antheon, to account for the identification
of Ninni, Nana, and Anunit with Ishtar on the supposition that the
different names belonged originally to different localities. Ishtar was
appropriately denominated the brilliant goddess. She is addressed as the
mother of gods, which signals her supreme position among the female
deities. 'The mistress of countries' alternating with 'the mistress of
mountains,'[68] is one of her common titles; and as the growing
uniqueness of her position is one of the features of the
Babylonian-Assyrian religion, it is natural that she should become
simply _the_ goddess. This was especially the case with the Assyrians,
to whom Ishtar became a goddess of war and battle, the consort, at
times, of the chief god of the Assyrian pantheon. At the same time it is
important to note that the warlike character of the goddess goes back to
the time of Hammurabi (_Keils Bibl._ 3, 1, 113), and is dwelt upon by
other Babylonian kings (_e.g._, Nebuchadnezzar I., c. 1130 B.C.) prior
to the rise of the Assyrian power. How Ishtar came to take on so violent
a character is not altogether clear. There are no indications of this
role in the incantation texts, where she is simply the kind mother who
is appealed to, to release the sufferer from the power of the
disease-bringing spirits. In the prayers, as will be shown in the proper
place, she becomes the vehicle for the expression of the highest
religious and ethical thought attained by the Babylonians. On the other
hand, in the great Babylonian epic,[69] dealing with the adventures of a
famous hero, Gilgamesh, Ishtar, who makes her appearance at the summer
solstice, is a raging goddess who smites those who disobey her commands
with wasting disease. Starting with this phase of the goddess'
character, one can at least understand the process of her further
development into a fierce deity presiding over the fortunes of war. The
epic just referred to belongs to the old Babylonian period. It embodies
ancient traditions of rivalry between the Babylonian principalities,
though there are traces of several recastings which the epic received.
The violent Ishtar, therefore, is a type going back to the same period
as the other side of her character that is emphasized elsewhere. Since,
moreover, the Ishtar in the Gilgamesh epic is none other than the chief
goddess of Uruk, all further doubt as to the union of such diverging
traits in one and the same personage falls to the ground. I