term for 

 an "auspicium" in general. If we assume that this use of the term 

 lurks in the application of " sheep " as the designation of a planet, 

 a satisfactory explanation can be found for the addition of the sign 

 Bat to the sign for " sheep " which has more specifically the same 

 force in the combination Lu-Bat as in the combination IIR. 27, 

 No. 2, Obv. 46, c-d, Ur-Bat, i. e., " dead liver " in the sense of the 

 liver of a sacrificial lamb and hence as the equivalent of ter-tu sa 

 ha-se-e, " omen through the liver."-' 



The combination Lu-Bat thus expresses more precisely than Lu 

 alone the association of an " omen " with a " sheep," and we would 

 be justified in rendering the combination as " sheep omen," and then 

 through the association of ideas above pointed out, as a general term 

 for " omen."-* 



^^ See Pauly-Wissowa, " Real-Encyclopaedie," (new ed.), II., p. 2580!. 



^Ll. 719-22 (ed. Van Leeuwen, Leiden, 1893). Dr. R. G. Kent, of the 

 University of Penna., also calls my attention to the interesting passage in 

 Xenophon's Anabasis (iii, 2, 9) where a " sneeze" as a good sign is spoken 

 of as otuvog or " bird " in the general sense of an omen. 



^^ On the word hasu for liver which may have been used in earlier days 

 in place of kabiftu see Jastrow, /. c, II., p. 213, note i, and p. 276, note 7. 



" It is to be noted that at least in one passage in a " liver divination " 

 the sign Bat is added to Lu-Nita " male sheep," namely Boissier, Doc. Assyr., 

 p. 212, 27, ultu libbi Lu-NiTA Bat (u) tertu (written Ur-Bat as in the pas- 

 sage IIR 27) tu-se-la-a, i. e., " Out of a dead sheep thou shalt bring forth an 

 omen," where the phonetic complement u added to Bat suggests the reading 

 mitu and where " dead sheep " is clearly the equivalent of " sacrificial sheep " 

 or " omen sheep." 



