and having the lower half of his body concealed by a feathered disk.  He was supposed to hover continually over the world, hurling fiery darts at the enemies of his people, and protecting his kingly worshippers under the shadow of his wings.  Their wars were his wars, and he was with them in the thick of the attack, placing himself in the front rank with the soldiery,* so that when he gained the victory, the bulk of the spoil—­precious metals, gleanings of the battle-field, slaves and productive lands—­fell to his share.  The gods of the vanquished enemy, moreover, were, like their princes, forced to render him homage.  In the person of the king he took their statues prisoners, and shut them up in his sanctuary; sometimes he would engrave his name upon their figures and send them back to their respective temples, where the sight of them would remind their worshippers of his own omnipotence.** The goddess associated with him as his wife had given her name, Nina, to Nineveh,*** and was, as the companion of the Chaldaean Bel, styled the divine lady Belit; she was, in fact, a chaste and warlike Ishtar, who led the armies into battle with a boldness characteristic of her father.****

* In one of the pictures, for instance, representing the assault of a town, we see a small figure of the god, hurling darts against the enemy.  The inscriptions also state that the peoples “are alarmed and quit their cities before the arms of Assur, the powerful one.”

** As, for instance, the statues of the gods taken from the Arabs in the time of Esarhaddon.  Tiglath-pileser I. had carried away twenty-five statues of gods taken from the peoples of Kurkhi and Kummukh, and had placed them in the temples of Beltis, Ishtar, Anu, and Ramman; he mentions other foreign divinities who had been similarly treated.

*** The ideogram of the name of the goddess Nina serves to write the name of the town Nineveh.  The name itself has been interpreted by Schrader as “station, habitation,” in the Semitic languages, and by Fr. Delitzsch “repose of the god,” an interpretation which Delitzsch himself repudiated later on.  It is probable that the town, which, like Assur, was a Chaldaean colony, derived its name from the goddess to whom it was dedicated, and whose temple existed there as early as the time of the vicegerent Samsiramman.

**** Belit is called by Tiglath-pileser I. “the great spouse beloved of Assur,” but Belit, “the lady,” is here merely an epithet used for Ishtar:  the Assyrian Ishtar, Ishtar of Assur, Ishtar of Nineveh, or rather—­especially from the time of the Sargonids—­Ishtar of Arbeles, is almost always a fierce and warlike Ishtar, the “lady of combat, who directs battles,” “whose heart incites her to the combat and the struggle.”  Sayce thinks that the union of Ishtar and Assur is of a more recent date.

[Illustration:  149.jpg ISHTAR AS A WARRIOR BRINGING PRISONERS TO A CONQUERING KING]