Nergal

“ The priests, when they spoke of Nergal, had in mind always the companionship with Allatu. But the association of ideas which thus led to assigning [Pg 584] a god who was originally a solar deity, a place in the lower world bears the impress of the schools. The popular development of Nergal ceased, when he became the local god of Cuthah. It is only as an outgrowth of the systematized pantheon that we can understand the transformation involved in making of a local deity, the head of a pantheon that is itself an outcome of the later phases assumed by the religion. ”

“ In the religious texts, the cruel aspects of this god are almost exclusively emphasized. He is the one god towards whom no love is felt, for he is a god without mercy. The fierce aspects of the solar Nergal are accentuated in Nergal, the chief of the pantheon of Aralû. He becomes even more ferocious than he already was, as a god of war. His battle is with all mankind. He is greedy for victims to be forever enclosed in his great and gloomy domain. Destruction is his one and single object; nothing can withstand his attack. ”

“ Nergal united a crafty fierceness to his bravery: not content with being lord of battles, he became the pestilence which breaks out unexpectedly in a country, the death which comes like a thief, and carries off his prey before there is time to take up arms against him. Merodach united wisdom with courage and strength: he attacked the wicked, protected the good, and used his power in the cause of order and justice. A very ancient legend, which was subsequently fully developed among the Canaanites, related the story of the unhappy passion of Ishtar for Dumuzi. ”

“ Young and old, rich and poor, my lady in her litter and her slave, modest maid and Lydia at the Thermæ, nothing comes amiss to them. All confidence is gone; there’s no one we can reckon on. I go to my tailor’s: ‘Nergal,’ I say to him, ‘Nergal, I want a new tunic,’ The wretched hypocrite bows, and runs to and fro, and unpacks his stuffs and cloths, like another man. A word in your ear. The man’s a Christian, dressed up like a tailor. ”

“ Most mighty one who is like thee who rivals thee?
Nergal who is like thee who rivals thee?
With the change of the invocation from “Lord” to “Most mighty one” to “Nergal” the lines undoubtedly grow in intensity until the name Nergal, which is held back until the third line, would be thundered forth in that third line with the greatest enthusiasm. Here again it seems highly probable that a choir chanted the refrain: “Who is like unto thee, who rivals thee?” The second part of this hymn consists of eighteen lines in couplets and triplets in praise of the word of Nergal. ”

“ Let it not grieve my brother's heart that it is too little. For in my land the hand of Nergal (the god of pestilence) has slain all the workers, and copper cannot be produced. And, my brother, take it not to heart that thy messenger stayed three years in my land. For the hand of Nergal is in it, and in my house my young wife died.” Yet this ruler also had to guard himself against embassies unworthy of a king sent by Napkhuria. Another prince, in a letter unfortunately much damaged, made the complaint that Napkhuria had once caused his own name to be written first in a letter. ”

“ Nin and Nergal—the gods of war and hunting, the occupations in which the Assyrian monarchs passed their lives—were tutelary divinities of the race, the life, and the homes of the kings, who associate the two equally in their inscriptions and their sculptures.
Nergal, though thus honored by the frequent mention of his name and erection of his emblem, did not (so far as appears) often receive the tribute of a temple. Sennacherib dedicated one to him at Tarbisi (now Sherif-khan) , near Khorsabad ”

“ Among other nations, the sword is, similarly, the symbol of the deity, as the plague-bringer as well as the warrior.
To this day, a pestilence is the general accompaniment of war in the East, or follows in its wake. Different from Nin-ib, who is also a god of war, Nergal symbolizes more particularly the destruction which accompanies war, and not the strong champion who aids his subjects in the fight. Nergal is essentially a destroyer, and the various epithets applied to him in the religious texts, show that he was viewed in this light. ”

“ But while Nergal, with a host of lesser demons about him, appears as the Babylonian Pluto, particularly in the religious texts, his functions are not limited to the control of the dead. He is the personification of some of the evils that bring death to mankind, particularly pestilence and war. The death that follows in his path is a violent one, and his destructive force is one that acts upon large masses rather than [Pg 67] upon the individual. ”

