the Religion of the Babylonians and Assyrians, pp. 523-52G; Oppeet, Expedition en Mesopotamie, vol. ii. p. 257; Lenormant, Essai de Commentaire de Berose, pp. 114-116).  He owed his functions partly to his alliance with other gods (Sayce, Religion of the Ancient Babylonians, pp. 118, 119).

**** See the chapter devoted by Sayce to the consideration of Ishtar in his Religion of the Ancient Babylonians (IV.  Tammuz and Ishtar, p. 221, et seq.), and the observations made by Jeremias on the subject in the sequel of his Izdubar-Nimrod (Ishtar-Astarte im Izdubar-Epos), pp. 56-66.

[Illustration:  190.jpg ISHTAR AS A WARRIOR-GODDESS]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a heliogravure in Menant’s
     Recherches sur la Glyptique orientale.

In Southern Chaldaea she was worshipped under the name of Nana, the supreme mistress.* The identity of this lady of the gods, “Belit-ilanit,” the Evening Star, with Anunit, the Morning Star, was at first ignored, and hence two distinct goddesses were formed from the twofold manifestation of a single deity:  having at length discovered their error, the Chaldaeans merged these two beings in one, and their names became merely two different designations for the same star under a twofold aspect.  The double character, however, which had been attributed to them continued to be attached to the single personality.

     * With regard to Nana, consult, with reserve, Fk.  Lenormant,
     Essai de Commentaire de Berose, pp. 100-103, 378, 379, where
     the identity of Ishtar and Nana is still unrecognized.

[Illustration:  191.jpg NEBO]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from an Assyrian statue in alabaster
     in the British Museum.

The Evening Star had symbolized the goddess of love, who attracted the sexes towards one another, and bound them together by the chain of desire; the Morning Star, on the other hand, was regarded as the cold-blooded and cruel warrior who despised the pleasures of love and rejoiced in warfare:  Ishtar thus combined in her person chastity and lasciviousness, kindness and ferocity, and a peaceful and warlike disposition, but this incongruity in her characteristics did not seem to disconcert the devotion of her worshippers.  The three other planets would have had a wretched part to play in comparison with Nebo and Ishtar, if they had not been placed under new patronage.  The secondary solar gods, Merodach, Ninib, and Nergal, led, if we examine their role carefully, but an incomplete existence:  they were merely portions of the sun, while Shamash represented the entire orb.  What became of them apart from the moment in the day and year in which they were actively engaged in their career?  Where did they spend their nights, the hours during which Shamash had retired into the firmament, and lay hidden behind the mountains of the north?  As in Egypt the Horuses identified at first with the