whose destiny marked them out for admittance, and heroes who have fallen valiantly on the field of battle.  In his remote position on unapproachable summits Anu seems to participate in the calm and immobility of his dwelling.  If he is quick in forming an opinion and coming to a conclusion, he himself never puts into execution the plans which he has matured or the judgments which he has pronounced:  he relieves himself of the trouble of acting, by assigning the duty to Bel-Merodach, Ea, or Eamman, and he often employs inferior genii to execute his will.  “They are seven, the messengers of Anu their king; it is they who from town to town raise the stormy wind; they are the south wind which drives mightily in the heavens; they are the destroying clouds which overturn the heavens; they are the rapid tempests which bring darkness in the midst of clear day, they roam here and there with the wicked wind and the ill-omened hurricane.”  Anu sends forth all the gods as he pleases, recalls them again, and then, to make them his pliant instruments, enfeebles their personality, reducing it to nothing by absorbing it into his own.  He blends himself with them, and their designations seem to be nothing more than doublets of his own:  he is Anu the Lakhmu who appeared on the first days of creation; Ahu Urash or Ninib is the sun-warrior of Nipur; and Anu is also the eagle Alala whom Ishtar enfeebled by her caresses.  Anu regarded in this light ceases to be the god par excellence:  he becomes the only chief god, and the idea of authority is so closely attached to his name that the latter alone is sufficient in common speech to render the idea of God.  Bel would have been entirely thrown into the shade by him, as the earth-gods generally are by the sky-gods, if it had not been that he was confounded with his namesake Bel-Merodach of Babylon:  to this alliance he owed to the end the safety of his life, in presence of Anu.  Ea was the most active and energetic member of the triad.* As he represented the bottomless abyss, the dark waters which had filled the universe until the day of the creation, there had been attributed to him a complete knowledge of the past, present, and future, whose germs had lain within him, as in a womb.  The attribute of supreme wisdom was revered in Ea, the lord of spells and charms, to which gods and men were alike subject:  no strength could prevail against his strength, no voice against his voice:  when once he opened his mouth to give a decision, his will became law, and no one might gainsay it.  If a peril should arise against which the other gods found themselves impotent, they resorted to him immediately for help, which was never refused.  He had saved Shamashnapishtirn from the Deluge; every day he freed his votaries from sickness and the thousand demons which were the causes of it.  He was a potter, and had modelled men out of the clay of the plains.  From him smiths and workers in gold obtained the art of rendering malleable and of fashioning the metals.  Weavers and stone-cutters, gardeners, husbandmen, and sailors hailed him as their teacher and patron.  From his incomparable knowledge the scribes derived theirs, and physicians and wizards invoked spirits in his name alone by the virtue of prayers which he had condescended to teach them.