BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON 57 



and the prayers to him have an extraordinarily 

 modern tone. 



The particular statement of the Greek historian 

 Herodotus, that women had to be violated in the 

 temples before marriage, is shown by the marriage- 

 contracts and the whole literature to be nonsense. 

 The priestesses mentioned in the Hammurabi Code 

 are mostly described as married women, and they are 

 jealously guarded in their reputation. As I said, 

 they incurred capital punishment by entering a wine- 

 shop. There is only one caste of priestesses noticed 

 in the Code (" wives of Marduk") who may have been 

 sacred prostitutes in some of the old provincial temples, 

 where pre-historic superstitions about fertility lingered. 

 In the height of Babylonian civilization there was the 

 same ideal of sex-relations as in a modern Anglo- 

 Saxon civilization, and there is not a scrap of positive 

 evidence to show that the practice was different. 



I have dwelt at some length — though these are 

 only scanty references to an immense Babylonian 

 literature — on this point because the old legends 

 about Babylon still survive even among educated 

 people. The Babylonians differed very considerably 

 from the Egyptians on one point — they regarded life 

 after death as a dim unknown region about which 

 they did not trouble themselves. On the other hand, 

 however, they regarded this world as full of evil 

 spirits, tempting and afflicting mankind, and they 

 very strictly believed that earthly ills were sent or 

 permitted by the gods for moral transgressions. The 

 moral sanction was, therefore, a very severe and very 

 real one to the Babylonians, and it would be at least 

 as effective as punishment after death (which might 

 be bought off by repentance). 



