1908.] 



IN BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. 675 



tral sanctuary.'- The baru-pnests of Babylonia in their capacity as 

 astrologers wandered to the West, there to ply their trade for which 

 a market was no longer forthcoming in their own homes. Baby- 

 lonian astrology, enjoying the popularity in Greece and in the Roman 

 empire frequently granted to a foreign importation in preference 

 to a home industry, became the fashion of the Occident during the 

 centuries that marked the decline of belief in the gods of Greece 

 and Rome and that offered a hospitable welcome to all kinds of 

 strange faith and mystic cults, until the term " Chaldaean " became 

 synonymous with " astrologer." In time it was no doubt applied 

 to the one who divined through the stars irrespective of his origin.'-'' 

 Besides astrology, hepatoscopy was also practiced by these " Chal- 

 daeans,""^ but both forms of divination, being derived from an 

 official cult and practiced purely as a profession that was presumably 

 not without profit suft'ered, as was inevitable, a degeneration, with 

 the result that a measure of reproach became attached to the term 

 " Chaldaean," which acquired almost the force of trickster and de- 

 ceiver. It was nevertheless fortunate that the term survived as a 

 fingerpost, directing us to the land in which the system of divination 

 arose that after strange vicissitudes has survived in the form as 

 modified under Greek influences and with som^ additions in the 

 mediaeval period, to our own days, still finding many devotees in 

 circles where one would hardly expect to encounter them.'* 



The degenerating process through which the term " Chaldaean " 



"See c. g., Baudissin, Geschichte des Altestamentlichen Prieste/hums 

 (Leipzig, 1889), p. 287. 



'"" So, e. g., Teukros, the author of a Greek treatise on astrology, is called 

 " the Babylonian " evidently in the sense of " astrologer." See the fragments 

 of this treatise published by Boll (" Sphaera," pp. 16-21) who places Teukros 

 in the first century of this era. 



" See the story told by Polyfenus, " Strategicon," IV., 20, of the decep- 

 tion practised upon the army of Attains I. of Pergamon by Soudinos " a 

 Chaldaean augur " who writing the words " victory of the king" [jiaaukuq viKrj) 

 backwards on the palm of his hand, pressed the smooth side of the liver of 

 a sacrificial animal on his hand, and then held the liver with the significant 

 words inscribed on it to the gaze of the arm}-, who regarded it as a sign 

 sent by the gods. See also, above, p. 650, note 13. 



"The late Richard Garnett is only one of many examples of men other- 

 wise abreast with modern thought who cling to the faith in the revelations 

 of the stars. 



