1908.] 



IN BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. 655 



gathered around these deities. In view of this, it is clear that in 

 deahng with Babylonian-Assyrian astrology we have to do with the 

 theories of the theologians or priests as the representatives of ad- 

 vanced and abstract thought, and not with popular notions. More- 

 over, the choice of the deities in question and the order in which they 

 are enumerated when introduced as equivalents of the planets are 

 further indications of the speculative spirit which led to their iden- 

 tification with the planets, and also of the time when this identifica- 

 tion took its rise. Jupiter-Marduk is always mentioned first and this 

 precedence is evidently a reflection of the period when Marduk was 

 regarded as the head of the pantheon, i. e., the period after Ham- 

 murabi with whom as the unifier of the Euphratean states, the city 

 of Babylon as the capital of the empire assumes the definite position 

 it continued to hold till the destruction of the neo-Babylonian king- 

 dom by Cyrus in 539 B. C. The pantheon as constituted during or 

 after the days of Hammurabi assigns to Marduk as the patron deity 

 of Babylon the first position. ^Marduk takes the place held by Enlil 

 of Nippur and subsequently, as would appear, by Ninib.^^ The other 

 great gods of the pantheon, as found in the Hammurabi period, are 

 precisely the ones identified with the remaining four planets, Ishtar, 

 Ninib, Nebo and Nergal together with Sin the moon-god, Shamash 

 the sun-god and Adad-Ramman the storm-god. The basis upon 

 which Babylonian-Assyrian astrology rests thus assumes the defi- 

 nite formation of a pantheon and moreover the particular form of 

 the pantheon that marks the Hammurabi period, i. e., after 2000 B. C. 

 This does not necessarily mean that astrology dates in Babylonia 

 from this period, for it is possible that there was an earlier series of 

 identification of gods with planets, but that the astrological texts 

 known to us do not revert to originals older than the days of Ham- 

 murabi. There are indeed references in the inscriptions of Gudea 

 which would point to the practice of interpreting the signs of the 

 heavens at this earlier period^- and it may well be therefore that the 

 priests long before Hammurabi had started on the course of specu- 

 lation which culminated in placing the seats of all the gods in the 

 starry firmament. But whatever the age of Babylonian-Assyrian 



^' See Jastrow, 0. c, I., p. 452 seq. 

 "^ See Jastrow, 0. c, II., p. 423. 



