we are justified in
including Nabu in the Babylonian pantheon of those days. In later times,
among the Assyrians, the Nabu cult, as already intimated, grows in
popularity. The northern monarchs, in fact, seem to give Nabu the
preference over Marduk. They do not tire of proclaiming him as the
source of wisdom. The staff is his symbol, which is interpreted in a
double sense, as the writer's stylus and as the ruler's sceptre. He
becomes, also, the bestower of royal power upon his favorites. Without
his aid, order cannot be maintained in the land. Disobedience to him is
punished by the introduction of foreign rule. Political policy may have
had a share in this preference shown for the minor god of Babylon. The
Assyrian kings were always anxious to do homage to the gods of Babylon,
in order to indicate their control over the southern districts. They
were particularly proud of their title 'governor of Bel.'[133] On the
other hand, they were careful not to give offence to the chief of the
Assyrian pantheon,--the god Ashur,--by paying too much honor to Marduk,
who was in a measure Ashur's rival. In consequence, as Hammurabi and his
successors endeavored to ignore Nabu, the Assyrian rulers now turned the
tables by manifesting a preference for Nabu; and obliged as they were to
acknowledge that the intellectual impulses came from the south, they
could accept a southern god of wisdom without encroaching upon the
province of Ashur, whose claims to homage lay in the prowess he showed
in war. Marduk was too much like Ashur to find a place at his side. Nabu
was a totally different deity, and in worshipping him who was the son of
Marduk, the Assyrian kings felt that they were paying due regard to the
feelings of their Babylonian subjects. The cult of Nabu thus became
widely extended in Assyria. Statues of the god were erected and
deposited in shrines built for the purpose, although the fact was not
lost sight of that the real dwelling-place of the god was in Borsippa.
At the end of the ninth century B.C. this cult seems to have reached its
height. We learn of a temple at Calah, and of no less than eight statues
of the god being erected in the days of Ramman-nirari III., and the
terms in which the god is addressed might lead one to believe that an
attempt was made to concentrate the cult in Assyria on him.[134] This,
however, was an impossibility. As long as Assyria continued to play the
role of the subduer of nations, Ashur--the god of wa