like that of the Greek Olympus where each divinity had its own
features and its own particular {132} life full of adventures and
experiences, and each followed its special calling to the exclusion of all
the others. One was a physician, another a poet, a third a shepherd, hunter
or blacksmith. The Greek inscriptions found in Syria are, in this regard,
eloquently concise.[83] Usually they have the name of Zeus accompanied by
some simple epithet: kurios ([Greek: kurios], Lord), _aniketos_ ([Greek:
aniketos], invincible), _megistos_ ([Greek: megistos], greatest). All these
Baals seem to have been brothers. They were personalities of indeterminate
outline and interchangeable powers and were readily confused.

At the time the Romans came into contact with Syria, it had already passed
through a period of syncretism similar to the one we can study with greater
precision in the Latin world. The ancient exclusiveness and the national
particularism had been overcome. The Baals of the great sanctuaries had
enriched themselves with the virtues[84] of their neighbors; then, always
following the same process, they had taken certain features from foreign
divinities brought over by the Greek conquerors. In that manner their
characters had become indefinable, they performed incompatible functions
and possessed irreconcilable attributes. An inscription found in
Britain[85] assimilates the Syrian goddess to Peace, Virtue, Ceres, Cybele,
and even to the sign of the Virgin.

In conformity with the law governing the development of paganism, the
Semitic gods tended to become pantheistic because they comprehended all
nature and were identified with it. The various deities were nothing but
different aspects under which the supreme and infinite being manifested
itself. Although Syria {133} remained deeply and even coarsely idolatrous
in practice, in theory it approached monotheism or, better perhaps,
henotheism. By an absurd but curious etymology the name Hadad has been
explained as "one, one" (_'ad 'ad_).[86]

Everywhere the narrow and divided polytheism showed a confused tendency to
elevate itself into a superior synthesis, but in Syria astrology lent the
firmness of intelligent conviction to notions that were vague elsewhere.
The Chaldean cosmology, which deified all elements but ascribed a
predominant influence to the stars, ruled the entire Syrian syncretism. It
considered the world as a great organism which was kept intact by an
intimate