hand a “flaming sword,” with which he effects his works of destruction; and this “flaming sword,” which probably represents lightning, becomes his emblem upon the tablets and cylinders, where it is figured as a double or triple bolt. [PLATE XIX., Fig. 4.] Vul again, as the god of the atmosphere, gives the rain; and hence he is “the careful and beneficent chief,” “the giver of abundance,” “the lord of fecundity.”  In this capacity he is naturally chosen to preside over canals, the great fertilizers of Babylonia; and we find among his titles “the lord of canals,” and “the establisher of works of irrigation.”

There is not much evidence of the worship of Vul in Chaldaea during the early times.  That he must have been known appears from the fact of his name forming an element in the name of Shamas-Vul, son of Ismi-dagon, who ruled over Chaldaea about B.C. 1850.  It is also certain that this Shamas-Vul set up his worship at Asshur (Kileh-Sherghat) in Assyria, associating him there with his father Ana, and building to them conjointly a great temple.  Further than this we have no proof that he was an object of worship in the time of the first monarchy; though in the time of Assyrian preponderance, as well as in that of the later Babylonian Empire, there were few gods more venerated.

Vul is sometimes associated with a goddess, Shala or Tala, who is probably the Salambo or Salambas of the lexicographers.  The meaning of her name is uncertain; and her epithets are for the most part obscure.  Her ordinary title is sacrat or sharrat, “queen,” the feminine of the common word sar, which means “Chief,” “King,” or “Sovereign.”

BAR, NIN, or NINIP.

If we are right in regarding the five gods who stand next to the Triad formed of the Moon, the Sun, and the Atmosphere, as representatives of the five planets visible to the naked eye, the god Nin, or Ninip, should be Saturn.  His names, Bar and Nin, are respectively a Semitic and a Hamitic term signifying “lord” or “master.”  Nin-ip, his full Hamitic appellation, signifies “Nin, by name,” or “he whose name is Nin;” and similarly, his full Semitic appellation seems to have been Barshem, “Bar, by name,” or “he whose name is Bar”—­a term which is not indeed found in the inscriptions, but which appears to have been well known to the early Syrians and Armenians, and which was probably the origin of the title Barsemii, borne by the kings of Hatra (Hadhr near Kileh-Sherghat) in Roman times.

In character and attributes the classical god whom Nin most closely resembles is, however, not Saturn, but Hercules.  An indication of this connection is perhaps contained in the Herodotean genealogy, which makes Hercules an ancestor of Ninus.  Many classical traditions, we must remember, identified Hercules with Saturn; and it seems certain that in the East at any rate this identification was common.  So Nin, in the inscriptions, is the god of strength and courage.  He is “the lord of the brave,”