In succession to the gods of this first trio,—­Anu, Bel, and Hea,—­was another trio, named Siu, Shamas, and Vul, representing the moon, the sun, and the atmosphere.  “In Assyria and Babylon the moon-god took precedence of the sun-god, since night was more agreeable to the inhabitants of those hot countries than the day.”  Hence, Siu was the more popular deity; but Shamas, the sun, as having most direct reference to physical nature, “the lord of fire,” “the ruler of the day,” was the god of battles, going forth with the armies of the king triumphant over enemies.  The worship of this deity was universal, and the kings regarded him as affording them especial help in war.  Vul, the third of this trinity, was the god of the atmosphere, the god of tempests,—­the god who caused the flood which the Assyrian legends recognize.  He corresponds with the Jupiter Tonans of the Romans,—­“the prince of the power of the air,” destroyer of crops, the scatterer of the harvest, represented with a flaming sword; but as god of the atmosphere, the giver of rain, of abundance, “the lord of fecundity,” he was beneficent as well as destructive.

All these gods had wives resembling the goddesses in the Greek mythology,—­some beneficent, some cruel; rendering aid to men, or pursuing them with their anger.  And here one cannot resist the impression that the earliest forms of the Greek mythology were derived from the Babylonians and Phoenicians, and that the Greek poets, availing themselves of the legends respecting them, created the popular religion of Greece.  It is a mooted question whether the Greek civilization is chiefly derived from Egypt, or from Assyria and Phoenicia,—­probably more from these old monarchies combined than from the original seat of the Aryan race east of the Caspian Sea.  All these ancient monarchies had run out and were old when the Greeks began their settlements and conquests.

There was still another and inferior class of deities among the Assyrians and Babylonians who were objects of worship, and were supposed to have great influence on human affairs.  These deities were the planets under different names.  The early study of astronomy among the dwellers on the plains of Babylon and in Mesopotamia gave an astral feature to their religion which was not prominent in Egypt.  These astral deities were Nin, or Bar (the Saturn of the Romans); and Merodach (Jupiter), the august god, “the eldest son of Heaven,” the Lord of battles.  This was the favorite god of Nebuchadnezzar, and epithets of the highest honor were conferred upon him, as “King of heaven and earth,” the “Lord of all beings,” etc.  Nergal (Mars) was a war god, his name signifying “the great Hero,” “the King of battles.”  He goes before kings in their military expeditions, and lends them assistance in the chase.  His emblem is the human-headed winged lion seen at the entrance of royal palaces.  Ista (Venus) was the goddess of beauty, presiding over the loves of both men and animals, and was worshipped with unchaste rites.  Nebo (Mercury) had the charge over learning and culture,—­the god of wisdom, who “teaches and instructs.”