“ He is indeed the sun in its malevolent form, fierce and destroying, for in myth the sun can be evil as well as good. We thus find the solar power depicted as a fierce warrior slaying his thousands and tens of thousands. Again it is quite possible for a solar deity to have an underworld connexion, seeing that the sun is supposed to travel through that gloomy region during the night. We thus see how Nergal could combine so many seemingly conflicting attributes. As god of the dead he has a host of demons at his command, and it may be these who do his behests in spreading pestilence and war. ”

“ As the doctrine of two kingdoms, one of this world and one of the world of the dead, becomes crystallized, the dominions of the two sisters are sharply differentiated from one another. The addition of Nergal represents the harmonizing tendency to unite with Ereshkigal as the queen of the nether-world the god who, in his character as god of war and of pestilence, conveys the living to Irkalla and thus becomes the one who presides over the dead. ”

“ Two deities rule within it—Nergal, “the lord of the great city,” and Beltis-Allat, “the lady of the great land,” whither everything which has breathed in this world descends after death. A legend relates that Allât, called in Sumerian Erishkigal, reigned alone in Hades, and was invited by the gods to a feast which they had prepared in heaven. Owing to her hatred of the light, she sent a refusal by her messenger Narntar, who acquitted himself on this mission with such a bad grace, that Ann and Ea were incensed against his mistress, and commissioned Nergal to descend and chastise her ”

“ A conflict has arisen between the gods on high and a goddess who has her seat in the lower world. This goddess is none other than Allatu. She is described as Eresh-Kigal, [1211] i.e., queen of Kigal or of the nether world. The scene reminds us of the contest between the gods and Tiâmat, as embodied in the creation epic. The gods choose Nergal as their leader. ”

“ Nergal himself is supposed to make the statement which it contains. He tells us how the hosts of chaos and confusion came into being. At first, as in the other accounts, nothingness reigned supreme, then did the great gods create warriors with the bodies of birds, and men with the faces of ravens. They founded them a city in the ground, and Tiawath, the great dragon, did suckle them. They were fostered in the midst of the mountains, and under the care of the 'mistress of the gods' they greatly increased and became heroes of might. Seven kings had they, who ruled over six thousand people. ”

“ But the Babylonian Queen of Hell, Allatu, is wholly repellent in character and aspect, nor do we find that she was worshipped at all; the only indication of a softer vein in her is the passage in “The Descent of Ishtar,” which describes the sorrow of Allatu for the sufferings brought upon men through the departure of the goddess of life and love. Nergal, who is probably an usurper of the older supremacy of Allatu, has indeed a celestial character {219} as the upper god of Kutha, but even in the upper world his nature was regarded as terrible and destructive. ”

“ Sin the moon-god had a son Samas, the sun-god. Samas is an active deity in some of the Izdubar legends and fables, but he is generally subordinate to Sin. In the Babylonian system the moon takes precedence of the sun, as befitted a nation of astronomers, and the Samas of Larsa was probably considered a different deity from Samas of Sippara.
Among the other deities of the Babylonians may be counted Nergal, god of Cutha, who like Ninip, presided over hunting and war, and Anunit, the goddess of one of the quarters of Sippara, and of the city of Agané. ”

“ His death, however, had not been like that of an ordinary man; it was not Namtaru, the spirit of fate, who had taken him, nor a misfortune such as befalls ordinary men, but Nerigal's unsparing lier-in-wait—yet though Nerigal was the god of war, Enki-du had not fallen on the battlefield of men, but had been seized by the earth (apparently the underworld where the wicked are is meant) in consequence, seemingly, of some trick or trap which had been laid for him. ”

“ But it is a hard thought that the son of Baron Neggar should serve Prince Marvel!"
"Do not worry about that," said the prince; "for I assure you my rank is so far above your own that it is no degradation for the son of Neggar to serve me. But come, we must dispose of these thieves. What is the proper fate for such men?"
"They are always hanged," answered Nerle, getting upon his feet. ”

