ey who from town to town raise the stormy wind;
they are the south wind which drives mightily in the heavens; they are
the destroying clouds which overturn the heavens; they are the rapid
tempests which bring darkness in the midst of clear day, they roam here
and there with the wicked wind and the ill-omened hurricane." Anu sends
forth all the gods as he pleases, recalls them again, and then, to make
them his pliant instruments, enfeebles their personality, reducing it to
nothing by absorbing it into his own. He blends himself with them, and
their designations seem to be nothing more than doublets of his own: he
is Anu the Lakhmu who appeared on the first days of creation; Ahu Urash
or Ninib is the sun-warrior of Nipur; and Anu is also the eagle Alala
whom Ishtar enfeebled by her caresses. Anu regarded in this light ceases
to be the god _par excellence_: he becomes the only chief god, and the
idea of authority is so closely attached to his name that the latter
alone is sufficient in common speech to render the idea of God. Bel
would have been entirely thrown into the shade by him, as the earth-gods
generally are by the sky-gods, if it had not been that he was confounded
with his namesake Bel-Merodach of Babylon: to this alliance he owed
to the end the safety of his life, in presence of Anu. Ea was the
most active and energetic member of the triad.* As he represented the
bottomless abyss, the dark waters which had filled the universe until
the day of the creation, there had been attributed to him a complete
knowledge of the past, present, and future, whose germs had lain within
him, as in a womb. The attribute of supreme wisdom was revered in Ea,
the lord of spells and charms, to which gods and men were alike subject:
no strength could prevail against his strength, no voice against his
voice: when once he opened his mouth to give a decision, his will became
law, and no one might gainsay it. If a peril should arise against
which the other gods found themselves impotent, they resorted to
him immediately for help, which was never refused. He had saved
Shamashnapishtirn from the Deluge; every day he freed his votaries from
sickness and the thousand demons which were the causes of it. He was
a potter, and had modelled men out of the clay of the plains. From him
smiths and workers in gold obtained the art of rendering malleable
and of fashioning the metals. Weavers and stone-cutters, gardeners,
husbandmen, and sailors hailed him