a cup, he himself reassured him.—­’We, what shall we give him?  The food of life—­take some to him that he may eat.’  The food of life, some was taken to him, but he did not eat of it.  The water of life, some was taken to him, but he drank not of it.  A garment, it was taken to him, and he put it on.  Oil, some was taken to him, and he anointed himself with it.”  Anu looked upon him; he lamented over him:  “’Well, Adapa, why hast thou not eaten—­why hast thou not drunk?  Thou shalt not now have eternal life.’  Ea, my lord, has commanded me:  thou shalt not eat, thou shalt not drink.”  Adapa thus lost, by remembering too well the commands of his father, the opportunity which was offered to him of rising to the rank of the immortals; Anu sent him back to his home just as he had come, and Shutu had to put up with his broken wings.

Bamman absorbed one after the other all these genii of tempest and contention, and out of their combined characters his own personality of a hundred diverse aspects was built up.

[Illustration:  177.jpg THE BIRDS OF THE TEMPEST]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a Chaldaean cylinder in the Museum of New York.  Lenormant, in a long article, which he published under the pseudonym of Mansell, fancied he recognized here the encounter between Sabitum and Gilgames on the shores of the Ocean.

He was endowed with the capricious and changing disposition of the element incarnate in him, and passed from tears to laughter, from anger to calm, with a promptitude which made him one of the most disconcerting deities.  The tempest was his favourite role.  Sometimes he would burst suddenly on the heavens at the head of a troop of savage subordinates, whose chiefs were known as Matu, the squall, and Barku, the lightning; sometimes these were only the various manifestations of his own nature, and it was he himself who was called Matu and Barku.  He collected the clouds, sent forth the thunder-bolt, shook the mountains, and “before his rage and violence, his bellowings, his thunder, the gods of heaven arose to the firmament—­the gods of the earth sank into the earth” in their terror.  The monuments represent him as armed for battle with club, axe, or the two-bladed flaming sword which was usually employed to signify the thunderbolt.  As he destroyed everything in his blind rage, the kings of Chaldaea were accustomed to invoke him against their enemies, and to implore him to “hurl the hurricane upon the rebel peoples and the insubordinate nations.”  When his wrath was appeased, and he had returned to more gentle ways, his kindness knew no limits.  From having been the waterspout which overthrew the forests, he became the gentle breeze which caresses and refreshes them:  with his warm showers he fertilizes the fields:  he lightens the air and tempers the summer heat.

[Illustration:  178.jpg RAMMAN ARMED WITH AN AXE.]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Loftus.  The original, a small stele of terra-cotta, is in the British Museum.  The date of this representation is uncertain.  Ramman stands upon the mountain which supports the heaven.

He causes the rivers to swell and overflow their banks; he pours out the waters over the fields, he makes channels for them, he directs them to every place where the need of water is felt.