“ It had required all the wisdom and tenderness of their fellows to persuade them that they had deserved no less than others the longed-for amaranth, and that they would not be losers by not surviving until that second coming which many of them were expecting from hour to hour. Tigellinus was not more anxious to bestow than they to receive the death of violence. All Nero’s aims would be frustrated, if, with so great a multitude of victims ready for them, the wild beasts of the amphitheatre, human as well as animal, were baulked of their infernal festival and their infernal joy. ”

“ Nera was dead to him. Dead?—Fool!—And did he think that any thing can die? Do not our very thoughts rise up and haunt us in some subtile consequence of after-life? Nothing dies—nothing is isolated. Each act of daily intercourse—the merest trifle, as the gravest issue—makes up the chain of life. Link by link that chain draws on, weighted with good or ill, and clings about us to the very grave.
Thinking of Nera, Nobili's color changed—a dark look clouded his ready smile. Enrica asked, "What pains you?" ”

“ See—it is done; again Nobili retires behind Nera's chair, to wait the moment when he shall claim her himself.
How the men drag at the ribbons, whirling round and round, hand-in-hand!—Nera's small hand can scarcely hold them—the men whirling round every instant faster—tumbling over each other, indeed; each moment the ribbons are dragged harder. Nera laughs; she sways from side to side, her arms extended. Faster and more furiously the men whirl round—like runaway horses now, bearing dead upon the reins. The strain is too great, Nera lets fall the ring. The cavaliere claps his hands. ”

“ Nero felt a spasm of terror when the philosopher expressed a doubt whether sullen misery might not flash up into rage, and cause a formidable rebellion. For want of houses, the people were huddling into tombs and catacombs. Nero, therefore, took the hint that he should offer the Campus Martius and the monuments of Agrippa—his porticoes, baths, gardens, and the Temple of Neptune—as a refuge for the shivering throngs whom the flames had driven from their homes. ”

“ Even Nero was amazed at the abandon of welcome, the delirium of ostentatious applause with which he was received, while his hands were still red-wet with his mother’s blood. The people thronged forth by their tribes to greet him. The senators were in festal array. They were surrounded by their wives and children. Stages had been built all along the road, in which the spectators had purchased their places to look on as at a triumph. Incense burned in the streets; the shouts of myriads of voices rent the air. ”

“ But, Octavia, something—some voice like that of a god within me—tells me that it will be happier to die than to live.’
That evening, when Tigellinus left him, Nero first realised, with a start of horror, that he was on the eve of a fearful crime. By a rare accident he was alone. One of the reasons why he knew so little of himself was that he scarcely ever endured a moment’s solitude. From the time that he awoke in the morning till the latest hour of his nightly revels, he was surrounded by flatterers and favourites, by dissolute young nobles or adoring slaves. ”

“ There were points in it which might perhaps have touched the heart of Nero if Poppæa and Tigellinus had not been at his elbow as the evil genii of his degradation. But, when the tablets of Octavia came, Nero was sitting with the enchantress. Taking them out of his hands, she turned the letter into such ridicule, and laughed over it so sweetly and so immoderately, and mixed her silvery laughter with so many acts of fascination, that the fear of her ridicule—to which, like all vain persons, Nero was inordinately sensitive—quenched in his heart all thoughts of mercy. ”

“ Nero stared at them as they advanced to take hold of him, with a wild and frightful expression of countenance, which shocked all who saw him, and in the midst of this agony of terror, he sank down and died.
The news of the tyrant's death spread with the utmost rapidity in all directions. A courier immediately set off for the north to carry tidings of the event to Galba. People flocked from all quarters to the house of Phaon to gaze on the lifeless body, and to exult in the monster's death. The people of the [Pg 321] city gave themselves up to the wildest and most extravagant joy. ”

“ Naturally enough he had not heard of this ferocious satire upon his unhappy father. Attracted by the oddness of the title ‘Apokolokyntosis,’ which the librarian had written on the outer case, he took up the book, and had read the first few columns when Nero entered. As he read, his soul burned with inexpressible indignation. His father had received a sumptuous Cæsarean funeral; he had been deified by the decree of the Senate; a grand temple had been reared in his honour on the Cœlian hill; priests and priestesses had been appointed to worship his divinity. ”