planets and painted with the
color attributed by religion to this planet. They were, beginning with
the lowest: Saturn (black), Venus (white), Jupiter (purple), Mercury
(blue), Mars (vermilion), the moon (silver), the sun (gold). The
highest tower contained a chapel with a table of gold and magnificent
couch whereon a priestess kept watch continually.

CUSTOMS AND RELIGION

=Customs.=--We know almost nothing of these peoples apart from the
testimony of their monuments, and nearly all of these refer to the
achievements of their kings. The Assyrians are always represented at
war, hunting, or in the performance of ceremonies; their women never
appear on the bas-reliefs; they were confined in a harem and never
went into public life. The Chaldeans on the contrary, were a race of
laborers and merchants, but of their life we know nothing. Herodotus
relates that once a year in their towns they assembled all the girls
to give them in marriage; they sold the prettiest, and the profits of
the sale of these became a dower for the marriage of the plainest.
"According to my view," he adds, "this is the wisest of all their
laws."

=Religion.=--The religion of the Assyrians and Chaldeans was the same,
for the former had adopted that of the latter. It is very obscure to
us, since it originated, like that of the Chaldean people, in a
confusion of religions very differently mingled. The Turanians, like
the present yellow race of Siberia, imagined the world full of demons
(plague, fever, phantoms, vampires), engaged in prowling around men to
do them harm; sorcerers were invoked to banish these demons by magical
formulas. The Cushites adored a pair of gods, the male deity of force
and the female of matter. The Chaldean priests, united in a powerful
guild, confused the two religions into a single one.

=The Gods.=--The supreme god at Babylon is Ilou; in Assyria, Assur. No
temple was raised to him. Three gods proceed from him: Anou, the "lord
of darkness," under the figure of a man with the head of a fish and
the tail of an eagle; Bel, the "sovereign of spirits," represented as
a king on the throne; Nouah, the "master of the visible world," under
the form of a genius with four extended wings. Each has a feminine
counterpart who symbolizes fruitfulness. Below these gods are the Sun,
the Moon, and the five planets, for in the transparent atmosphere of
Chaldea the stars shine with a brilliancy which is strange to us; they
gleam like deit