The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria

Another god, who by virtue of his violent traits enjoys the favor of the Assyrian rulers, is the old Babylonian deity whose name is provisionally read Nin-ib. In the very first mention of him, in the inscription of Ashurrishishi (c. 1150 B.C.), he is called the 'mighty one of the gods.' Through the protection of Nin-ib, Ashurrishishi secures victory over his enemies on all sides. Similarly, other of the Assyrian rulers emphasize the strength of Nin-ib. Tiglathpileser I. calls him the courageous one, whose special function is the destruction of the king's enemies. In doing so he becomes the god 'who fulfills the heart's desire.' The unmistakable character of the god as a god of war is also shown by his association with Ashur.[272] If Ashur is the king of Igigi and Anunnaki, Nin-ib is the hero of the heavenly and earthly spirits. To him the rulers fly for help. Of all the kings, Ashurnasirbal seems to have been especially devoted to the service of Nin-ib. The annals of this king, instead of beginning, as is customary, with an invocation of all or many of the gods, starts out with an address to Nin-ib, in which the king fairly exhausts the vocabulary of the language in his desire to secure the favor of this powerful deity. Almost all the attributes he assigns to him have reference to the god's powers in war.

Dwelling in the capital Calah, he is 'the strong, the mighty, the supreme one,' the perfect hero, who is invincible in battle, the 'destroyer of all opposition, who holds the lock of heaven and earth, who opens the deep; the strong one, endowed with youthful vigor, whose decree is unchangeable, without whom no decision is made in heaven or on earth, whose attack is like a flood, who sweeps away the land of his enemies,' and so forth, through a bewildering array of epithets. The inscriptions of the Assyrian kings, especially in the introductions, manifest little originality. One king, or rather his scribe, frequently copies from earlier productions, or imitates them. Hence, it happens that the grandson of Ashurnasirbal, Shamshi-Ramman (c. 825-812 B.C.), furnishes us with an almost equally long array of epithets, exalting the strength and terror of Nin-ib. Like Ashurnasirbal, he declared himself to have been chosen by this god to occupy the throne. A comparison of the two lists makes it evident that the later one is modeled upon the earlier production. The conclusion is justified that in the century covered by the reigns of Ashurnasirbal[273] and Shamshi-Ramman, the cult of Nin-ib must have acquired great popularity, though suffering, perhaps, an interruption during the reign of Shalmaneser II.,—midway between these two kings,—whose favorite we have seen was Shamash. The great temple of Nin-ib stood in Calah, which Ashurnasirbal chose as his official residence, and it was in this temple that the king deposited a long inscription commemorating his deeds.

In the temple, he also places a colossal statue of the god. Upon the completion of the edifice, he dedicates it with prayer and sacrifices. The special festivals of the god are fixed for the months of Shabat and Ulul,—the eleventh and sixth months,—and provision is made for the regular maintenance of the cult. It must, of course, not be supposed that, because Nin-ib appears to be a favorite of the king, the latter concentrates his attentions upon this god. He appears to have been specially fond of temple building, and, besides the one to Nin-ib, he tells us of sanctuaries to 'Belit of the land,' i.e., Ishtar,[274] Sin, Gula, Ea, and Ramman,—that he erects or improves. One might be led to regard it as strange that a god like Nin-ib, or Shamash, should claim so large a share of the attention of the Assyrian rulers, to the apparent neglect of Ashur, but it must be borne in mind that the position of Ashur was so assured as to be beyond the reach of rivalry. The fact also that Ashur's popular symbol was the movable standard was no doubt a reason why so few temples were erected to him. He did not stand in need of temples. For the very reason that Ashur was the universally acknowledged master of everything, the kings felt called upon to choose, by the side of Ashur, some additional deity,—a patron under whose special protection they placed themselves. The natural desire for novelty—together with other circumstances that escape us—led one to choose Ramman, another Nin-ib, a third Shamash, and a fourth, as we shall see, Nabu.

Besides the service rendered by Nin-ib in war, his aid was also invoked by the kings in their recreations, which partook of the same violent character as their vocation. Their favorite sport was hunting, especially of lions, wild horses, elephants, stags, boars, and bulls. They either proceeded to districts where these animals were to be found, or they had large parks laid out near their residences, which were then stocked with material for the chase. Ashurnasirbal does not shun a long journey to distant mountainous regions to seek for sport, and it is Nin-ib whom he invokes, together with Nergal. These two, he declares, who, like Ashur and Ishtar, "love his priesthood," are the ones that convey into his hands the hunting spoils. Tiglathpileser I. was especially fond of lion and elephant hunting. He declares that on one occasion he killed 10 elephants and 920 lions in various parts of northwestern Mesopotamia; and he ascribes his success to Nin-ib, who loves him, and who, again, in association with Nergal, and Ashur, has placed in the king's hands the mighty weapons and the glorious bow. After the days of Shamshi-Ramman we hear of Nin-ib chiefly in the formal lists of gods which the later kings of Assyria, from Sargon[275] on, are fond of placing at the beginning and end of their inscriptions. These lists, again, copied the one from the other, are of value only as indicating the chief gods of the pantheon, but warrant no conclusions as to the activity reigning in the cults of the gods there mentioned.

Before leaving Nin-ib a few words need be said as to his relations to the other gods. In the chapter on the pantheon before Hammurabi,[276] the identity of Nin-ib with the chief god of Gudea's district, Nin-girsu, has been pointed out. The solar character of the latter being clear, it follows that Nin-ib, too, is originally a personification of the sun, like Nin-gish-zida and Nin-shakh, whose rôles are absorbed by Nin-ib.[277] This has long been recognized, but it is the merit of Jensen[278] to have demonstrated that it is the east sun and the morning sun which is more especially represented by Nin-ib. On this supposition, some of the titles given to him in the inscriptions of Ashurnasirbal and Shamshi-Ramman become perfectly clear. Like Marduk, who, it will be remembered, is also originally a phase of the solar deity, Nin-ib is called the first-born of Ea; and as the rising sun he is appropriately called the offspring of Ekur,—i.e., the earth,—in allusion to his apparent ascent from a place below the earth. Ekur and Eshara being employed as synonyms, Shamshi-Ramman replaces Ekur by Eshara, and since Bel is the lord of Ekur-Eshara, Nin-ib also becomes the first-born son of Bel. Other epithets, such as 'the light of heaven and earth,' 'the one who pursues his path over the wide world,'[279] are all in keeping with the solar character of the deity, and date, therefore, from a period when the more purely 'nature' phases of the god were dwelt upon.

But just as in the case of Shamash and Nergal (also, as we have seen, a solar deity), so in that of Nin-ib, the violent, fiery, and destructive character that the sun has in a climate like that of Babylonia brought it about that Nin-ib was viewed as a destructive force, whose assistance was of great value in military strife. He becomes the god of the cloud storm, before whom, as he passes along, heaven and earth tremble. By his strong weapon he humiliates the disobedient, destroys the enemies of the kings, and grants all manner of protection to his favorites. Only in the religious literature are other qualities dwelt upon, such as his 'holiness.'[280] For Hammurabi, it will be recalled, Nin-ib is already the god of war, and it is natural that in a country like Assyria this side of the god's nature should become accentuated to the point of obscuring all others, until nothing more is left of his solar character than is indicated by stray bits of mythological phrases, perhaps only half understood, and introduced to add to the imposing array of epithets that belong to the terrible god of war. As the consort of Nin-ib, the Assyrians recognized