emple built for the god
and his consort, as "the seat of their joy." At Babylon, the "mother of
great gods" dwelt within the precincts of the temple on the east side of
the Euphrates known as Esagila, "the lofty house." When the city of
Babylon extended as far as to include Borsippa, the temple known as Ezida,
"the true house," was built for Marduk=Bel. At Lagash the temple of the
"good lady" and mother stood in one quarter known as the "brilliant town"
while the temple of her consort stood in the other of the two most ancient
quarters of the town. The above facts acquire double significance when
collated with the well-known fact that the palace of Semiramis, the great
queen of Babylon, was built on the west bank of the Euphrates, opposite to
the ancient palace of the king. A bridge united these royal residences
which were otherwise separated by the river.

Under Semiramis, Babylonia was a nation under a single female ruler and
this usurpation of power by a woman, accompanied as it was by the
predominance of the originally naive cult which had unconsciously fostered
and ministered to perversion and depravity, preceded the decadence,
disintegration and ultimate downfall of the empire. Many centuries
previous, the instalment of a female sovereign preceded the ruin of
another empire in what we may assume to have been precisely the same way.

Professor Sayce informs us that, "about 3800 B.C., in northern Babylonia
and in the city of Agade or Akkad, arose the empire of
Sargani-sarali=Sargon, and that Sargon's son, Naram-Sin, succeeded him in
3750 B.C. and continued the conquests of his grandfather.... Naram-Sin's
son was Bingam-sar-ali. A queen, Ellat-gula, seems to have sat upon the
throne not much later, and with her the dynasty may have come to an end.
At any rate the empire of Akkad is heard of no more. But it left behind it
a profound impression in western Asia, whose art and culture became
Babylonian" (_op. cit._).

The process of disintegration, which caused the Babylonian empire to
crumble away, was doubtlessly hastened by its division into four regions,
each of which in latter times possessed its capital and became the centre
of various independent forms of rival cults. During many centuries
Babylonia was closely associated with the cult of Marduk-Bel, the "lord of
rest;" while Shamash, another form of the central supreme lord, was the
deity of Larsa and Sippar.

At one time Ur became the headquarters for the cul